Sanabel Hosts 8th Annual Conference "Microfinance in the Arab Region: Challenges of the Past and Opportunities of the Future"

On June 7-9, Sanabel, The Microfinance Network of Arab Countries, hosted its Eight Annual Conference in Amman, Jordan. Over the course of the 3 days, more than 600 participants had opportunity to network, to learn from expert panelists, and to share individual experiences through sessions, mini-trainings, and workshops in the following 3 tracks: Risk Management, Responsible Finance, Product and Development & Innovation.

The Microlinks team was on hand at the Conference to participate and report back to the Microlinks community. You can check out a recap of some of the Conference sessions and activities here:

• Sanabel Annual Conference: An opening worth celebrating
• Sanabel Annual Conference: Plenary panel on the “State of the Sector” and the impacts of political crises
• Sanabel Annual Conference: Risk mitigation advice from people who've lived with crisis

A look back at the Sanabel Conferences over the years

The 6th Annual Conference entitled: "Human Capital in Microfinance: People, Passion and Value" took place at the Le Royal Hotel, Dbayeh- Greater Beirut, Lebanon from May 12–14, 2009.

The 5th Annual Conference, “Advancing Arab Microfinance: Greater Social Impact through Inclusive Financial Services”, was held in Gammarth, Tunisia May 6–8, 2008. The sessions were organized in four tracks including Social Performance Management, New Production, Financing and Operations/Technology.

The 4th Annual Conference was held on June 12-14, 2007 at the Movenpick Hotel, Yemen. The theme was "Serving the Poor: 10 million clients by 2010".

The 3rd Annual Conference titled "Shaping the Industry's Future: From Microcredit to Microfinance in the Arab Region" was held in Marrakech, Morocco November 28-30, 2005.

The 2nd Annual Conference took place in 2005 and it 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, former CEO of CGAP congratulated Sanabel saying, "It was a great agenda, smooth organization and a fantastic turnout."

The 1st  Annual Conference titled "Microfinance in the Arab World: "Shaping the Industry's Future" was held in the Dead Sea, Jordan under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah from December 15-17, 2003. During this three-day conference, microfinance practitioners and experts, donor agencies, investors and government officials came together to discuss the development of best practice microfinance in the Arab region.;