The essentials of our action in 2020

In 2020, we funded and assisted our nine social microfinance programmes in the complicated context of the pandemic and we continued developing and diversifying our services, especially those designed for farmers.

Sont Oo Thetwin (Myanmar) and Anh Chi Em (Vietnam) consolidated their financial sustainability. Assilassimé (Togo), Yikri (Burkina Faso) and Palmis Mikwofinans Sosyal (Haiti) maintained their activity levels and are aiming for financial sustainability within the next two to three years. These projections account for socio-political contexts that continue to deteriorate in Haiti (high insecurity) and Burkina Faso (increase in jihadism). The youngest SMIs, Fansoto (Senegal), Wakili (Guinea) and Munafa (Sierra Leone) continue to receive enhanced support from Entrepreneurs du Monde’s technical specialists to help local teams develop their skills. In Guinea, the team has made lots of progress in operations management and has successfully improved loan repayment rates.
Finally, we created EkilEko in Ivory Coast and are requested microfinance approval so we can start supporting the first entrepreneurs in early 2022. Local teams and Entrepreneurs du Monde technical specialists also worked together on background projects:
• Redesigning social support management: we identified certain recurring social problems our beneficiaries experience and these will be the main focus of this work (domestic violence, family planning, substandard housing, civil status documents, access to healthcare, etc.). Processes for managing these social services were fully revised to improve their efficacy. We plan to implement them in 2021.
• Modernising IT and management systems: Sont Oo Thetwin (Myanmar) finished migrating their MIS2 to new cloudbased software that will facilitate branch interconnection and enable data entry (financial transactions, social information collection) directly from the field. Palmis Mikwofinans Sosyal (Haiti) started this huge project in the second half of 2020 and Anh Chi Em (Vietnam) is preparing to do so in 2021.

In 2020, we helped the six programmes grow, diversify their activities and implement the training company model designed to improve the employability of young women and men and to expand entrepreneurship.

In Burkina Faso, Émergence, YIKRI (microfinance institution also created and incubated by Entrepreneurs du Monde) and Planète Enfants et Développement began the PREJEF project, financed by the European Union. It contributes to Burkina Faso’s socio-economic stability by training 300 women from the north and central regions as Maternal Assistants and supporting their professional integration.

In Togo, Miawodo is developing professional training through innovative waste management activities. It helps raise people’s awareness, create green jobs and improve living conditions. The first pilot projects were launched in 2020 and include composting, grinding green waste, collecting and processing plastic and tyre waste, recycling and repackaging solar lights.

In Senegal, Ligoden is developing the second chance component of the Amélioration des Performances de travail et d’Entreprenariat [Work Performance and Entrepreneurship Improvement] programme with the Education Development Center. This programme targets higher education graduates who have been looking for work for at least three years. The Senegalese team also worked on creating Teranga, a fruit processing training company.

Due to the very complicated political and health situation in Haiti, the Osez l’Entreprise programme had not been operating for quite some time before receiving assistance with its acquisition by Palmis Enèji, a company created and incubated by Entrepreneurs du Monde. However, Entrepreneurs du Monde began preparations for a workshop/school in the energy sector. Starting in 2021, this Atelye Ekol Eneji will work on assembling solar and gas stove kits.

In Lyon, France, the ICI programme trains restaurant operators, then gives them the opportunity to try out their cooking in real conditions in the Food Truck Ecole acquired in early 2020. These future operators tried out all the concrete aspects of their plans, such as supplies, cooking, customer relations, management, etc.

In Rouen, we were filled with emotion as we handed the first four people keys to their tiny houses as we help them get off the streets. We also worked on creating a workshop for building future tiny houses.

Teams had to adapt the way they worked to protect themselves and their beneficiaries. However, they still maintained connections remotely or through individual meetings. And the teams fought hard to be able to provide specific services, such as in Burkina Faso and Togo where they successfully created a VSB relaunch fund financed by the EDF Foundation, Métropole de Lyon and Agence Française de Développement.

EXPLORING A SECOND GRANARY AND NEW ARCHITECTURE (ONGOING R&D)

The search for an optimal storage solution continues. As a reminder, the solution must be effective, simple, robust and low cost. With the first building, we were able to preserve 30 tonnes of onions in satisfactory conditions, but it had an issue with air renewal. This is a complicated situation: products in storage produce water vapour that must be evacuated, but the fresh air is very hot.
So, the second building was designed and built after taking into consideration what was learned from the first. We added wind catchers (an ancient Iranian technique) and two Canadian wells. The first feature evacuates the vapour and the second provides fresh air. A third building type is on the drawing board. It is completely underground to continually take advantage of cool soil.

USING A SECTOR-BASED APPROACH
In a sector-based approach, all obstacles are identified and removed at each step, from production to sales. At this stage, small-scale producers encounter many difficulties: sometimes unsuitable production methods related to poor command of technical itineraries, low access to financing, lack of storage facilities, transport difficulties and the disproportionate power held by intermediaries in sales.
Our goal, therefore, is to remove each of these barriers one by one to enable producers to make a better living from their work, improve their living and working conditions and better feed their fellow citizens. In 2020, we set up two market garden areas irrigated with solar pumps so that 940 women can grow produce all throughout the year, beginning in 2021. They have received initial training on continually improving soil health using agroecology methods.

We established two strategies to reduce the impact of the economic crisis that accompanied the health crisis:
• all rental/sales kits were activated for a specific timeframe to offer lighting to beneficiaries,
• vouchers were offered to the most vulnerable populations so they could acquire gas refills at no cost or for a very reduced price.

More generally, our teams adapted to the constraints in order to continue working and preparing developments. For example, in Haiti, Palmis Enèji reacted to the triple economic, political and health crisis and the collapse of purchasing power in cities by focusing on more affordable products and selling through local rural organisations that were less affected by insecurity.
It thereby generated turnover equivalent to the previous year with similar operating costs and a stable number of beneficiaries in rural areas.

In the Philippines, ATE Co. took the time to design a more social version of their solar kit rental/sales model deployed in Rizal’s mountainous areas.

By spending more time with their customers and improving its training and monitoring tools, the team has reduced the average payment default rate. This meant they needed fewer customers to make the model sustainable. The teams did not need to so much prospecting all over and could focus on their customers’ needs.

By focusing more on the health of their customer debt rather than the volume, ATE Co. bet on a more agile model that functions in rural areas with low populations. This new approach is more relevant to the Philippines where rural communities still lacking electricity are spread throughout mountainous areas and the islands the dot the country.
However, just like in Togo, Burkina Faso and Cambodia, gatherings and travel in the Philippines were temporarily restricted, which slowed down activities targeting beneficiaries, such as prospecting, sales, installation and awareness sessions.

Therefore, the teams prioritised internal organisation projects and worked on future developments, innovations and partnerships.
In addition, since borders between most countries were closed or regulated, Entrepreneurs du Monde’s support work in the field was limited.
This pushed us to innovate new ways to support teams remotely. We organised webinars instead of interactive workshops, focused on interactive visits with programmes in the same sub-regions, set up a more suitable remote communications platform to facilitate discussions with the head office and between programmes.
In a year, the technical specialists joined the energy teams and programme teams on the platform, thereby creating a learning
community focused on technical and strategic topics.
Finally, 2020 gave us another opportunity to recognise the relevance of our team incubation and independence approach: we are continually strengthening their skills and progressively transferring governance to local bodies.
Thanks to this independence, we successfully adapted, continued providing services and even innovated during this period of uncertainty.