Oxus Microfinance Network

• The OXUS Group’s mission is to fight poverty through the provision of microfinance services to the working poor. OXUS aims at empowering disadvantaged people, integrating a commercial approach into a broad human development framework.

• The OXUS Group’s goal is to act as a catalyst for large numbers of urban and rural low income entrepreneurs’ efforts to achieve better economic security, by delivering sustainable and client-oriented financial services.

• OXUS firmly believes that microfinance can provide households and micro-entrepreneurs with a significant opportunity to step out of “the poverty trap”. People living under the poverty line are commonly excluded from the traditional banking system. Thanks to micro-loans and other microfinance services, they can either start or scale up their business, and pursue economic independence while fighting exclusion and precariousness.

• The OXUS Group has already set up microfinance institutions in five Central Asian and African countries, and plans to expand its network in order to be present in 12 countries by 2015. OXUS is proud of its tangible contribution to the eradication of extreme poverty, the first of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

• OXUS: signatory of the “Paris Appeal for responsible microfinance”.

In association with a large collective of partners, Convergences 2015 has launched the “Paris Appeal for responsible microfinance”. To answer the excessive commercialization of microfinance and other drifts thus brought about, the Paris Appeal reaffirms the role of microfinance as a tool in the service of development and inclusive finance. It aims at bringing back ethical values and a social orientation that should inspire all stakeholders in the sector and offer to make self-regulation initiatives and rules converge towards a solid pedestal of principles. These rules will help define responsible microfinance and restore faith among the public.

If like us, you support the Millennium Development Goals and microfinance as powerful tools for economic development and poverty reduction, sign the Paris Appeal for responsible microfinance on www.appeldeparis.org