Les liaisons fructueuses - RUIG-GIAN

Benefits to Project Partners
Thanks to this GIAN-supported project, fruitful partnerships
have developed between the ILO, the GIDS
and the UNIGE. In the framework of the Master’s
(M.A.) programme in Globalisation and Social Regulation
(DESS Globalisation et régulation sociale) offered
jointly by the UNIGE and University of Lausanne, sixmonth
remunerated internships in the “Social Finance
Programme” of the Employment Department of the ILO
have been provided to eight students. More students will
be employed in the future. This represents an opportunity
for students to become directly involved in the field of microfinance
in developing countries. Since 2006 the ILO
coordinator of the GIAN research project lectures on
microfinance to students of the M.A. programme as
well as to students of other courses at the UNIGE
(Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences).
The GIAN project allowed all academic institutions
to field extensive empirical surveys with graduate
students. Moreover it exposed each partner institution
to different perspectives on microfinance and
the best ways to promote it.
As a follow-up of this work, the ILO launched in
2008 a major action research programme “Microfinance
for decent work” which is testing different
delivery techniques by MFIs that seek to address
decent work deficits like child labour, over-indebtedness,
unsafe working conditions, precarity and
social exclusion.
From left to right, Daniel Fino, Yves Flückiger, Edouard Dommen, Bernd Balkenhol and Jean-Michel Servet at the
international conference, November 2005.
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