Held under the patronage of Mrs.Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady, Sanabel's Second Annual Conference was a tremendous success. More than 340 microfinance experts, donor agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government officials from 26 different countries attended.
Elizabeth Littlefield, CEO of CGAP congratulated Sanabel saying, "It was a great agenda, smooth organization and a fantastic turnout."
The conference was launched with the regional Microentrepreneur awards recognizing the work of 11 successful microentrepreneurs from Egypt. Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine , Yemen and Tunisia. Following this important ceremony, 19 workshops , action planning sessions and networking activities provided an excellent forum for exchanging ideas around Client-Driven Microfinance.
Action Planning sessions called for regional training needs assessment and continued curriculum development , continued advocacy work to educate officials about best practice microfinance, the launch of an interactive Arabic Microfinance Gateway and training and promotion of standardized reporting and benchmarking.