Unlocking the potential of the poor. That is the purpose of microfinance when used correctly. Damian von Stauffenberg in his interview with PovertyCure states: “What creates wealth? People create wealth. The source of wealth is inside our head; it’s our creativity. It’s not even our muscles; it’s our creativity, something we’ve been endowed with.… And if you have a vast reservoir of poor people living in these slums … that is a source of untapped wealth that far exceeds the biggest oil reserves you could possibly find underneath your soil. That is really your source of wealth. It’s tapping that potential that’s there, that’s unused.”
Learn more about how Opportunity International uses microfinance to tap into the unused potential of millions of clients around the world at opportunityinternational.ca/microfinance.
About Damian von Stauffenberg
Damian von Stauffenberg is the founder of MicroRate, the world’s first rating agency specializing in microfinance. Through its Latin American and African subsidiaries, MicroRate has conducted over 500 ratings of microfinance institutions in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Before dedicating himself to microfinance, von Stauffenberg worked for 25 years in the World Bank and its private sector affiliate, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Video produced by PovertyCure, an international network of organizations and individuals (Opportunity International Canada being one of them) seeking to ground our common battle against global poverty in a proper understanding of the human person and society, and to encourage solutions that foster opportunity and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that already fills the developing world.