THE AWARD

Convinced that financial inclusion is an important tool for poverty alleviation, the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs - Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs launched the European Microfinance Award in 2005 to promote financial inclusion initiatives and highlight their innovating contribution in a particlar area, to the development of the sector.
The European Microfinance Award serves two parallel goals: rewarding excellence, and collecting and disseminating the most relevant practices for replication by others.

Since its launch in 2005, the European Microfinance Award covered many different topics such as:

  • "Innovation for Outreach" in 2006,
  • "Socially Responsible Microfinance" in 2008,
  • "Value Chain Finance" in 2010,
  • "Microfinance for Food Security" in 2012,
  • "Microfinance and the Environment" in 2014,
  • "Microfinance in Post-Disaster, Post-Conflict Areas and Fragiles States" in 2015,
  • "Microfinance and Access to Education" in 2016,
  • "Microfinance for Housing" in 2017,
  • "Financial Inclusion through Technology" in 2018,
  • “Strengthening Resilience to Climate Change” in 2019,
  • "Encouraging Effective & Inclusive Savings" in 2020,
  • "Inclusive Finance and Helath Care" in 2021,
  • "Financial Inclusion that Works for Women" in 2022

The Award of € 100, 000 for the winner and € 10,000 for the runners-up are granted by the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs - Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs and is jointly organised by the Ministry, the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) and the Inclusive Finance Network Luxembourg (InFiNe.lu).