Research Meets Africa - Committee

Scientific Committee

• ASHTA Arvind, Professor of Law, Finance and Financial Regulation, Burgundy School of Business, Dijon, France
• BALEMBA Eddy, PhD and Professor, Catholic University of Bukavu, République Démocratique du Congo
• BAUWIN Mathilde, Doctor and Research Project Officer, Appui au Développement Autonome (ADA), Luxembourg
• KALALA Frédéric, Chair in microfinance at CCAM/UPC, Protestant University of Congo, République Démocratique du Congo
• LABIE Marc, Co-director of Centre for European Research in Microfinance (CERMI), Belgium
• MIGNONDO TCHIBOZO Achille, Research Coordinator for Innovations for Poverty Action -Francophone West Africa
• NIYONGABO Ephrem, Expert advisor in monetary policy and financial market, Central Bank of Burundi
• O’REILLY Martin, Professor and Director of the Centre for Professional Studies, Kampala International University, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
• SILVA AFONSO Joana, Doctor and lecturer, University of Portsmouth, UK
• SEIBEL Hans Dieter, Professor and founding member of the European Microfinance Platform, University of Cologne, Germany
• VIGANO' Laura, Professor and coordinator of FINDEV research group, University of Bergamo, Italy
• ZETZSCHE Dirk Andreas, ADA Chair in Financial Law-Inclusive Finance, University of Luxembourg

Arvind Ashta
Professor of finance, control and law, Burgundy School of Business (France)

Dr. Arvind Ashta is professor of Finance at the Burgundy School of Business, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté in Dijon, France and is a member of its research center CEREN, EA 7477. He has taught Microfinance as a visiting faculty lecturer in Brussels, Chicago, New Delhi, Pforzheim and Winterthur, and provided student seminars in Barcelona, Hertfordshire, Kathmandu, Mysore and Nancy. He is a member of research associations (CERMi, RRI) and has been associated with the European Microfinance Platform. He has over sixty publications in international journals. He has edited "Advanced Technologies for Microfinance", co-edited "MIS in Microfinance" and "Slow Management" and authored "Microfinance: Battling a Wicked Problem". He is a member of a club of micro-investors.

Eddy Balemba
PhD and professor, Catholic University of Bukavu, République Démocratique du Congo

Eddy Balemba Kanyurhi is an associate professor in the Faculty of Economics and Management at Catholic University of Bukavu, South Kivu, DR Congo. He has a PhD degree in Economics and Management from the Warocqué School of Business and Economics in Mons, Belgium. He has a master degree in Microfinance from Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (Université Libre de Bruxelles). His research interests include Microfinance, Banking Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Gender Analyis and Psychometric Analysis. Eddy has published articles in international publications such as: International Journal of Bank Marketing, Strategic Change, Innovations and has forthcoming articles in Mondes en Développement, Finance, Stratégie et Contrôle.

Mathilde Bauwin
PhD and Research Project officer, ADA, Luxembourg

Mathilde Bauwin is currently Research Project Officer at ADA, a Luxembourgish NGO promoting inclusive finance in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is responsible for knowledge collection, creation and management on several topics, such as social performance, green microfinance, alternative finance for micro- and small entrepreneurs, etc. She also works on the evaluation of projects, on the designing and implementation of an impact measurement system within ADA. As a SPI4 qualified auditor, she assesses the social performance management of some ADA partners.

Before joining ADA in 2017, she worked at the French NGO ADICE as a project officer focusing on socio-professional integration of disadvantaged young people, and later at the Tunisian Microfinance Institution Enda *Inter-Arabe as a research officer.

She holds a PhD in Economics and two Master Degrees in Political Science and Development Economics.

Frédéric Kalala
Professor and Chair in microfinance at the Protestant University of Congo

M. Kalala is professor and chair of the Congolese/German Microfinance Centre at the Protestant University of Congo. He is also Manager of the Funds for Financial Inclusion (FPM asbl), an investment fund in microfinance in DRC, a country where he also created an MFI, COOPEC GUILGAL in 2012. Furthermore, he is also an international consultant in evaluating microfinance institutions.

In collaboration with the funds of the German education services (DAAD: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) he designed and created a Master in Microfinance, certified by the Ministry of Education of DRC. This programme was designed on the real needs of the industry in DRC and Central Africa. Each year it hosts local students as well as 80% of foreign students (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Comoros, Zambia, etc). The programme has the advantage of integrating perfectly the academic requirements (60%) and the professional ones (practical work, internships, market analysis, field work, etc). It is the only programme of its kind in Africa.

As an international expert, Frédéric Kalala intervenes in programmes concerning sectorial evaluations (financial education, consumer’s protection in financial services, etc.) and institutional evaluations (market analysis, business plans, training of agents and managers of microfinance institutions). He also participates in the strategic steering of the Fund of Financial inclusion in DRC and of his MFI, which counts more than 15.000 clients, with an outstanding credit around 2.000.000 USD.

Marc Labie
Co-director of Centrer for European Research in Microfinance (CERMI), Belgium

Marc Labie is a professor at the Warocqué School of Business and Economics, University of Mons (UMONS) where he teaches organization studies and management. He is also a visiting professor at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (SBS-EM), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium, and a co-director of the Centre for European Research in Microfinance (CERMi). In the past, he has also been lecturing in various other universities including the Université de Liège (2004-2009) and Harvard University (FIPED Executive Program at the HIID and the Kennedy School of Government – 1998-2011) and has worked in microfinance organizations in various countries including Benin, Bolivia, Colombia, Haïti, the Dominican Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco and Peru. He has co-edited with Beatriz Armendariz The Handbook of Microfinance (World Scientific Publishing, 2011), and, with Isabelle Guérin and Jean-Michel Servet, The Crises of Microcredit (Zed Books, 2015).

Contact: Marc.LABIE@umons.ac.be

Achille Mignondo Tchibozo
Research Coordinator for Innovations for Poverty Action - Francophone West Africa

Statistician Economist, Achille MIGNONDO TCHIBOZO is Research Coordinator for Innovations for Poverty Action -Francophone West Africa (IPA -FWA). Since 2017 he supports the coordination of "Sahel (Burkina-Faso-Niger-Mauritania-Senegal) Adaptive Social Protection Impact Evaluation" and "Enhancing access to index-based agricultural weather insurance in Burkina Faso: a new marketing approach" with technical support to Ivory Cost ‘s country teams.

Passionate about research and development, he was a UN Volunteer as National Assistant Economist for Monitoring and Evaluation and Knowledge Management of the Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development Unit of UNDP in Benin. Expert in monitoring and evaluation of the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES), for the implementation of the evaluation mechanism of the first Strategic Plan for the Development of CAMES, he is also World Bank’s Consultant in Benin, in Guinea (Conakry) and Niger where he worked on social protection, higher graduates education and skills development.

Wycliffe Ngwabe
Digital Finance and innovations expert, UNCDF, Sierra Leone

Wycliffe Ngwabe is a multifaceted Digital Finance and Technology Champion in emerging markets currently working with the UNCDF as a Digital Finance and innovations expert in in Sierra Leone. He has more than a decade of experience in program management, digital finance and telecom distribution and has worked for one of the leading telecoms in the World.

His areas of expertise include; Policy and regulation support to central banks, designing and implementing access and usage of digital financial products, value chain finance, government to People payments, capacity building of partners in the private and public sectors, partnership management, project management, strategy formulation and implementation, Bulk payments design and implementation, data analysis, retail operation management and customer service management.

With an office at the central bank, Wycliffe offers technical assistance Support to Bank of Sierra Leone in formulating policies and regulations to unlock financial inclusion in Sierra Leone. Among the policies currently supported are; the sandbox framework, consumer protection and Digital identity powered by blockchain for financial inclusion.

Before joining UNCDF, Wycliffe Ngwabe was a resident consultant at the UNCDF and prior to that he was a projects Manager at Airtel Uganda (project manager, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Funded project), where he was part of the team that rolled out a hybrid of super-agent and master –agent model partnering with over 14 strong banks and 42 distributors to lubricate a strong retail agent network of over 42,000 with float (e-value) and accelerated customer acquisition from 1.2M to 3M at the point he left. He holds a Master’s Degree with specialisation in financial management from the AMITY University of India. He is fluent in English and Luganda and has a good working knowledge of Swahili.

Ephrem Niyongabo
Economist at World Bank Group, Burundi

Ephrem Niyongabo is a Burundi national. He has worked as an Economist at the World Bank since February 2018.
Previously, he worked as Expert Advisor to the Board in charge of Monetary Policy and Financial Markets at the Bank of the Republic of Burundi (BRB), from November 2015 to February 2018.

He also worked as Senior Research Economist in Private Sector Development, Regional Integration and Trade Policies at the Institute for Economic Development in Burundi (IDEC) think tank where he conducted and coordinated research, analysis, and synthesis on private sector development, regional integration and trade policies issues between May 2011 and October 2015.

He published research works in specialized journals and conducted a number of consultancy assignments in the field of economic policy analysis and formulation as well as capacity building on behalf of national and international institutions operating in Burundi, such as the African Development Bank, Trade Mark East Africa, the United Nations Development Program, the Belgian Technical Cooperation, the African Capacity Building Foundation, the Ministry in charge of Trade and Industry and the Ministry in charge of Regional Integration.

Ephrem Niyongabo has extensive experience in Microfinance research. He worked as a permanent researcher within the Centre for European Research in Microfinance (CERMi) in Belgium, where he studied macroeconomic aspects (such as regulation and public policies of local governments, central banks and international donors) of the development of microfinance from October 2007 to January 2011 in the frame of his doctoral research.

Ephrem Niyongabo holds a PhD in Economics and Management obtained from the University of Mons in Belgium in 2011. He also holds a degree in Advanced Development studies from the University of Liège in Belgium in 2007 and in International Economics from the University of Bejaia in Algeria in 2004.

Martin O'reilly
Professor and Director of the Centre for Professional Studies, Kampala International University, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Martin O'Reilly is a professor at Kampala International University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is Director of the Centre for Professional Studies and works closely with organizations - especially MFIs - to 'make their good better and their better best'. His areas of special interest are customer relationship management, financial education for women, and ways to select and prepare future managers from current staff in an organisation. Prior to his appointment in Kampala International University, he was Director of the Centre for Microfinance and Community Economic Development at Uganda Martyrs University, Uganda. While there, he worked closely with Microfinance African Institutions Network (MAIN) to develop curriculas for microfinance education.

Hans Dieter Seibel  

Professor and founding member of the European Microfinance Platform, University of Cologne, Germany

Hans Dieter Seibel is a professor emeritus at Cologne University. He also taught at the universities of Dortmund in Germany, Monrovia in Liberia, Lagos in Nigeria* and Princeton in New Jersey. He is specialized in rural microfinance, Islamic microfinance, linkages between formal and informal finance including digital linkages of self-help groups with banks/MNOs, agricultural development bank reform, and MSME development. He did his first survey research on self-help groups as informal financial intermediaries in the 1960s in West Africa, followed by numerous projects, studies and consultancies of microfinance institutions and rural banks in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In 1988-1991 he was team leader of Linking Banks and Self-Help Groups in Indonesia, a joint project of GIZ and the Central Bank of Indonesia, which has also served as a model for the SHG banking program in India. In 1999-2001 he was the Rural Finance Advisor at IFAD in Rome and author of its Rural Finance Policy (2000). He also is a founding board member of the European Microfinance Platform. He is the author of "Financial Systems Development and Microfinance" and numerous other books and articles, and co-author of “From Microfinance to Inclusive Banking: Why Local Banking Works” (John Wiley & Sons, 2016).

Joana Silva Afonso
Doctor and lecturer, University of Portsmouth, UK;

Joana is a trained Economist and experienced Microfinance professional, both as a practitioner and a researcher. She has finished the European Microfinance Programme (EMP) with "Grande Distinction". The programme included a three month experience in the Dominican Republic where she developed her thesis: "The role of loan officers in the prevention of overindebtedness - the case of Banco ADOPEM", and contributed to the research project “Microfinance in Crisis”, funded by the European Investment Bank.

Laura Viganó
Professor of Banking at the University of Bergamo, Italy

Laura has been Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business administration from 2007 to 2012. 
From 2001 to 2010, she launched and directed the first international Master in Microfinance, jointly offered by the University of Bergamo, CIPSI (an Italian NGO’s network), and Giordano Dell’Amore Foundation (Finafrica-Milan, where she was Scientific Director). She currently coordinates the “FinDev-Finance and Development” research group at the University of Bergamo and is editor of the Journal “Savings and Development”.  She consults for research institutes and international development agencies, with major experiences in Africa.
Her research interests comprise of credit risk management and credit scoring, ethics and finance, microfinance, agricultural and rural finance (she spent a study and research period at The Ohio State University – Rural Finance Group), risks and insurance (among others: disaster risk management, index-based insurance). She recently conducted a research project in Ethiopia on farmer vulnerability to (mainly climatic) risks.

Dirk Andreas Zetzsche
ADA Chair in Financial Law-Inclusive Finance, University of Luxembourg

Chairholder Prof. Zetzsche, LLM (Toronto), is a professor of law as well as the study director of the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Law and Regulation of Inclusive Finance since March 2016. Since July 2012, Professor Zetzsche is also one of the (non-executive) directors of the Centre for Business and Corporate Law at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Prof. Zetzsche completed his law studies at Heinrich Heine University, where he obtained a Doctor of law in 2004 on securities and corporate law, after having completed his LLM at the University of Toronto in Canada. While at Heinrich Heine University, he also completed his award-winning habilitation thesis on collective investment schemes in 2012 and was granted the venia legendi for private law, business law, comparative law, law and economics as well as law and ethics, before being called upon to take over the Propter Homines Chair of Banking and Securities Law at the University of Liechtenstein in 2012.

Organising Committee

• Linda SZELEST, R&D Project Officer, ADA, Luxembourg
• Mathilde BAUWIN, R&D Project Officer, ADA, Luxembourg

Contact: rmateam@ada-microfinance.lu