Research Meets Africa Award

African Microfinance Week (SAM) 2017

MFW4A co-sponsored the Research Meets Africa (RMA) event, held during the 2017 African Microfinance Week. RMA promotes research and innovation in the inclusive finance sector in Africa and encourages collaboration between researchers and practitioners by involving universities from Africa and around the world. Eight (8) papers were selected to compete for the award of best research: 1. How to Improve the Role of Microfinance in Financing MSMEs in Burundi? By Alphonse Nyobewumunsi - Central Bank of Burundi 2. Relationship Lending in Microfinance: How Does it Impact Client Dropouts? By Cécile Godfroid - CERMi-UMONS - Belgium 3. Microfinance Regulation in West Africa: Effect on Small Businesses and the Debates around a Consolidated Legislation by Terfa W. Abraham - National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) - Abuja, Nigeria 4. Association between Microfinance Social Rating Scores and Governance Structure: a Global Survey by Muluneh Hideto Dato - Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), SBS-EM, CEB and CERMI - Belgium; Universitetet i Agder (UiA), KSBL - Kristiansand, Norway 5. The Emergence of Financial Digitalization on Inclusive Finance and Legal Aspects by Dr. Manuel Roland Tcheumalieu Fansi - Strasbourg University and Yaoundé II 6. Effective Human Touch in a Digital Age: Implications for MSMEs by Alexis Beggs Olsen - Consultant & CFI Fellow - US 7. Is Women Empowerment a Zero-sum Game? Unintended Consequences of Micro-finance for Women's Empowerment in Ghana by Salia Samuel - University of Wolverhampton - UK 8. Loyalty, Trust and Glass Ceiling: The Gender Effect on Microcredit Renewal by Mathilde Bauwin - Paris Dauphine University and the French National Institute of Demographic Studies - France The event, which kicked off on October 9th, 2017 brought together 89 participants from various background including researchers, scholars and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). Cecile Godfroid's research received the award for the best research paper. Cecile is a PhD student at the Centre for European Research in Microfinance (CERMi-UMONS). Discussions highlighted critical issues for MFIs including staff capacity and high transaction costs, collateral requirements for graduating SMEs, credit rating as a substitute feature, and MFIs low adoption of mobile-based technologies/services.