Microfinance, as every activity implemented by ACTED, was set up following the request of some beneficiaries, most of them being at that time, beneficiaries of food aid activities, i.e. the most vulnerable populations far below the poverty line, requesting access to financial services. These beneficiaries basically designed our first Microfinance products and ACTED worked on their systematisation, replication and larger scale implementation following an ever growing demand.

Initiated in 2000 in Central Asia, Microfinance became one of ACTED's key sectors of intervention through the years and developed rapidly.

OXUS is the result of the transfer of ACTED Microfinance activities in a dedicated organisation. While Microfinance activities remained integrated into ACTED up to 2004, the emergence of specific regulations in the Microfinance sector in 2005 urged us to create specific tools to take over ACTED Microfinance Programme (MFP) and separate them from ACTED. From a legal point of view, this dedicated structure thus complied with emerging laws and regulations in the countries of operation. The transition phase for the effective transfer is planned to be completed in 2006.

In order to maintain the local but global logic, ACTED decided to create a group, called OXUS Development Network (ODN), based in Europe with specific branches in each country of operation, usually called OXUS followed by the name of the country.

As such, ACTED created both ODN as the global organisation and OXUS Tajikistan as the Tajik branch. As of today, OXUS Kyrgyzstan, OXUS Afghanistan and OXUS Uzbekistan are to become official branches in 2006.

The transition phase for the effective transfer from ACTED Microfinance Program to OXUS Development Network will be totally completed by the end of the year 2006. This transitionnal year has been a success for OXUS as the Outstanding Loan Balance (OLB) has more than doubled in six months jumping from 900 000 USD to 2 million USD. With this higher level of activity, OXUS gives the possibility at more than 10 000 poor people of Central Asia to launch their own business to improve their living standards. Please refer to the two following charts.

OXUS CUSTOMERS IN FIGURES BY QUARTER IN 2006

OXUS LOAN BALANCE BY QUARTER IN 2006