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MICROCREDIT SUMMIT

Meet begins today to aid the poorest

Organisers ask AL to call off hartal, govt for security

STAR REPORT
A four-day conference on microfinancing in Asia, set to explore programmes to provide 100 million ultra-poor with microloan, begins in Dhaka today in a downbeat mood because of a hartal.
Organisers of the Asia Pacific Region Microcredit Summit at the Sheraton Hotel yesterday expressed disappointment over the general strike, called by the Awami Jubo League for today in the wake of police action against demonstrators in earlier strikes by the main opposition Awami League (AL).
About 1,400 delegates from home and abroad, including Queen Sofia of Spain, South African First Lady
eers on Sunday because of the hartal call.
"We are worried that we would not be able to bring all participants to the meeting venue as they were staying in different locations in the city," Salehuddin told journalists.
Accompanied by Muhammad Yunus, founder of the famed Grameen Bank that introduced microloans for the poor two decades ago, foreign dignitaries including Queen Sofia travelled to Comilla to see for themselves microcredit programmes run by the NGO.
The first microcredit summit was held in Washington in 1997, setting off the campaign for bringing 100 million people under the programme by 2005.
Central bank governors of six countries, including Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines, and development partners, academics, lawyers, political leaders, corporate leaders and government officials of the region are joining the gala event.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development, Department for International Development and the World Bank are co-organisers of the summit.
The conference will also help formulate strategies to achieve the millennium development goal set at the Millennium Summit in 2000.
Zanele Mbeki and former Indian defence minister Sharad Pawar, will join the event.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will inaugurate the summit at 2:00 in the afternoon that will look at how to use microloans to benefit the poorest of the poor and Queen Sofia, Zanele Mbeki and Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman will also address the opening session.
The organisers called on the AL to call off the hartal and stay out of further such decisions during the summit, where AL President Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to address its closing session on February 19.
"We will meet the leader of the opposition (today) and request her to reconsider the programme," said Salehuddin Ahmed, managing director of Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation, local organiser of the summit.
From a press conference at the National Press Club, the organisers also asked the government to take security measures for hartal-hour travel of the delegates from Zia International Airport to the venue. Many foreign delegates have already arrived in Dhaka.
Sam Daley-Harris, director of the Washington-based Microcredit Summit Campaign, and Shafiqul Haque Chowdhury, managing director of Asa, one of the largest non-governmental organisations (NGOs), also spoke.
"We are disappointed … everything about the event management except hartal was brilliant, extraordinary and exquisite," Dally-Harris said.
The organisers have also written to the AL president, seeking help for smooth holding of the high-profile meet to map out an economic bailout for the poor.
TRAVEL TO COMILLA
The organisers were also forced to cut short on a field trip of summit-