The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) is a consortium of 33 public and private development agencies working together to expand access to financial services for the poor in developing countries. CGAP was created in 1995 by these aid agencies and industry leaders to help create permanent financial services for the poor on a large scale (often referred to as microfinance).
CGAP serves four groups of clients: development agencies; financial institutions including microfinance institutions; government policymakers and regulators; and other service providers, such as auditors and rating agencies. To each of these client groups, CGAP provides specialized services—advisory services, training, research and development, consensus building on standards, and information dissemination.
CGAP is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and operates on an annual budget of $10 million.[1]
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CGAP is housed at the World Bank, but operates as an independent entity. It has its own governance structure, with a board that includes practitioners and leaders from outside the donor community as well as member representation.[2]
CGAP consists of four interacting components:
The Consultative Group (CG) is the membership and governance body of CGAP. The CG has representatives from all of CGAP's member donors: multilateral agencies, bilateral agencies (development agency and/or ministry), and private foundations.[3]
Multilateral Member Donors
Bilateral Member Donors
Foundation Member Donors
The Microfinance Gateway, a project of CGAP, (www.microfinancegateway.org) is a comprehensive online resource for the global microfinance community. It includes research and publications, original articles, and organization and consultant profiles, as well as microfinance-related news items, announcements, events, and job opportunities.
Information available through the Microfinance Gateway is submitted by microfinance professionals or collected through staff research and is primarily in English. The Microfinance Gateway works with partner organizations in France/Luxembourg (GRET and ADA), Egypt (Sanabel Network), and Costa Rica (INCAE) to host French (french.microfinancegateway.org), Arabic (arabic.microfinancegateway.org), and Spanish affiliate language sites.
One full-time manager and one associate work on the Microfinance Gateway in Washington, DC, and four content managers work from a partner firm in India.
The Microfinance Gateway is a project of CGAP, but provides a platform for a diverse range of voices within the microfinance industry.