GEMicro’s initial focus is to provide strategic support to our network of Islamic microfinance institutions and service providers in Asia, Africa, the MENA region and Eastern Europe to help them grow their outreach, become sustainable and ultimately social investment-ready. In this process we have developed and shared expertise in the field of operations management and governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) and our team provides support to the executive staff, boards and audit committees of a number of MFIs. We believe this will provide essential assurance to potential social investors that are critical for the Islamic microfinance industry to flourish.
The second yet parallel step of our strategy is influencing regulators in OIC member countries and beyond, standard setting bodies such as AAOIFI or the Social Performance Taskforce and policy makers to create a more conducive operating environment for Islamic microfinance. Our contribution here lies particularly in practice-oriented research, policy and product advocacy.