Introduction

The first Microcredit Summit was held in Washington DC, USA, from February 2-4, 1997. More than 2,900 people from 137 countries gathered at the Summit where they launched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the year 2005. The Microcredit Summit Campaign located in Washington DC, brings together the microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and others involved with microcredit. It aimed at promoting the best practices in the field, to learn from each other and to work towards reaching the goal.

The Campaign has successfully co-organized three regional meetings of councils- in October 2000 in Harare, Zimbabwe; in February 2001 in New Delhi, India and in October 2001 in Pueblo, Mexico.

Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation in collaboration with the Microcredit Summit Campaign organized the 2004 Asia-Pacific Region Microcredit Summit Meeting of Councils (APRMS) in Dhaka, Bangladesh during 16-19 February 2004, featuring visits to microfinance programs on February 14 and February15. This Summit Meeting in Dhaka provided inputs for program of the UN International Year of Microcredit 2005. The Meeting was also important in the context of Millennium Development Goals, especially that of cutting absolute poverty by half by 2015. The core themes of the Microcredit Summit were:

* Reaching the poorest
* Reaching and empowering women
* Building financially self-sufficient institutions
* Ensuring a positive measurable impact on the lives of clients and their families

In Annex –1 the list of the members of the Program Committee and the Local Organizing Committee of APRMS, Dhaka are given. The Committee of The Microcredit Summit Campaign can also be seen in Annex–1. Detailed Program of APRMS can be seen in Annex-2.

During the four-day meeting, the following sessions were held: 1) Opening and Closing sessions, 2) Plenary sessions (to discuss papers commissioned by the campaign and other topics), 3) Breakout workshops, 4) Institutional Action Plan presentations in plenary, 5) Meeting of councils, 6) associated sessions and 7) Day-long courses.
1230 participants from 47 countries attended the meeting, making it the biggest ever-Regional Meeting on Microcredit. The lists of participants can be seen in Annex – 3.