Speaker Biography

Sven Enarsson, Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC), Sweden

Monique Cohen is President of Microfinance Opportunities, an not-for-profit which she founded in 2002.  She is a recognized expert on the poor’s use of financial services and client assessment, including market research and impact assessment in microfinance, and a leading proponent of the market-led agenda for microfinance.  Dr. Cohen is an authority on market demand for microinsurance and has pioneered the introduction of financial education for poor people in developing countries.  She designed and led the AIMS project at USAID in Washington, where she served as Senior Technical Advisor in the Office of Microenterprise Development, 1994-2002.  She is co-author with Jennefer Sebstad of Microfinance, Risk Management and Poverty, a paper commissioned by the World Bank for its 2000/2001 report on poverty, and Reducing Vulnerability, the Demand for Microinsurance.  Dr. Cohen has published extensively on microfinance and teaches at the University of Southern New Hampshire’s Microenterprise Development Institute and the Microfinance Training Program.  Monique Cohen has a Ph. D. from Clark University, Worcester Mass.