Close to 200 million poverty-stricken persons throughout the world (70% of which are women) have had access to financial services through microfinance institutions. This was expressed by María Jesús Pérez, general assistant director of the NGO CODESPA, who visited the Navarra Center for International Development of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at the Universidad de Navarra together with the general director of the organization, José Ignacio González-Aller.

One of the latest cooperation projects being developed by CODESPA in the Dominican Republic in collaboration with the bank ADOPEM, the principal microfinance institution of the country, was presented on the Pamplona campus. This bank provides microloans to small famers in order to help them increase production levels, reduce costs, and improve product quality. We should remember that more than 1.2 million persons in this Latin American country work in this sector, which is approximately 16% of the Gross Domestic Product of the region.

16.000 small agricultural producers have benefited from this.

According to María Jesús Pérez, this project has been very successful in the country with the help arriving to approximately 16.000 small farmers. The project has 9.4 million dollars available for rural loans and 4 million dollars for agricultural loans. "Likewise, we hope to develop other financing products for covering the needs of other links of the chain that are not just producers", pointed out María Jesús Pérez..

José Ignacio González-Aller mentioned that in these programs there is a very important question: "We need to find out which initiative exists for those who demand and those who offer the product".

González-Aller said that there are more than 3,600 microfinance entities. "The fact that such a big industry has been consolidate generates many challenges and opportunities, such as bringing the microfinances to the most rural areas".

CODESPA is an international NGO with headquarters in Spain. This organization has 29 years of experience in the economic development as a strategy for fighting poverty. They have produced approximately 1,000 projects in 33 countries throughout Latin America, Middle East, Africa and Asia.