GreenMicrofinancing

The energy and microfinance presentation went well today.  I opened my talk, reminding people of the ‘bad omens' Professor Yunus sees on the horizon: rising food and fuel prices, slowing economy, climate change and environmental degradation and the estimate that 100 million people are in danger of slipping back into abject poverty unless these issues are addressed successfully.

It was disappointing there weren't more people at the session, but the people who were there were amazing, as is the work Grameen Shakti is doing in Bangladesh and ESAF in India.  The Managing Director, Dipal Barua showed me his daily solar panel installation count, more 300 yesterday.  When I visited Shakti in 2003 they were doing less than 20 installations a day.  There really is a demand for energy!

This afternoon I did interviews with five amazing women; Gita and Silvia from Indonesia, Maree and Rebecca from Australia and Maaike from the Netherlands via Australia.  All had fascinating stories about their current work and their path to the Microcredit Summit.  The discussions ranged far and wide, but focused on renewable energy and microfinance's role in getting clean energy into the hands of the those at the "Base of the Pyramid'!

Dan will be editing these interviews and will have them on the blog shortly!