Last month the Smart Campaign launched its certification program. For those who care about client protection, this is an important and welcome milestone in what has been an impressive journey, involving a broad spectrum of activities to promote client protection.
In the first post in this series, Philippe Serres describes one such project by the French development organization AFD and the Cambodian Microfinance Association (CMA) to support implementation of the Client Protection Principles, including support for MFIs seeking to undergo the Smart Certification process itself. Notably, this support comes alongside client protection requirements that funders like AFD, Proparco and FMO have been incorporating into their financing agreements with MFIs. Thus, not only are these funders supporting MFIs in their bid to strengthen client protection, they are increasingly making their funding conditional on the implementation of client protection practices.
In many respects, this is an exercise in self-regulation. The arrival of Smart Certification presents a unique opportunity to take these efforts to the next level and apply this self-regulation to the entire microfinance market in Cambodia and beyond. Read full article here.
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