Developing The Group

Of course elections and sightseeing in Lebanon are important, but in the end I came here to work for the microfinance organization Al Majmoua. It was a challenge to get there on the first day I was in Lebanon. It is located in a commercial district, not far from Hamra where I was staying at that time, but it was just off the main avenue and surrounded by dilapidated residential buildings and a construction site. Luckily I ran into a cab-driver who knew where it was, so I was brought right to the front-door.
While I had to get used to it in the beginning - as with any new job - I'm getting more and more the hang of it. It is great to get hands-on experience in that much talked about tool to 'fight poverty', popularized by Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank.
Al Majmoua - 'The group' in Arabic - was initially set up by Safe the Children and only provided group loans to women. Now, 15 years later, the organization is independent and provides mainly loans to (male) individuals. As one of the first microfinance organizations, Al Majmoua has been able to become the biggest micro-loan provider. However, nowadays more and more competition appears in Lebanon, so the organization has to keep an eye on ways to increase efficiency and lower cost to provide loans for competitive prices.
And that is where I come in. I am supposed to perform an Activity-Based Cost analysis, what basically means that I have to measure how much time each activity related to issuing and servicing loans takes, convert that into a monetary value and that way calculate the exact cost of different loan products. So the first few weeks I spent finding out how loans are exactly issued, followed by extensive field-visits to see how much time it takes to fill out an application, sign contracts, follow up on overdue payments etc. Next to an excuse to see more of Lebanon, this research showed me how microfinance really works. The importance of the personal contacts of the loan analysts (the foot-soldiers of microfinance) became evident, as well as the difficulty to make significant efficiency gains in the chaotic working environment of hundreds of different clients spread out over the area under a certain loan analysts' responsiblity.
So that is what I'll be working on for the next few weeks, I guess: finding out how Al Majmoua can decrease costs, increase income and offer cheaper and more loans to those who need (and want) them the most. It's a priviledge to do this work, and I hope I can make a useful contribution to the organization.