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ACCION International is a private, nonprofit organization
with the mission of giving people the financial tools they need – microenterprise
loans, business training, and other financial services – to
work their way out of poverty. A world pioneer in microfinance,
ACCION International was founded in 1961 and issued the first microloan
in 1973 in Brazil.
ACCION International's partner microfinance institutions today
are providing loans as low as $100 to poor women and men entrepreneurs
in 25 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa, and in the U.S. In the last decade alone, ACCION partners
have disbursed 17.9 million loans totaling more than $12.3 billion,
65 percent of whom are women. Ninety-seven percent of these loans
have been repaid. Selected for the fifth consecutive year for its
pioneering approaches to poverty alleviation, ACCION was among 45
organizations awarded the 2008 Social Capitalist Award by Fast Company
magazine.
For more information, visit www.accion.org.
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