Microfinance is one of the instruments for “addressing inertia and social fragility, which is essential in safeguarding the quality of democracies” in order to prevent “material distress from encouraging populist deviation and citizen regression”. Minister Giulio Terzi thus explained the anti-crisis role of microcredit and microfinance, as he spoke at the second edition of the “Microfinance and European Union policies Forum” organized by the National Microcredit Agency.
Microfinance “expands business opportunities”
“People with ideas and projects they cannot realise as a result of not having access to credit need concrete answers; those who have lost their jobs and are having a hard time finding another; immigrants who risk social exclusion”, Terzi explained, underscoring how microfinance “expands business opportunities as it encouraged citizens’ participation in economic life”. Moreover, it “can also help contain public spending by contributing to the reduction of social buffers, the cost of which rises in times of recession”.
Italy one of three EU members with microcredit law
Italy is one of three EU countries, along with France and Romania, that have adopted microcredit and microfinance laws”, while the foreign ministry and the national microcredit agency have developed synergies at international level to promote microfinance through “public and private partnerships” and are also watching the youth of the Arab Spring countries, where microcredit “can play a role that generates preventive diplomacy and support for fragile democratic transitions”, Terzi concluded.
