Myanmar has undergone a series of political and economic reforms after decades of authoritarianism. Severe underdevelopment after nearly a century of economic stagnation poses fundamental challenges for its 54 million inhabitants. Poverty is still a major issue and access to adequate basic services such as healthcare and education are still low.

Impact figures 2016

To catalyse the microfinance sector in Myanmar, Triodos Investment Management, Dutch development bank FMO, and American impact investor Accion joined together to further develop Dawn Microfinance into a leading microfinance institution. Three funds managed by Triodos Investment Management (Triodos Fair Share Fund, Triodos Sustainable Finance Foundation, Triodos Microfinance Fund) jointly hold a 30% equity stake.

Femke Bos, Fund Manager of Triodos Microfinance Fund and Triodos Fair Share Fund, has an active role in the board of directors of Dawn Microfinance: “As international partners we can provide expertise and knowledge and facilitate Dawn’s management to develop the institution’s operations, strategy and governance structure. To this end, we took them on field trip to some leading financial institutions in Cambodia in December 2015. We also advised to replace the cash books by a management information system, which allowed the loan officers to service more clients.” In 2016, this contributed to the significant growth of the total number of clients, from 54,000 to close to 70,000.