Speaker: Brian Branch, World Council of Credit Unions
How are credit unions helping to combat poverty worldwide? Dr. Branch will discuss his experience establishing credit-based savings programs throughout the world to help people living in poverty. He will describe how these programs work and what they have achieved. He will also compare them to “micro-credit” programs, which have achieved popularity as economic development tools in the developing world.
Brian Branch is President and CEO of World Council of Credit Unions, a position he has held since 2011. Dr. Branch has developed programs to update and expand the savings based financial services of credit unions worldwide. Dr. Branch has undertaken credit union development assignments in Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Mexico, Moldova, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, the Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia. He co-authored Striking the Balance in Microfinance: A Practical Guide to Mobilizing Savings (2002) with Janette Klaehn, and co-edited Safe Money (2000) with Glenn Westley.
Dr. Branch received his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990.