Inclusive Financing for Housing: Exploring Viable Business Models
Panelists from the three Housing IGP grantees, USAID, and SEEP gathered in Washington DC for an engaging day of knowledge exchange, sharing findings from their specific project implementation experiences with each other and deepening the conversation around inclusive financing for housing. This video records a final learning session held on June 4, 2014.
Naeem Razwani – Manager, Marketing and Product Development, The First Microfinance Bank (Afghanistan)
Naeem Razwani is the Head of Product Development at The First MicroFinanceBank in Afghanistan (FMFB-A) – A part of Aga Khan Development Network. Besides Afghanistan, Mr. Razwani has worked on projects in Pakistan, Egypt and Kyrgyzstan in commercial and social sectors ranging from health, education, community development and financial services. Along with management of housing product, Mr. Razwani has piloted a cashless branch model using mobile technology, conceptualisation and implementation of Universal Loan Officer (ULO) model for smoothening client graduation from microfinance to SME; development of seasonal repayment model for rural clients to select their credit payment dates as per their harvest and cultivation period; and implementation of Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Framework for improved research and analysis to inform business strategy. Mr. Razwani has also assisted one of the major microfinance institutions in Egypt in development and rolling-out of housing microfinance product. He has been associated on projects funded by International Finance Corporation, USAID, KfW, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA). The housing microfinance toolkit was also a joint venture between FMFB-A and IFC.
Sitara Merchant – Director, Research and Product Development, Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance
Sitara has over 25 year of experience in both the private and social development sector; she was the founder and owner of her own private sector consulting company in Canada that worked with clients to develop their strategy and link it to their day to day performance to have a bottom line impact. Her desire to make a difference motivated her to work with the Aga Khan Development Network where she has been for the last nine years in various different capacities. For the last five years, she has been developing financial products for the poor and more recently was asked to set up and lead research and product development at AKAM. The focus of her work at AKAM has been to support its microfinance institutions across 10 countries to transition from supply- to demand-driven products and develop the social performance management system.
Ismailimail 