Essma Ben Hamida
For over 15 years, Essma Ben Hamida travelled extensively as a journalist and UN consultant, specializing in political, humanitarian and development issues. Frustrated with the slow pace of development despite innumerable UN resolutions and development projects, Essma returned to Tunisia in 1990 and co-founded the NGO Enda with her late husband, Michael Cracknell to contribute to the country's development and financial and economic inclusion. Enda Tamweel is the largest and pioneer microfinance institution in Tunisia serving around 500 000 active clients, 60% women from 109 branches all over the country. Over the past 30 years, Enda reached out to 1,300 million Tunisian among the poorest segments. Today Essma is member of the board of Enda Tamweel and chairperson of the NGO enda inter-arabe which offers non financial services including business training and coaching, financial education, support to marketing, diverse cultural and social activities in the most disadvantaged urban and rural areas of Tunisia. Enda launched a payment company to contribute to the digital inclusion of the low income population and is working now on an Academy for entrepreneurship to disseminate the entrepreneurial culture among youth and help in the creation of more jobs for the 700 000 unemployed in Tunisia.
Essma received several awards including the distinction of “Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in the Middle East and North Africa” by the prestigious Schwab Foundation and the World Economic Forum (Marrakech October 2010) and an award from the Lebaneese NGO, Takreem as the "Outstanding Arab Woman" of the year 2019.
- Visit their website
- enda inter-arabe
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- Model
- For-profit Social Enterprise
- Sectors
- Youth Perspectives; Entrepreneurship; Sustainable Development
- Headquarters
- Tunisia
- Areas of Impact
- Middle East & North Africa, Africa, Tunisia
enda inter-arabe
enda inter-arabe is one of the highest rated microfinance institutions in the world and the only best practice microfinance institution in Tunisia. It has 1,000 staff (over 80% with a college degree) in 65 locations around the country. It serves close to 200,000 active clients, with a gross loan portfolio of over $110 million and a repayment rate of 95% . enda has a five-diamond rating on MixMarket as well as alpha financial rating and an “Excellent” social rating from specialized rating agency MicroRate.
enda provides lines of credit with strong customer service to overcome the dependence mind-set. It provides business and agricultural loans, and specialized products such as education and home improvement loans. Enda also provides business development services to clients, including financial literacy, training, marketing assistance through exhibitions and trade fairs, and onsite counselling services.
To date, enda has distributed over 1 million loans, benefiting over 330,000 borrowers and leading its microentrepreneurs to create at least 25,000 additional jobs. Further impact includes improved school attendance, the empowerment of women, and career coaching and job training for enda’s staff. Enda also has one of the highest budgets among microfinance institutions in the region for capacity building to create a cadre of middle managers, with 90% of their staff coming from the low-income neighbourhoods and villages where enda has branches.
Despite its strong position in the Tunisian market, enda regularly reduces its interest rates to serve its customers better. enda has been actively lobbying for a sustainable microfinance sector in Tunisia to open the market and reach out to the country’s 1 million potential microcredit customers. By expanding into rural areas (50% of its 100 branches by 2015), enda aims to contribute to job creation and the empowerment of rural women. In 2011, enda launched a new product for unemployed youths to create start-ups to contribute to job creation and the economic development of the downtrodden and the remotest areas of the country. enda intends to finance the start-ups of some 20,000 young microentrepreneurs.
awardees
Our awardees
Eugenio Scannavino
Luis Szarán
