Christopher Dunford
President, Freedom from Hunger
cdunford@freefromhunger.org

"Past and Future Prospects for Integration of Financial and Non-financial Services"

Presentation Abstract:
The original inspiration for tight integration of microfinance and education was the Sixteen Decisions chanted at the Center meetings of the Grameen Bank. This gave rise to Freedom from Hunger's Credit with Education strategy and partnerships worldwide, led by Chris Dunford, Ellen Vor der Bruegge and Kathleen Stack. Dunford gives a candid account of the hoped-for advantages of this approach, the operational challenges and unexpected forces of opposition. He broadens this account to recognize the diversity of approaches that have sprung up and their comparative strengths and weaknesses. He concludes with some conjectures on the future of microfinance in general and integration with non-financial services in particular.

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Biography:
Chris Dunford, President of Freedom from Hunger since 1991, holds a Ph.D. in ecology and sociology from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He joined Freedom from Hunger in 1984 as Director of the Arizona Program and later Regional Director for the United States and then Vice President for Programs. His previous work experience with the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi and various rural development programs in Africa has been instrumental in the planning and management of Freedom from Hunger’s programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as the United States. Dunford is one of the architects of Credit with Education, a strategy for providing self-financing poverty lending to rural women while simultaneously providing education on health, nutrition and better business practices. Dunford led Freedom from Hunger to focus on demonstrating that Credit with Education can empower hundreds of thousands of very poor rural women in developing countries—through linkage to financial institution credit and savings opportunities and to non-formal adult education opportunities—all the while recovering its recurrent costs. Dunford has been an invited speaker for the World Bank, USAID, the Microcredit Summit, the SEEP (Small Enterprise Education and Promotion) Network, the Thrasher Research Fund, FICAH (Food Industry Crusade Against Hunger), the Global Dialogue on Microfinance and Human Development in Stockholm, Sweden, and Brigham Young, Brown, Ohio State and Princeton universities, among others. He has published on ecology, cultural evolution, strategic planning and program design and evaluation of rural development programs.