Jordan hosts the Arab world's first ever conference on microcredit next month aimed at devising ways of alleviating poverty, organisers said Sunday.
"Microcredit should serve as an effective tool to combat poverty and unemployment," Jordanian Planning Minister Bassem Awadallah told a news conference.
He said that the October 10-13 Middle East, Africa Region Microcredit Summit will try to chart a strategy to develop an effective programme of microcredit in the region.
"Poverty is increasing day after day in the Arab world," said Nasser Kahtani, executive director of the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organisations (AGFUND).
Poverty afflicts around 30 to 40 percent of the region's population of more than 380 million people, Kahtani said.
"Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa is not part of the priorities of the strategies" of regional governments, he said.
The conference will examine how governments and development agencies can best "reach the poorest", empower women and build financially self-sufficient institutions by encouraging microcredit.
Jordan is organising the conference along with AGFUND and the Microcredit Summit Campaign, based in Washington DC - which includes advocates, donor agencies, international financial institutions and non-governmental organisations. The campaign was launched in 1997 with the aim of identifying and providing microcredit to 100 million of the world's poorest families by the end of 2005.
Around 500 experts from 50 countries are expected to attend the forum. Its conclusions will be submitted to the United Nations, which declared 2005 the year of microcredit.
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