GreenMicrofinancing

 It is interesting to note the shift in energy as the President and Governors move on and the delegates ‘do their thing;' much more ‘laid back' and relaxed!  The opening session is in a smaller room and people are arriving much later, of course that might have something to do with their activities after the meetings yesterday.

 

 

Last night we went to a reception sponsored by Unitus to announce their move into for-profit funding.  The reception was in a beautiful garden between the hotel and the beach; warm gentle breeze, soft sounds of the surf, good food and great conversation.  It is venues like this where the real benefits of a meeting like this are realized. 

I spent a considerable amount of time talking to a young woman who wants to work in Haiti and with an older woman from the UK who has lived in India for the past 25 years; she married an Indian.  She works on social performance measurement (they ask the question: Are MFIs really changing people's lives?) and knows many of the people I do from Fonkoze in Haiti.  She also told me about the Social Performance Taskforce's efforts to incorporate environmental impact into their measurements - I love it when synchronicity happens! 

This morning I rode to the convention center with a man from BRAC in Bangladesh working in Afghanistan and an American working in Beijing.  In Afghanistan, conditions have improved in Kabul over the past three years but degenerated markedly in the provinces and yes, the pollution is as bad as everyone says in Beijing!