Micro Start, (Action des Femmes pour le Développement) is a microfinance institution based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It was founded by eight Burkinabe women, each of them experienced in microcredit or entrepreneurship. Eager to use their experience and commitment to help poor women entrepreneurs, the group founded Micro Start using their own capital, and started providing microcredit services to women entrepreneurs in 2000. Members of this original team continue to manage the organization’s day-to-day activities and drive it forward under the institution’s core values of solidarity, transparency, social justice, equality, and Christian faith.

Micro Start’s principal objective is to become a professional microfinance institution offering financial services, advice, and trainings in order to:

•    Create or reinforce the income-generating activities of Burkinabe women
•    Collect obligatory and voluntary savings in order to foster clients’ financial independence
•    Create or improve solidarity among solidarity group members
•    Provide women with access to necessary materials and equipment for their businesses
•    Build women entrepreneurs’ skills in management, business administration, etc.
•    Create jobs
•    Improve the living conditions of its clients’ communities

Micro start currently offers the following products to its clients:
•    Solidarity group loans: Micro Start’s leading loan product. Provided to self-selected groups of 2-10 women entrepreneurs. Starting loan amount is approximately $50.
•    Individual loans: Provided to female and male clients with larger capacities, many of whom have “graduated” from solidarity groups.
•    Motorbike loans: Provided to women and men who would like to purchase motorbikes. These motorbikes are important tools for entrepreneurs who must transport products to and from markets for sale.
•    Bicycle loans: Provided to women and men who would like to purchase bicycles.
•    Gas stove loans: Provided to clients who would like to purchase gas stoves in order to stop cooking with wood and charcoal (which is harmful to the environment).
•    Obligatory and voluntary savings accounts Through its network of 5 branch offices, Micro Start serves the areas of Ouagadougou, Koupéla, Zorgho, Mogtédo, and Boulsa. True to its original purpose of serving poor women, Micro Start serves a 92% female client base with a continually evolving selection of appropriate, high-quality financial products and services.