 |
Kathmandu,Sunday February 06, 2000
Magh 23rd, 2056.
|
NRB
to pursue new strategy to reduce poverty
By
a Post Reporter
KATHMANDU,
Feb 5 - The newly appointed governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Dr
Tilak Rawal has assured that the bank would pursue a policy to achieve
poverty alleviation strategy of the government.
Dr
Rawal was inaugurating a one-day national seminar on ‘Saving
Services in Micro-Finance,’ organized by the Centre for
Micro-Finance (CMF) of Canadian Centre for International Studies and
Cooperation (CECI), in the capital today.
"Among
many ways to address the poverty issues, micro-finance has been one of
the prominent approaches forming a new paradigm of development,"
he said.
He
stressed that micro saving is one of the most important aspects in
micro-finance, which ultimately leads towards the improvement of lives
of many poor households in rural and urban areas.
Micro-finance
services in Nepal started in 1956. "The success of micro-finance
programme is attributed to the combination of approaches. They are
primarily based on saving services as the core starting point to build
on the system of addressing the micro-credit need of the smaller
borrowers", he said.
He
emphasized to concentrate on the major foundation or arrangement on
real rural and micro-financial intermediation if micro saving services
is to be recognized as the key element to poverty reduction.
The
governor said the effort of the poor on managing their finance has to
be used as an igniting force for triggering the rural financial
market.
In
his welcome address, Francois Lafreniere, Regional Director of CECI,
said the micro-finance sector in Nepal is at a crucial stage of its
development. It needs to address all the important issues related to
best practices, financial sustainability and appropriate as well as
cost effective services.
"To
design and offer appropriate savings products, it is important for
micro-finance institutions to understand the variety of needs of the
poor", he said.
Anthony
Scoggins, Technical Advisor of CMF, said the seminar aims to increase
awareness among micro-finance practitioners and to develop an
understanding on designing new savings products.
He
informed that the seminar also intended to provide an opportunity to
discuss on the opportunities and constraints associated with savings
mobilization in Nepal and to adopt appropriate strategies.
Stuart
Rutherford, Founder Chairperson of SafeSave, Bangladesh, in his
keynote address on the importance of saving services said,
micro-finance plays a dominant role in the local development.
He
said the financial products offered must be able to cater for the
needs of the poor. He also suggested various ways of converting small
savings into large sums.
Other Stories
|
