Objectives:
The PROSPER programme aimed to promote financial services for poverty reduction. It worked for sustainable micro-finance sector in Bangladesh offering greater access to and usage of diversified financial services for the poor people and micro, small enterprises & farmers. The PROSPER Coordination Unit was created to facilitate donor harmonisation. The PCU was working closely with the implementing partners (Bangladesh Bank, PKSF, Microcredit Regulatory Authority and Institute of Microfinance). The implementing partners were responsible for programme implementation but it required occasional support from development partners. PCU helped donors to quickly and effectively meet these requests from implementation partners. The strategic oversight of the overall programme was with the Prosper Steering Committee (PSC) chaired by the Governor of Bangladesh Bank. The Prosper Coordination Committee (PCC) chaired by Managing Director of PKSF (apex microfinance body) coordinated amongst implementing partners and donors and was likely to be of most direct relevance to the PCU. Periodically donors met as a group to discuss Prosper and oversee and guide PCU. The PCU was pro-actively contributing to harmonise donor’s funds flow, accounting, audit, procurement and monitoring requirements, so that the administrative transaction costs for donors and programme implementers can be kept manageable.
Services:
The PCU ensured an excellent co-ordination amongst the development partners and effectively responded to demand from implementation partners. The PCU undertook the following tasks:
- support to donor consortium members,
- coordination of related activities with Bangladesh Bank, Microfinance Regulatory Authority, PKSF – Palli Karma Shayak Foundation (apex microfinance body), Institute of Microfinance (InM), and a number of partner NGOs of PKSF, and
- knowledge management (to support development partners, PCC, and Knowledge Management Specialist).
MSL provided microcredit advisory service along with accounts and field management support.
Timeframe: April, 2008 - December, 2015
Realated Countries: Bangladesh
Client(s): DFID
Categories: PFM and Financial Management and Audit and Accounting, SME and Microfinance and Microenterprise, Large-scale fund management and contracting of consultancy services, Project Management and Implementation
