Jordan Coriza

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On a grey day on the tail end of monsoon season in Yangon, Myanmar, a group of women gather in an office. Among them are many trades—fishing, carpentry, weaving, farming, and manufacturing, to name a few. But the women all have one thing in common—they need financing to expand their businesses.

The financial services industry in Myanmar is so nascent that most entrepreneurs who need capital are forced to turn to informal arrangements such as expensive moneylenders. But these women have the benefit of participating in a group-lending circle. The circle provides very small loans, some as low as US$60, to help the entrepreneurs in the group build their livelihoods, one small step at a time.

Myanmar itself, meanwhile, has recently taken giant steps forward. With a new government in place as of April 2016 and trading begun on its <a href="http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=476987306&amp;iu=/2">first stock exchange</a> in March, Myanmar is opening itself up to the rest of the world after 50 years of isolation. Foreign investors are racing to gain a foothold in Myanmar. The mobile phone market grew 300 percent last year alone among a population eager to connect. SIM card prices dropped dramatically—from US$2,000 to US$1.50 in 2014—and Myanmar is now the third fastest-growing mobile market in the world (after India and China).

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But what does this mean for the country’s economy? Recently, banks have begun to team up with network operators to offer mobile access to their bank accounts through apps and SMS. The potential for this service, along with explosive growth of the industry itself, has huge implications for customers who may do business hours away from a bank branch, or who need to send money in the region but have no efficient means to do so, or who, like the women in the lending circle, need basic banking services in a country where mobile phone service is expanding a lot faster than banking.

Among the many new providers working to reach that underserved population, Accion partner DAWN, a microfinance institution focused on group lending for women, has been active in the space since 2002. Now, DAWN is poised to take advantage of the recent influx of foreign interest, investment and new business—and use it to better serve its 60,000-plus clients. DAWN is opening new branches for its growing base of entrepreneurs and introducing new products to meet their evolving needs. As DAWN and others across the region are seeing, Myanmar’s small businesses are improving alongside its economy.

Although the industry is young and the country’s public infrastructure is still developing, mobile banking providers and players such as DAWN are uniquely positioned to leapfrog years of seclusion in Myanmar with exciting new technologies and business models, designed with the shared goal of improving the lives of many people for a country in need.

<em>This post originally appeared on <a href="http://partners.wsj.com/metlife/multipliers/articles/myanmars-economic-revolution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Wall Street Journal’s Multipliers of Prosperity</a>, in partnership with the MetLife Foundation.</em>

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Myanmar’s economic revolution

To start a business is to take a leap of faith. That’s what farmer Emma Guadarrama and her husband Genaro Acosta did five years ago when they decided to build two expensive greenhouses to grow organic tomatoes. They had heard that organic produce was in demand in the nearby Mexican town of Ixtapan de la Sal, where they sold their product every weekend during harvest season. They also knew that the town had some of the highest rates of birth defects in the country, because, according to Genaro, the flower nurseries in the area where so many young women worked used hazardous fertilizers and chemicals.

“If we can grow good produce without so many chemicals,” Genaro says, “we can really help the women and children in our community.”

It was a perfect plan. The only problem was that they didn’t know the first thing about organic farming.

Genaro took classes from a government-run agricultural program a few miles away. He learned a variety of methods for prepping the soil, which included using bone meal, egg shells, and animal blood. He also learned techniques for nurturing the roots of the tomato seedlings, which included a paste made from lentils. He even learned how to keep pests away with a mixture of coca cola, fabric softener, and milk.

Things were off to a good start, but then tragedy struck.

Just a few months after they’d planted their first tomato crop — which requires a significant amount of care and attention — a storm destroyed one of their greenhouses. The entire structure collapsed under heavy rain and wind, wiping out the entire harvest.

“When that happened,” Emma said. “I sat down, watched the wreckage, and just cried.”

But with the same resilience of any hardworking farmers, Emma and Genaro quickly sprang into action. They approached Accion partner CrediConfia for a loan. They had already borrowed from CrediConfia once, to build one of their greenhouses. The new capital helped them get back on their feet quickly.

<img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-6846" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/organic_farming_Emma_Maria_Guadarrama_of_Mexico_client-of_CrediConfia_and_Accion-3-1024x683.jpg" alt="organic_farming_Emma_Maria_Guadarrama_of_Mexico_client of_CrediConfia_and_Accion 3" width="1024" height="683" />
Although they don’t have a formal savings account, every time they get a small surplus of profits, they invest it back into the business — anything from new tools for their tractor or the bees they need to pollinate the tomato plants.

Their customers are happy, Emma reports. “The ladies I supply at the market love my tomatoes. And they complain when I tell them our harvest is about to end. That’s why we’re busy building another greenhouse, so we can have rotating crops and a constant outflow of produce.”

As for Genaro, he’s been spreading the word about the benefits — both financial and environmental — of organic farming. He’s been teaching his techniques to neighboring farmers. Emma is looking forward to starting a course to learn how to make tomato shampoo, soap, and other tomato-scented products.

Sitting under the shade of a mango tree, Emma talks about the hardships of being a farmer. She recounts the recent damage to her kitchen roof, and how she had to cook on a wood fire outside while making the repairs to the building, which took a long time due to her lack of cash flow.

“We have made many sacrifices to have this business,” Emma says. “I don’t have big aspirations, but I want to meet my family’s needs.”

Emma and Genaro are not just meeting the needs of their family; they are sowing the seeds of a healthier community. With determination and small loans from CrediConfia, they’ll soon reap the fruits of their labor — well beyond their tomato greenhouses.

<img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-6847" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/organic_farming_Emma_Maria_Guadarrama_of_Mexico_client-of_CrediConfia_and_Accion-1024x683.jpg" alt="organic_farming_Emma_Maria_Guadarrama_of_Mexico_client of_CrediConfia_and_Accion" width="1024" height="683" />

Making a difference with organic farming in Mexico

Work hard, be honest, remain humble. That was the direction given to microfinance expert Masuna Chikami by his father when he graduated from high school in Masvingo Province in Zimbabwe — a hard reality for a man with great ambition. The memory of those words remains fresh almost 30 years later, as “Chikami,” as he is known to friends and colleagues, traces the arc that brought him to Accion’s Africa hub in Ghana.

Mindful of his responsibilities as the second of nine children and the need to not only support himself but also help his siblings, Chikami began applying the work ethic for which he’s now known. His first job was as a temporary teacher, and he saved money to take his agriculture qualification courses. After putting himself through school, he secured his first job as a loan officer for an NGO in Zimbabwe, where he worked with women in rural areas. “The women were so happy to see me when I would arrive,” he explains. “And it was so inspiring to see people working so hard and paying back their loans.”

He was quickly promoted and continued to rise through the ranks of microfinance, keeping three instructive principles front and center at every step: honesty, humility, and hard work. Those values were instilled in him by his late mother, who always welcomed him to his hometown of Chivasa but would soon send him on his way, saying, “You need to go back to work.”

Accion had the great fortune of getting to know Chikami when he was serving as the general manager of MicroKing, a former Accion microfinance partner in Zimbabwe. He joined Accion in 2006 to help launch <a href="http://www.accionmfb.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Accion Microfinance Bank (Accion MfB)</a> in Nigeria.

When he started, Accion Microfinance Bank had no banking license, no branches, and no clients – just one small room shared by five people who were working to get the institution off the ground. The hours were long – typically until midnight – but he holds the project up today as his proudest moment. Accion Microfinance Bank is now reaching more than 120,000 savers and over 43,000 loan clients through more than 300 loan officers and 31 branches, and Chikami continues to manage teams of Accion consultants who pilot new products and technologies that stand to improve the bank’s reach, client service, and efficiency. “One thing that helps me fit in well here,” says Chikami, “is my ability to work with a diverse group of people. My work and life experiences give me perspective on different cultures, professional backgrounds, and business problems. So, I’m able to support our partners and build strong relationships with them.”

Chikami has accomplished a great deal in collaboration with his technical assistance teams and our four partner MFIs, which are currently reaching some 83,000 clients in Africa. He sees great possibility in the region, as digital finance continues to take hold and improves access and convenience. But he cautions that client protection is critical — especially for Africa, as many new players enter the market not all with the clients’ best interests at heart. He and the team at Accion are working to promote strategic leadership in the region and ensure that best practices are enforced throughout the industry through a staunch commitment to training and capacity-building.

Behind the scenes: Masuna Chikami and Accion Microfinance Bank

Every business begins with a vision. But Francisca Romero’s idea of a vocational school was more than a business; it was a social enterprise. She wanted to provide career options, empowering young women in her impoverished rural community who had little prospects beyond peasant life.
<h2>A vision of opportunity</h2>
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[caption id="attachment_5962" align="aligncenter" width="800"]<img class="size-full wp-image-5962" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/empowering-young-women-in-rural-Paraguay-Asuncion-Accion-client-Francisca_Romero-runs-girls-vocational-school.jpg" alt="empowering-young-women-in-rural-Paraguay-Asuncion-Accion-client-Francisca_Romero-runs-girls-vocational-school" width="800" height="534" /> Francisca Romero García, client of Fundacion Paraguaya owns a teaching institute in Concepcion, Paraguaya.[/caption]

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But starting a school is hard work, and doing it without capital in a remote rural settlement seemed impossible. So Francisca did it the only way she could: under a tree behind her parents’ house. In 1973, she started teaching young girls the skills she’d learned in church – sewing, knitting, embroidery.

Forty years later, Francisca’s professional institute occupies a building adjacent to her house in the city of Concepcion, some 250 miles north of Asuncion, Paraguay. Similar in scale to her first class under the tree, the school building started out as one room.

Without access to any formal financial services, Francisca slowly expanded that one room with money she borrowed from family members. It was a tedious process, requiring enormous patience and determination. In 2010, however, Francisca learned about Accion partner <a href="http://www.fundacionparaguaya.org.py/?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fundación Paraguaya</a> from one of her students. She applied and got her first loan, which she used to build more classrooms.

Today she employs five part-time teachers, many of whom are graduates of the school themselves. The institute offers no less than 13 different courses of study, from esthetics — hair styling, manicures, and pedicures — to electricity, cooking, decorating, and more. Most take one to two years to complete.
<h2>Empowering young women</h2>
A sturdy woman in her mid-sixties with a pleasant voice, Francisca gives us a tour of the facility. We pass by student manicurists, who have to learn 100 different nail styles and rehearse them on one another. She pauses to correct one of them, indicating how to position the client’s hand properly and grip the brush more steadily.

Though her school is successful — no doubt due to Francisca’s personal touch — it is still very much a small enterprise. Francisca does everything from enrollment to payroll, teaching, and advertising.

“Girls start knocking on my door as early as 5 a.m.,” Francisca says. “They want their lessons before catching the 8 a.m. bus back out of town to attend to their daily responsibilities.”

Francisca’s steadfast commitment to education has earned her recognition. In 2000, Paraguay’s Ministry of Culture and Education granted Francisca’s school official status, meaning that Francisca can issue diplomas, which, in turn, can help her students access jobs more easily.

“My dream is to get a government salary, so I can lower my fees,” Francisca explains, referring to the potential but challenging process of obtaining a teacher’s salary from the government to run the school. “It’s important to note that I serve very low-income people from the surrounding villages. My students are very poor, and it’s hard for them to pay for both the classes and the school supplies they need.” Her school currently has 270 students enrolled in classes.

Later that afternoon we visit a young mother running a bodega out of her home in the vicinity. When asked about her aspirations for her business, she tells us she wants to enroll in Francisca’s school because, in her own words, getting an education is the only real chance to ensure a more promising future for herself and her family.

Whether the coursework was conducted under a tree or in one of several classrooms, the success and impact of Francisca’s school are undeniable — something of which we were privileged to have been a small part.

Empowering young women in rural Paraguay

If Accion’s 53-year history were represented as a pie chart, it might arguably have only three slices: one for the first 10 years it committed to community development projects, another for the last five-plus years it has dedicated to exploring frontiers beyond microfinance, and a hefty slice in the middle representing all the years in between that Accion devoted solely to creating microfinance institutions.

A former Jesuit missionary by the name of Stephen Gross is possibly one of the most important actors in that middle period, having played an instrumental role in the creation of microfinance institutions in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Panama, Paraguay, and Nicaragua. Those institutions currently serve millions of micro- and small businesses across Latin America and the Caribbean and have been the testing ground for innumerable products, services, and practices that are replicated by microfinance programs around the world today.

Only a handful of other early Accion employees enjoy a legacy as rich as Steve’s. From the institutions he established to the myriad courses he developed and taught to the hundreds of professionals he trained and motivated, his story is as inspiring as it is remarkable.

[caption id="attachment_431" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]<img class="wp-image-431 size-large" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-ordination-Accion-microfinance-1024x967.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-ordination-Accion-microfinance" width="1024" height="967" /> Steve Gross at his ordination.[/caption]
<h2>Jumping in with both feet</h2>
Accion recruited Steve Gross in 1977 and deployed him to the Dominican Republic. His first assignment was to develop and teach a managerial training course for farmers who were receiving loans from the Dominican Development Foundation. The 15-month course Steve developed, which met twice monthly and for which he wrote and helped illustrate some 40 study books, was initially piloted in one community but quickly spread throughout the country. In addition to teaching the courses himself, Steve trained trainers, who would then go out to teach groups of farmers. Classes covered skills such as budgeting, cost projection, prices, marketing, sales, production, loans, capitalization, bookkeeping, quality control, and so on.

Once the program was well established, Steve and his Accion colleagues pitched a new idea to the Dominican Development Foundation: to create a microcredit program in the poor urban areas of Santo Domingo. Everyone was keen, except for one small detail.

“We knew what could be improved based on our experiences in Brazil,” Steve said, in reference to adapting the lending methodology that Accion had created and had been using in that country since 1973. “We knew you could lend money and get it back, but we also knew we had to get the loan size and term down to what the clients could handle. We realized [in Brazil] that even a $300 loan to be paid over one year was too much. We had to get the loan to a smaller amount that could be paid in a shorter amount of time, thus giving the client a reachable goal and a sense of success when they paid off their debt.”

But the Dominican Development Foundation didn’t agree with Steve, so he looked for other people who would be willing to look at the Accion methodology and run with it. And he found them, of all places, on a Wednesday night in Santo Domingo, sitting at his poker table.

Pedro Jimenez was a successful businessman who had spearheaded the establishment of the first duty free zone in the Dominican Republic. Camilo Lluberes was a banker and big businessman Steve described as an idealist. When Steve explained his desire to create a microenterprise development program for their country, both men jumped in with both feet.

To get the program started, Pedro and Camilo contributed their own funds and, with them, were able to raise more money from USAID. That initial microcredit program, which employed Steve’s idea of smaller loans at shorter terms (and charged interest to cover its costs), would eventually become Banco ADEMI. Today, with 48 branches and more than 166,000 clients served with approximately $250 million in loans, ADEMI is one of the Dominican Republic’s premier financial institutions serving micro- and small enterprises.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-447" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-chalkboard.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-chalkboard" width="746" height="529" />
<h2>Key realizations</h2>
Steve calls the events he witnessed during his tenure at Accion “evolutionary stages of growth.” The term refers to a series of assumptions, organized in chronological order, that were formulated based on past experiences building microcredit programs and that had to be corroborated before moving forward. For example, what happened with the creation of ADEMI in the Dominican Republic corroborated Accion’s fourth hypothesis: that even the poorest of the economically active were willing and able to pay for the necessary services for their own development, and that programs that worked with them could cover their own costs. Previous hypotheses proven in Brazil and Colombia included: 1) that it is possible to lend money to microenterprises and get it back, 2) that it is possible to replicate the experience of Brazil in other countries in Latin America, and 3) that it is possible to reach the poorest sector of the economically active with loans of $100 or less.

Following his work in the Dominican Republic, Steve relocated to Quito to help the Ecuadoran Development Foundation create an urban microenterprise lending program. Using a similar credit methodology to the one applied in the Dominican Republic – as well as providing microentrepreneurs with business management courses – the program flourished. Still in existence today as one of many services offered by the Ecuadoran Development Foundation, the microcredit program serves thousands of microentrepreneurs throughout Ecuador.

Then came Paraguay.

By the time Steve arrived in Asuncion in the early eighties, he had realized a few things. First, the key to establishing a successful and enduring microcredit program was to identify two fundamental players: a person who could command the attention and respect of high-profile people to head the board of directors, and another with strong leadership skills to run the daily operations of the organization.

A second realization was that those young organizations’ success depended – in a fundamental way – on the commitment and motivation of their staff. So strong was Steve’s belief in this that he designed an entire management and communication training program based on the following four principles:
<ol>
 	<li>The task of creating microcredit programs is of such magnitude that only an excellent organization can adequately respond.</li>
 	<li>An excellent organization is composed exclusively of excellent personnel.</li>
 	<li>People can aspire to excellence to the extent that they feel that they are on the road to satisfying their personal and professional needs.</li>
 	<li>The responsibility for creating, maintaining, and strengthening such a productive working environment must be borne by each and every person in the organization.</li>
</ol>
Based mainly on heuristic games and with a strong emphasis on the ideology of microcredit – faith in its transformative power – the training program was such a resounding success that Accion made it a part of its modus operandi, sending Steve to every partner institution to deliver the three-day classes at least twice per year.

“These courses worked very well throughout Latin America,” Steve says. “And you say, ‘Yeah, but that’s just the Latin temperament.’ But then [after Accion] I gave these courses in South Africa, Jordan, Ramallah, the West Bank, using the same exercises and the same games. And it turns out we are all alike. Human beings are all alike. And what motivates us in one part of the world motivates us in another.”

<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-451" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-water-pump-1024x730.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-water-pump" width="1024" height="730" />
<h2>The kindness of microcredit</h2>
Strange as it may sound, Steve’s strategy for setting up a new microfinance institution was very simple. He would identify the two people for the critical roles of executive director and board president, help them settle in over one to two weeks and leave them to run the organization. He would then stay in touch with them by phone and correspondence, only coming back to deliver his management and communication courses occasionally.

“When I came to a new place with the Accion ideas,” Steve says, “most of them would look at me like I was crazy. They would say, ‘Well, that can be done in Guatemala, but not here in Colombia,’ or ‘That can be done in Colombia, but not here in Paraguay.’ And that was conventional wisdom in all these countries until we had a track record of all the previous programs.”

Juan Álvaro Munguía was the legal advisor to Nicaragua’s president, Violeta Chamorro, when he met Steve – whom he affectionately referred to as Esteban – in Managua in 1990. “Esteban talked to us about the kindness of microcredit after a terrible war, when the country was in much need of kindness and healing. So we started looking for people. Esteban said that we had to form a reconciliatory institution, meaning that we should involve Sandinistas and non-Sandinistas, but it was very hard. When I was ready to give up, Esteban would urge me to keep going and say, ‘We can do it.’”

The organization Munguía started is called Financiera FAMA, which was incorporated in April of 1991 and gave its first microloan to a solidarity group in 1992. During that first year, the organization disbursed 75 loans. In 1995, FAMA purchased its first building and christened it the Esteban Gross building. Today, FAMA is a fully regulated financial institution, having lent approximately $500 million and with a network of branches that serve the entire country. At 72, Munguía is still chairman of FAMA’s board.

[caption id="attachment_427" align="aligncenter" width="599"]<img class="size-full wp-image-427" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Munguia.jpg" alt="Juan-Álvaro-Munguía" width="599" height="799" /> Juan Álvaro Munguía[/caption]
<h2>Creating a network</h2>
By the mid-eighties, Accion had entered a new evolutionary stage of growth, with a new hypothesis to corroborate: a network in which participating organizations share ideas and experiences and maintain working relationships is mutually beneficial to members and promotes progress in the field of microfinance.

Cathy Quense was Accion’s chief financial and administrative officer during Steve’s tenure at Accion. “Steve had a good sense for people. He could kind of spot somebody who really had the passion and the ability to relate to Accion’s mission and vision and run with it in the field. He was a real mentor to these people and a wonderful trainer. And for us in Boston, he was the connection with the field – the staff and the institutions that later became part of the [Accion] network.”

One of those people was Carlos Herrera, executive director of Guatemalan microfinance institution Génesis Empresarial. He met Steve in 1990 when Steve went to Guatemala to deliver one of his management and communication courses. “When I first met Steve he said he worked at Accion but lived on American Airlines. He was incredibly charismatic. He taught us how to work together as a team, with exercises where the CEO had to clean the bathrooms and the janitor had to book a meeting. His classes were transformational to our staff.”

Largely based on Steve’s principles, Génesis staff gather yearly to participate in what they call their Taller de Siembra y Cosecha (sowing and harvesting workshop) – an annual two-day retreat to evaluate the past year’s results, plan for the future, and engage in team-building exercises.

By 1984, the Accion programs had evolved into a network to promote financial inclusion, social entrepreneurship, and the self-sustaining model of microfinance. Génesis is among the 26 members that currently participate in the network’s yearly meetings, provide statistical and impact data on an ongoing basis, and submit project updates and lessons learned to be shared in the network’s newsletter – which Steve named Micronoticias.

<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-450" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-horses-1024x814.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-horses" width="1024" height="814" />
<h2>What makes life make sense</h2>
After retiring from Accion in 1999, Steve explored volunteer opportunities and found a calling in hospice care. For the past 12 years he has been working part-time, first as a volunteer and then as a chaplain with those who have terminal diagnoses and less than six months to live.

A clear line of service runs through Steve’s life.

“What I became clear on,” Steve explains, “was the fact that everybody in their growth and development has to, eventually, as they mature, become aware of the question, and interested in finding the answer to: ‘What, for me, makes life make sense?’ Service is, for me, the answer to that question. What fills my cup is serving others, because when I serve others in small ways, big ways, in any way, I’m serving my own needs. It’s all one and the same. It’s one act. It’s one attitude. It’s one way of looking at life.”

Jordan Coriza

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