CONTEXT AND JUSTIFICATION

Since the crisis of the banking structure in the Eighties, in central Africa, and the severe reorganization which was followed from there, there is a real problem of financing of the activity of production in the Central Africa subregion. The bulk of the industrial base of the subregion, except the subsidiaries of the international companies, is composed of the units of small or very small size:
majority evolving/moving on the market only in an informal way. These units cannot claim with the financing of the traditional banks, for lack of sufficient guarantees. They turn more and more to the institutions of micro finance, made up of cooperatives, saving and credit banks and associations.

The majority of the institutions of micro finance operate inside a legal and regulatory framework which gives global indicators on their management structures and their mode of control resources but not enough on the principles of governance. The situations are very different from an institution to another. For example, there does not exist in many of these institutions, structures with the Board of directors looks which have a well defined mandate or a given duration. Transparency in management, moral ethics and justice are often absents in such institutions of which leaders, often devote themselves to unauthorized practices by the financial and businesses deontology.

The micro finance, as a decentralized financing tool, is likely to better answer waitings of many populations and manufacturing units, of share its proximity with them, its flexibility in matter of guarantees and its mode of management. However, in the absence of principles of governance, the populations (shareholders and recipients) are often victims of abuse, for several reasons. The managers (often shareholders), because they are poorly trained, are not able always to propose to the target population, services which tally with its waitings.Other managers, because dodgies and covetous, disappear with the saving collected to populations in addition extremely stripped, without justice being able to be returned to the victims.

The COBAC (Commission bancaire de l'Afrique centrale), which is the watchdog in matter of institutions if credit, is charged to propose an institutional framework likely to protect the saver and to allow to the micro finance companies to reach their objectives of fight against poverty,by supporting the disadvantaged populations in their productive initiatives.

The cooperative phenomenon developed in the whole of the countries of the subregion, at different speeds and this movement deserves to be supported. The workshop comes at named the right moment more especially as one assists more and more, to an effective disengagement of the States of the productive sectors of the economy, the private sector being called to ensure the changing. It is thus imperative to set up policies, norms and standards in the daily management of these financial institutions of proximity, so that they can play an increasingly important part in the fight against the poverty and reach the Millenium Development Goals, in central Africa.

OBJECTIVES OF THE WORKSHOP

The principal objective of this workshop is to reinforce the capacities of the organizations of the civil society, the Regional Economic Communities, and the Member States, on the questions of good governance of company.

The immediate objectives of the workshop are to examine:

• Strenghts and weaknesses of the governance of the institutions of the micro finance in central Africa, and solutions to promote and to implement for transparency, sense of responsability, effectiveness, efficiency, integrity and justice in the management of these institutions;
• remaining challenges to raise, and
• good practices and strategies for their diffusion.

FORMAT OF THE WORKSHOP

Plenary meetings and sessions of working groups will be organized during the workshop.

The ECA will present two documents during plenary meetigns: the first is a conceptual note on the African context for the promotion of the principles of good governance of company. This note raises a certain number of questions relating to the governance of company in Africa, and should make it possible to engage debates on the various initiatives in progress on the African continent to promote the good governance of company in particular.

The second document refers to an analysis of functioning of micro finance institutions and micro companies in the countries of the subregion starting from case studies. This analysis will emphasize the weaknesses and the forces of the institutions of micro finance in matter of governance: it will provide the foundations of work during sessions of groups.

These presentations will be supplemented by the experiments of the invited organizations of micro finance. Their representatives at the workshop will present notes on the forces and the weaknesses of their institutions and the indications on their waitings with respect to the authorities, private sector and strategies to improve their performances and their contribution to the fight against poverty in central Africa.

Three topics are retained for work of groups, namely:

• ethical and moral dimension in matter of micro finance and mode of support relating to it which could profit to such structures to allow to fight effectively against poverty in the subregion of central Africa;
• mode of operational management of the micro and small industry, essential component of industrial base in the subregion, being understood that the structure of the capital in such manufacturing units is primarily family. How to make to set up a style of participative management in such units and to protect the employee who works there?
• legal standards and their incidences on the governance of the institutions of micro finance. Which are the answers observed and how to enrich them for an effective and judicious implication by all the parts? (members, users and personnel).

AWAITED RESULTS

The awaited results of this workshop will relate to the measures to be taken and the fields where decision makers, the members of Parliament and the civil society should focus their actions so applying out better practices in matter of governance of the companies, in particular that of the institutions of micro finance. It is indeed a question of limiting the abuses in matter of business management of the private sector, particularly sector of the micro finance which in the modern economies belong to the public thing (owing to the fact that they engage of the personnel, distribute benefit and render services to the target populations) in order to make sure that the man is well the ultimate beneficiary of the economic activity.

The whole of work into plenary and sessions of groups should be taken into account within the framework of the preparation of the Codes and Standards for the governance of company, in Africa.