If there’s any organisation that has done so much for Fiji’s micro enterprises, it is the South Pacific Business Development (SPBD) Fiji.
This can be attested to by its members, currently over 7000 women micro-entrepreneurs across Fiji whose lives have been touched and changed by its services and whose families have benefited in more ways than just monetary, whether it’s putting food on the table, sending their children to school, building or improving their homes and even in the fulfilment of village and church obligations.
As its founder Greg Casagrande pointed out, “the SPBD network is all about providing meaningful economic opportunity for thousands of hardworking and aspiring women entrepreneurs across Fiji and the Pacific.”
An American businessman and passionate social entrepreneur dedicated to the development of microfinance in the Pacific, Mr Casagrande was in Fiji this week to open SPBD Fiji’s Nausori branch, its first in Nausori and 10th branch Fiji-wide.
The secret of SPBD’s success is in its grassroots reach and maintaining that reach through its clockwork program of keeping in close contact with its members.
Aspiring micro-entrepreneurs are provided with small business training, unsecured credit and ongoing guidance and motivation to help them start and grow small income- generating businesses.
“All of our interactions with our members happen in villages. Each week across the Pacific, we hold nearly 2000 village-based meetings, each and every week of the year,” Mr Casagrande said.
“This is where the ongoing guidance and motivation happens. Once members have their businesses up and successfully going, we also provide financing for basic housing improvements and for childhood education.”
While officially opening the office, Mr Casagrande spoke directly to the handful of women present about the words of famous and successful American businessman Walt Disney who was attributed the quote: “the way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
“To our members, if your dream is to grow your income, like building an enduring business, or if your dream is to improve your home and your living conditions, or if your dream is to see your children graduate with a university education, please know that none of these dreams are beyond your hopes – they are all achievable,” he said.
Mr Casagrande’s leadership in microfinance in Fiji and the Pacific is unrivaled and the results of his visionary work with “the base of the pyramid micro-entrepreneurs” as he calls it, speak for themselves.
“We have been working here in Fiji since December 2010 and during that 13 plus years, we have now worked with over 20,000 women micro-entrepreneurs and we have provided them with over 32000 loans totaling over $100m in unsecured credit,” he said.
“Across the broader SPBD microfinance network, we have now worked with over 115,000 women micro-entrepreneurs and have provided them with over 300,000 unsecured loans totaling over $600m. So I like to think we are an organisation that ‘does’. We’re much more than an organisation that talks.”
SPBD has been working in the Pacific for nearly 25 years since its establishment in Samoa in January 2000 and today, its services are available across five Pacific countries – Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and here in Fiji.
