Germany

Forum on 'Microfinance in Germany and Europe' in Berlin on June 20-21, 2012

Submitted by Stephanie Koenen on 01/06/2012

The German Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the German Microfinance Institute (DMI) will host a two-day forum on 'Microfinance in Germany and Europe' in Berlin on June 21, 2012. As a result of a 30month project of gathering in-depth information and case studies from across Europe, the Forum will take the chance to present current European trends in microfinance to a wider public audience. It will specifically address the following three aspects:

- Trend 1: Quality - Providing security for clients and capital

Total votes: 798

COPIE Access to Finance Peer Review Germany - Report

Submitted by Stephanie Koenen on 23/04/2012

On October 6-7, 2011, COPIE members of the Thematic Working Group on Access to Finance and additional partners from Europe met in Berlin for a two-day peer review.
The meeting report is now available for download below.

Total votes: 921

Germany starts new national marketing campaign on microfinance

Submitted by 884bMccV93_k6627 on 23/01/2012

This month, Germany's partners of the German Microfinance Fund have launched a new national campaign on microfinance. The new website http://www.mein-mikrokredit.de/ provides information for business starters on conditions and modalities of the German microfinance scheme. In addition, it features a number of illustrative case studies from successful entrepreneurs.

Total votes: 1064

Access to finance for inclusive entrepreneurship businesses: COPIE’s microfinance practices in Germany, Lithuania, Flanders, and the Czech Republic

Submitted by 884bMccV93_k6627 on 11/11/2011
COPIE Story of the month

This October was a crucial month for future policy action on microfinance in Europe: as part of the draft legislative package for the EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020, the EU Commission has announced a new Programme for Social Change and Innovation which refers to microfinance and combines the three previous initiatives of Progress, EURES and the European Progress Microfinance Facility (EPMF). At the same time, the Commission published the proposals for the new ESF and ERDF regulations. Details of the current status of the EPMF are now available in the 2010 Implementation report; and finally, DG Enterprise issued a new European Code of Good Conduct for Microfinance Provision.

COPIE’s 3rd COPIE Access to Finance peer review meeting in Berlin last month, and the partners’ work on a joint Manual on Access to Finance for ESF Managing Authorities are thus extremely timely.

‘Driving Ideas into Action’ - COPIE partners share governance techniques for designing and implementing regional inclusive entrepreneurship support strategies

Submitted by 884bMccV93_k6627 on 19/09/2011
Driving ideas into action

‘Joint action planning’ is one of the five designated thematic areas of collaboration within the COPIE partnership. Over a period of one year, delegates from Asturias, the Czech Republic, Flanders, Germany and Wallonia met four times to share experience in governing regional entrepreneurship systems. More specifically, discussions revolved around the four themes of ‘Developing a common vision’; ‘Agreeing an evaluation strategy’; ‘Building an integrated campaign’; and ‘Planning for a legacy’. Partners shared their individual regional policies and practices, and the group jointly worked towards identifying strengths and weaknesses as well as key criteria for success.

Partners

COPIE is managed by the Federal Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs in Germany through the ESF unit.

The lead partners are:

Action Planning

The main objective of this thematic group is to help policy-makers and ESF Managing Authorities to plan cohesive activities that support entrepreneurship in their region alongside their key stakeholders.