The efforts of Global Bridge have evolved over the past five years through its involvement in three vehicles to alleviate poverty and fulfill its Mission.
The first two are Microfinance and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME’s)
These two go hand in hand and have led to a third area that is how Global Bridge is looking to use its resources, Program Related Investing. Below are links that explain these important facets of dealing with global poverty.
Program Related Investments (PRI)
Global Bridge is instituting a Program Related Investment program to leverage its philanthropic resources. An excellent source of information on PRI’s can be found at PRIMakers Network’s website here.
Microfinance
CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) has been on the forefront of developing information and best practices for microfinance. They have a tremendous amount of information on their website here.
Mix Market has the largest database of Microfinance Institutions, Funders, Networks and Service Providers. They have the most up to date information on MFI clients, performance and recent news. Information from around the world can be found here.
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME)
Worldwide, the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME’s) have been accepted as the engine of economic growth and for promoting equitable development. The major advantage of the sector is its employment potential at low capital cost. The labor intensity of the MSME sector is much higher than that of the large enterprises. The MSME’s constitute over 90% of total enterprises in most of the economies and are credited with generating the highest rates of employment growth and account for a major share of industrial production and exports. (India Ministry of MSME’s) The definition of what is micro, small or medium enterprise changes from country to country but generally is defined being fewer employees than major companies.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been involved with MSME’s since the 1950’s. Its website contains a wealth of information on MSME’s and it even provides Kits to help educate people and organizations start their work in this area. Their site can be found here.