Government gives its blessing

Business Reporter
THE Government is willing to engage stakeholders in the financial service industry including the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to raise awareness on promoting environmentally friendly practices within the sector.
Environment, Water and Climate Deputy Minister Engineer Simon Musanhu said this on the sidelines of the two-day Green Micro-Finance conference which started in Harare on Monday.

“Much awareness should be raised in micro-finance institutions to ensure that they become socially and environmentally responsible citizens,” he said.

Eng Musanhu said that there should be more dialogue on issues that raise awareness on the environment within the MFIs.
“It is quite important to have such dialogues to raise environmental issues within the MFIs as they are the major financiers in this economy which is now being driven by the small to medium enterprises.

“Its saddening that most companies boast of being financially responsible yet they should be socially and environmentally responsible as well,” he said.

He added that the MFIs should insist on scorecards on environmental issues from their clients when they apply for loans.
Eng Musanhu also said that the challenge was in enforcing the MFIs and the borrowers to comply with the environmental laws.

He also urged the RBZ to assist the MFIs with credit lines that contain environmentally friendly policies and assist them with lending structures.

The organisers of the conference, Rise Initiative and Mr Geert Schuite, who was the main speaker concurred with Eng Musanhu on raising the awareness in the greening of the MFIs saying that this had social and economic benefits through investing in sustainable green microfinance.

“Greening microfinance entails encouraging eco-friendly micro-enterprises, and supporting micro- finance clients’ use of renewable energy, environmentally friendly income generation activities and for microfinance institutions to learn about carbon credit aggregation and benefits for the development sector in an effort to address poverty,” they said.