Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, definitely, but first I would like to correct one point. We don't really call it microcredit at Desjardins. We call it microfinance instead. A number of financial services may be small but accessible to everyone. That's part of the overall financial sector. It's regulated an

Foreign Affairs committee  I believe there are two parts to that question. As regards the first part, the idea is to provide technical and technological support to financial institutions so that they can offer financial services appropriate to riskier or more complex problems. Let's consider the example

Foreign Affairs committee  I have a suggestion. Earlier we talked about the Desjardins fund for inclusive finance, and I believe similar initiatives could be introduced to attract investors. This would involve small amounts invested in funds mainly intended for development—the finance or microfinance sect

Foreign Affairs committee  That's another good question. The program to implement an agricultural financing and insurance system in Haiti began only a few months ago. That was in response to a request from Haiti's department of agriculture, natural resources and rural development. We responded to it toget

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll try to answer your questions as well as possible. I don't know whether you noticed in the text, but earlier I talked about supporting whole groups, groups already deployed that have put immense distribution networks in place in recent years. We are dealing with that issue

Foreign Affairs committee  We conducted an impact study in Burkina Faso over a number of years to measure the impact of credit, among other things, particularly on women. That study was conducted together with a network of caisses populaires—the equivalent of the financial institutions called credit union

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. I think everyone would like there to be more international aid given the current global context and the needs we hear about every day. Everyone would like international aid to increase and diversify and for more countries to be helped. That's a major wish. The Canadian pop

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, of course. Consider the example of Zambia, which may be one of the most recent. In Zambia, the average amount of loans granted to entrepreneurs is approximately US$4,000. The entrepreneurs are often cabinet-makers, people who work with metal and people who are engaged in v

Foreign Affairs committee  This may be a long answer. First of all, the Desjardins fund for inclusive finance is a new fund that emerged from an experiment that we've conducted over the past 10 years on an international development fund managed by Développement international Desjardins and a limited partn

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a very good question. It's a major issue. We've contributed to CIDA briefs in order to offer our orientations on international aid. In general, Canada is one of the best perceived countries with regard to cooperation. Canadians are held in high regard for the way they do b

Foreign Affairs committee  Développement international Desjardins is a non-profit corporation whose board of directors consists of Desjardins members from the Mouvement Desjardins. That non-profit corporation has a gift of $20 million from the Mouvement Desjardins that enables it to mobilize the Canadian p

Foreign Affairs committee  Développement international Desjardins is, first of all, a non-profit organization attached to the Mouvement Desjardins. There are two action areas. The first is consulting, that is technical assistance to financial institutions, mainly of a cooperative nature. That is currently

Foreign Affairs committee  Not at all. Currently, the Mouvement Desjardins—or the Desjardins banking sector—is conducting no commercial operations in any developing countries. I repeat, Développement international Desjardins is an NGO that is engaged solely in development-related activities and activities

Foreign Affairs committee  Earlier I mentioned that there were assets of more than CAN$1 billion in West Africa. That value has essentially been created through the mobilization of local resources. That means that all the financial institutions that DID is assisting are mobilizing national savings. They ar

Foreign Affairs committee  We have been cooperating with CIDA for many years now as part of the Canadian partnership. I believe this is our fourth program renewal, as the term of every program is generally four years. To answer your question, I must say we unfortunately renewed our partnership under the ol