Watch the live video stream of Summit plenary sessions, as well as the closing ceremony on Thursday, Nov. 17.

Follow the events of the conference on the Microcredit Summit Campaign’s Facebook page and on Twitter @MicroCredSummit at hashtag #2011MCSummit.

Richard Leftley’s workshop session, entitled “What Have We Learned about the Most Effective Ways to Use Micro-Insurance to Reduce Vulnerability: Health, Life, Disaster and More,” will reflect on the lessons Opportunity has learned in delivering microinsurance to millions of people in nine countries. The panel is chaired by Marten Leijon, Executive Director, Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX), USA, and features: Craig Churchill, Social Finance Programme, International Labour Organization (ILO), Switzerland; Anne Hastings, CEO, Fonkoze Financial Services, Haiti; Pompy Sridhar, Vice President – Programme, ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth, India; and Thérèse Sandmark, Agricultural Microinsurance Officer, Grameen Crédit Acrigole Microfinance Foundation, France.

Watch this big annual event unfold in social media and in live video coverage, and join the conversation at #2011MCSummit as experts address some of the most crucial challenges facing the industry today.

The press gather in preparation for Pres. Obama's remarks at the afternoon plenary session

The plenary session closed with remarks from President Barack Obama, who thanked CGI participants for the amazing work they are doing, saying, “Hundreds of millions of people have been touched by what you have done here.”

The session also featured a panel discussion on “Sustainable Consumption: Redefining Business as Usual,” moderated by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Norway. Participants included Bob Diamond, Chief Executive, Barclays; Viviane Victorine Kinyaga, Director, Desert Research Foundation of Namibia; Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo; and Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, Unilever.

More than ever before, the world’s population–and its ever-increasing demand for products and services–is putting pressure on the planet. In an era of rapidly depleting and finite resources, businesses and society have the opportunity to reframe how value is created and how consumption acts as a driver for economic growth. This panel session sought to explore how design decisions at the highest levels can drive consumer choices, and innovative marketing and branding can encourage consumer demand to drive more sustainable supply, addressing these opportunities and challenges through the lens of the global food business. The current food system has resulted in high prices paid by the natural environment and by consumer health. Therefore, the panel explored how to ensure sustainability and  how to evaluate what is driving consumption patterns to determine both ethical and profitable responses to these challenges.

Pres. Obama addresses attendees at the plenary session

Watch video of the entire plenary session by clicking here.

Today, Sept. 21st, is also the International Day of Peace, so it is apropos that USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, speaking at the CGI breakout session “Securing Global Nutrition” earlier today, called for all countries to live up to their commitments to support agricultural development in Africa, not only as a moral obligation, but to increase global security and economic prosperity.

While hunger and undernutrition remain persistent problems for the poorest populations of the world, inequities in food production and distribution have most recently been dramatically pronounced in the food crisis in the Horn of Africa. Events such as the drought that has ravaged livestock and crop production in East Africa will continue to create extreme nutrition shortfalls if the overarching challenges to food production and consumption are not addressed. Working to meet the needs for food distribution in times of emergency, it is essential that governments, businesses, and NGOs also collaborate for long-term nutritional security. Dr. Shah also warned that if we do not help to create a stable environment in the Horn of Africa, the area will become more vulnerable to extremist groups.

Playing the Students of the World video about Banking on Education

Other participants in the breakout session, which was moderated by The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, included Vinita Bali, Managing director and CEO of Britannia Industries Ltd.; Gebisa Ejeta, Distinguished Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University; and Yolanda Kakabadse, President, WWF International. Kristof said that in the last few decades, the U.S. government and development community had “dropped the ball on agriculture and nutrition.” Shah discussed the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future program, which reverses the trend and calls for country-led agricultural development and partnerships to reduce poverty and increase access to food.

Tune in tomorrow for the last day of CGI 2011, including the plenary session “Engaging Boys and Men as Allies for Long-term Change,” with remarks by Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, U.S. Department of State; and featuring philanthropists, world leaders and thought leaders such as Muhammad Yunus, chairman, Yunus Centre; Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, and more. As well as a number of breakout and special sessions on a number of issues related to gender, technology, business and the environment.

Watch live streaming video of all CGI sessions via CGI’s Facebook page. Follow along with CGI on Twitter at #CGI2011.

Dikembe Mutombo and Cindy McCain in Nairobi, Kenya

“How can we help?”

That was the question on many ONE members’ minds during today’s conference call with musician K’naan, Cindy McCain, and NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo as they discussed scenes on the ground in the Horn of Africa. The trio, calling live from Nairobi, have been visiting sites in Somalia and Kenya along with ONE and our partners at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). The group also visited Dadaab, a camp with more than 160,000 refugees.

ONE members from across the United States and Canada joined the live call to listen to stories from the Horn and ask questions about what can be done to help with the crisis. Mrs. McCain discussed the need to protect women and children affected by the famine. Mutombo emphasized food relief efforts through donations to groups like the World Food Programme and GAIN’s own Future Fortified program. K’naan asked ONE members to keep the famine crisis story alive in the public consciousness by speaking out through social networks, art, music or activism. ONE also reminded callers to help call attention to the famine with world leaders by signing our petition.

Musician K’naan with refugees waiting for tents.

You can listen to the call in its entirety, embedded as a player in the original post.

ONE also live-tweeted the call comments, with some great photos from the Horn region recently taken by ONE’s Josh Lozman, who is participating in this trip. Check out our tweet and photo feed from Storify in the original post.

All of the guests encouraged ONE members and call listeners to help keep up global interest in helping with the famine. Mrs. McCain said, “I know some people may be suffering from Africa burnout, but that’s why we’re here visiting, to keep this story alive. And we’re going to rely on all of YOU to help back us up.”

Read the original post on the ONE Blog.

Young professional Sarah jumps out of a plane for Opportunity Tanzania.

Top 5 Creative Fundraisers

1. United Wii Stand
   Students at St. George’s University in Grenada organized a campus-wide Wii tournament to raise money for Doctors Without Borders‘s relief efforts for the 2010 floods in Pakistan.
2. 52 New Things
   One individual vowed to do one new thing per week for all of 2010. The activities ranged from eating the spiciest curry possible, to writing a book, to walking an alpaca, to getting a tattoo–all to benefit The Alzheimer’s Society.
3. Slum Survivor Team
   One of several fundraisers promoted by Soul Action, a group of high school-age students received pledges to spend three days and two nights in a slum built entirely from local trash. They existed on a reduced diet and with limited access to running water, in solidarity with the more than 1 billion people who live in extreme poverty.
4. Trek China
   In September 2010, 20 supporters, including some who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, did an 80K trek on the Great Wall of China to raise money for the organization Parkinson’s UK.
5. “Twea Party”
   Utilizing social media to the fullest, the Marie Curie Cancer Care organization staged this tea party on Twitter, enabling users to tweet to join in the online conversation and donate.

Share your responses to our list below and let us know if we missed a great fundraiser idea.

This post was written by Jacqueline Ryan, an intern in Opportunity’s Outreach & New Initiatives department. Jacqueline is an undergraduate student majoring in international studies at the University of Chicago.

Bill Gates came to the Chicago Council’s Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security with a confession. “I’ve never been a farmer,” he said. “Until recently, I rarely set foot on farm.”

Farmer Gates, no. But Innovator Gates, certainly.

So this was one of his messages to a standing room crowd. In ending hunger through agriculture development, innovation is the key.

First, the challenge:

“Right now,” he said. “the average farmer in sub-Saharan Africa gets just over a ton of cereal per acre. An Indian farmer gets twice that; a Chinese farmer five times that; an American farmer seven times that. Why is there this huge disparity? Farmers in other regions have tools and techniques and resources that African farmers do not. By offering farming families in Africa and South Asia those advantages, the least productive farms can come closer to the most productive.”

“How,” he asked, “can the world help the poorest farmers grow and sell more? The key is in innovation – combining the best of what’s worked in the past with new breakthroughs, customized to the needs of small farmers.

“Innovation in seeds brings small farmers new high-yield crops that can grow in a drought, survive in a flood and resist pests and disease.

“Innovation in markets offers small farmers access to reliable customers.

“Innovation in agriculture techniques helps farmers increase productivity while preserving the environment – with approaches like no-till farming, rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation.

“Innovation in foreign assistance means that donors now support national plans that provide farming families with new seeds, tools, techniques and markets. This approach is reducing overlap and keeping developing countries in the lead.”

Innovation needs good ideas, and money. Here, Gates said, “The U.S. has a pivotal role to play in helping farming families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. At the same time, of course, we have a big budget deficit and foreign assistance is an easy target for reduction. We need to tell people over and over why this spending is a good investment, why it’s worth it even in tight economic times.”

First, he said, “these investments are going to countries committed to change.”

“The second reason agricultural investments are worthwhile,” he added, “is that farming is a business. As you provide poor farmers business assistance through new tools and technology and access to markets and capital, it allows them to move to self-sufficiency with the help of market forces.”

Roger Thurow, author and Senior Fellow of Global Agriculture & Food Policy, speaks about hunger and food security at Opportunity's Fall 2010 Microfinance Conference.

“The third reason agricultural development is a smart investment is how effective it is. In country after country, these approaches have improved the livelihoods of small farmers while reducing poverty and increasing economic growth. It’s proving the point again and again: helping poor farming families grow more crops is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing poverty and hunger.”

These comments from Bill Gates, whose foundation with his wife Melinda has committed $1.7 billion to help farming families over the last five years, suggest again, as we’ve often said in this column, that we have arrived at a moment of potential opportunity that shouldn’t be squandered. The budget crisis, he suggested, shouldn’t be reason for the U.S. to cut back on its promises to increase agriculture development aid, to scale back its Feed the Future ambitions.

“This is the first stage of sweeping change for farming families in the poorest parts of the world,” Gates said. “We have an historic chance to help people and countries move from dependency to self-sufficiency–and fulfill the highest promise of foreign aid. In the past we’ve invested aid in Brazil and India and South Korea, and they are all now dynamic actors in the global economy–some even joining to help provide aid to others. This is our hope for the countries of Africa and South Asia as well.”

To read Thurow’s original post on the Global Food for Thought blog, click here. Follow the event on Twitter at #GADIsymposium.

Marc J. Lane interviews Premal Shah (right), president of Kiva, at closing keynote of Chicago Microfinance Conference. (May 6, 2011)

Premal Shah Tells His Story:

Having parents who grew up in India, I know that global poverty is such an injustice, especially given the wealth and all we have in this country.

So when I was working at PayPal, I went back and spent a summer in India, and tried to launch a business to empower local women, which never got any traction. I returned to Palo Alto and ran into Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley, who were working on the Kiva concept.

We need to always continue to evolve to make our organization better. We work strategize how to diversify without the wheels coming off the organization.

Kiva allows you to fund businesses and now students in 58 countries, but it often feels “like you’re building the plane while you’re flying it.”

With the software engineers, every few weeks we have an “iteration period” when they can innovate and launch new ideas in that space, and we do not let day to day work overshadow that because innovation is so key.

(Responding to audience question) Kiva’s biggest challenges are three:

1. Keeping loans on website – in early days, when had 50,000 people visiting but no loans to fund, that was very frustrating. But we’re getting better and better. In internet community, we grow fast, but in microfinance industry, we’re really still dependent on our partnerships and our on-the-ground connections.
2. Keeping lenders engaged – and getting existing users to use money they’ve donated, designating it somewhere and not letting it sit dormant in their Kiva accounts.
3. Keeping the lights on – we run on a deficit, which we close with corporate and individual grants. Though 100% of donations go to people for their microfinance loans, we then keep lights on by asking for optional additional donations from users, who give on average an additional 7% on top of their donation.

I think we’re in a place in the microfinance industry in general where the players and MFIs are becoming really robust and smart about assessing what works and what doesn’t work to impact clients in a lasting, sustainable way. There’s also a lot of promise in microfinance outside of loans: savings is crucial to making an impact, plus insurance and remittances. Loan officers have a deep relationship with clients, visiting them in person on a regular basis, and this is a great asset because they have an inside knowledge of their lives and needs. We need to use that knowledge.

Premal Shah (right) discusses the current state and future plans for kiva.org at the Chicago Microfinance Conference (May 6, 2011)

At Kiva, I know we’re better able to do our job as a nonprofit, so I feel strongly that we should remain that way. For every one staff member we have, we have eight volunteers, and that’s how we are able to thrive and scale to the level at which we are now. Though I believe profits and the market are great engines of business, Kiva simply wouldn’t work and couldn’t be sustainable if we weren’t a nonprofit.

(In response to audience question about recent controversy on Kiva around a Ugandan MFI’s misreporting their loans) Since that incident, we’ve learned that imperfect credit is okay, but imperfect reporting is not. We must always do our due diligence in a very rigorous way.

(How does Kiva stay sustainable?)

Last year, we were 70% sustainable from our donor “tips” that I mentioned earlier. But we intend to increase and scale our loan volume in the next few years so that eventually we will be 100% sustainable.

This Q & A with Shah was a thought-provoking and interesting way to cap off a great day at the Chicago Microfinance Conference. You can read more of our coverage of today’s sessions on the Opportunity blog by clicking here and check back in to the blog in the coming days for even more reflections and posts on the information we learned and shared at the University of Chicago today.

At Chicago Microfinance Conference breakout session, "Does Microfinance Really Work?" From left: Panelist Odell (Dominican University), World Bank's Cull, Northwestern University's Kinnan, FINCA's Hamlin & UCLA's Chowdry. (May 6, 2011)

Panelists:

• Bhagwan Chowdhry – Professor of Finance, UCLA Anderson School of Business
• Paul Hamlin – Senior Manager for Customer Research, FINCA International
• Cynthia Kinnan – Assistant Professor of Economics, Northwestern University
• Robert Cull – Lead Economist, Finance and Private Sector Development Team, World Bank

Highlights, notes and quotes from the discussion:

• Chowdhry: Would you ask the question, ‘does finance work?’ If it is a good idea for commercial audiences, it is a good general financial idea for all. If the world waited until academics were done to take action, we would not be effective. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, even without statistics, we must still practice microfinance and we can still see financial impact. How is microfinance working? As Robert said, that is in how you measure microfinance. But microfinance is undoubtedly crucial in times of need and emergency, including microinsurance, which helps to deal with clients’ uncertainty in life. Plus, savings is absolutely the best source of funds, then clients can have income to borrow too, and together this is the best way to protect one’s future.
• Hamlin: Statistical power is important, of course. However, the gold standard of randomized control trials are quite difficult to replicate, plus there is some discrepancy about the definition of microfinance. Among different groups who define themselves as MFIs the minimum loan size may vary, so they are difficult to compare in trials. Some clients are entrepreneurs and some are not, and applying the same standards to both is not always appropriate. It’s important to insist that MFIs demonstrate their impact in a statistically valid way. But whose job is it to enforce this? Is this a governmental or a social mandate? To be honest, in the past, we at FINCA has not conducted randomized trials but surveys to better gauge the situations of our clients, determining factors such as how many children are in school, and more. And then we try to ascertain, when we see improvement over time, what role FINCA’s work played in that improvement. At FINCA, we want to measure income, employment, and living standards, but also people’s feelings of self-worth, which is equally as important as income in measuring the spillover effect of microfinance.
• Kinnan: It is true that some people do not avail themselves of microfinance even when they have the opportunity to access it. But this is not evidence that people feel it’s ineffective. This also doesn’t account for spillover effects, when people informally share their money with others in their community and engage in risk-sharing behavior in financial or social groups. We must demonstrate the effects through field experiments. I find that one good way to ascertain if it’s secure and profitable to lend to a new group is to implement a simple credit scoring model and questionnaire to determine the reliability of the loan recipient. This is one innovation that enables the expansion of randomized control trials to determine microfinance’s effectiveness. Portfolios of the Poor is so valuable because if you take a snapshot of people’s financial status at any one time, it may not fully take in their investments, financial projects and businesses, and their long-term financial situations.

• Cull: Though I do see gaps at times between aims of microfinance and what it really does in practice. But I am optimistic that this gap will continue to narrow–I see it as an effective tool that  can assist. We do need field experiments but difficult because not everyone is an entrepreneur. The other aspect is that microfinance is not just loans but microsavings and that has much better success rates. Even in case of interest-free savings, we’ve found that women in Kenya are more successful because protect their assets. For Malawian farmers, we’ve found that commitment savings accounts, where there is a penalty when withdraw within a given time, have had a great impact on financial situations. Studies like Portfolios of the Poor examine the role of consumption–the turnover is generally only 13% and much more of their income comes from informal loans and savings. Formal microfinance is a smaller piece of people’s portfolios, but it is being used for emergencies and unexpected expenses.

Read more coverage of the 7th annual Chicago Microfinance Conference here on the Opportunity blog, and follow Opportunity on Twitter @opportunityintl.

Bill Morgenstern (left) and Dennis Barsema discuss the impact of microfinance at the keynote Q & A at the 7th annual Chicago Microfinance Conference.

Around 9:15, Opportunity International CEO Bill Morgenstern took the stage for a keynote Q&A with Dennis Barsema, an instructor of social entrepreneurship and microfinance at Northern Illinois’s College of Business and a long-time supporter of Opportunity.

Dennis Barsema: Bill, you’ve been CEO of Opportunity International for just over a year. At Opportunity, you have a particular focus on offering microfinance clients savings services. Why is savings such an important component of microfinance?

Bill Morgenstern: At Opportunity, we are focused on trying to bring the most opportunity to our clients. It may not be the most popular opinion, but I personally believe that loans alone cannot get individuals out of poverty. It needs to be a multi-pronged approach and savings is very necessary. For instance, the Opportunity International Bank of Malawi (OIBM), our biggest deposit-taking banks has over 350,000 savings clients compared with around 50,000 loans.

Bill Morgenstern (left) and Dennis Barsema at the Chicago Microfinance Conference. (May 6, 2011)

After all, for people living in chronic poverty, living on “$2 a day” do not live on exactly $2 a day. Their $2 is erratic and unreliable income. Some days they may earn nothing, some days more than that. They need to be able to plan for their future. So, to truly build community where we work, we have to meet these clients needs, and we have to work with clients to help offer training on when it’s best to save and when it’s best for them to take out a loan.

So with a fully licensed deposit-taking institution, we’re able to mobilize capital to return to the local community. And our focus is not just savings but especially rural savings–reaching out to more people in rural areas.

Barsema: What are your thoughts on a one-size-fits-all approach to microfinance?

Morgenstern: We are trying to lead into the next generation of microfinance and what’s important is to recognize is what our clients need. We’ve had great success with the product of school fee loans. We continue to be flexible to design products for all of those needs but we also provide training to properly manage those products. If you don’t offer these things, you risk having a stagnant business.

It’s important to go into countries and areas where there is a great need. For instance, we are now working in the Democratically Republic of the Congo, where there is a population of 66 million people but only 1% have access to banking services.

Barsema: How do you address the high cost of providing savings in rural areas and make these programs economically viable?

Morgenstern: To offset costs, we deploy innovative technologies to expand beyond formal brick-and-mortar institutions. Opportunity’s innovative technological approaches such as biometric fingerprint identification, mobile banking, cell phone banking, ATMs and point-of-sale (POS) devices. In this way, we can reach people where they live and work. In some cases, this may be the first piece of formal identification for many men and women clients, helping them gain greater control over their financial futures.

After the presentation, a number of people had the opportunity to stand up and ask questions about the microfinance industry and the structure of Opportunity’s work abroad. Among the very interesting questions asked was one from an attendee from UCLA, who stood up to ask about tuition savings accounts for children. Bill and Opportunity VP Simona Haiduc, in the audience, were able to share all about a program Opportunity has at its MFI in Malawi, .

This is the first of many great sessions today. Check back in to the Opportunity blog for more from the conference, and follow us on Twitter @OpportunityIntl.

Getting fired up to hear all the news and updates from Jump for Opportunity, we’re watching skydiving videos on YouTube. Even if you can’t jump this weekend, watch a video below, follow the Jump on Facebook and Twitter, and contribute to one of the Jumpers’ online fundraisers. Good luck to everyone Jumping for Opportunity this weekend!

One of many skydiving videos on YouTube — this one’s set in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico:

This video is actually at the Skydive Space Center in Titusville, Fla., where Jump for Opportunity is taking place:

For more on Jump for Opportunity, check out jumpforopportunity.com and click on a Jumper’s photo to visit their online fundraiser for our clients in Tanzania. Thanks for supporting Jump for Opportunity!

So, how can you help?

Jump for Opportunity

There’s still time to donate to one of the Jumpers’ fundraisers on optinnow.org. Go to jumpforopportunity.com and click on a Jumper’s photo to get started. Give to Bert’s “Super Poverty Punchout,” “Sarah is Jumping Create Opportunity” and more. Help them reach their $100,000 goal to alleviate poverty in Tanzania.

Good news travels fast

Read about Jump for Opportunity on the Wall Street Journal's blog.

Jump for Opportunity has been getting a lot of buzz lately! Today, news of the Jump appeared in the Wall Street Journal‘s blog. Show your support for the Jumpers by clicking ‘Like’ on the article page. Plus, there have been profiles of Jumpers and articles in local media like The Ada Herald in Ohio, The Cary News in N.C., NJ.com in New Jersey and more.

This weekend, jump alongside the entrepreneurs facing their fears to fight global poverty. Follow @jump4opp on Twitter and ‘Like’ Jump for Opportunity on Facebook to stay up to date on all the news from the Jump.