Fez – Morocco’s National Award for Micro-Entrepreneurship (PNME) awarded on November 19 31 candidates, including 18 women, for their original micro-projects.
The event was organized in Fez at the initiative of the Mohammed VI Center for the Support of Solidarity Microfinance (CMS), a subsidiary of the Mohammed V Foundation for Solidarity.
The winners, who were drawn from a pool of 146 candidates, received their awards during the ceremony on Friday. The awards celebrated nine different categories in the micro-entrepreneurship sector, including women and youth.
The event was organized in partnership with several stakeholders in the banking and financing sector, including the National Federation of Microcredit Associations (FNAM), the Citi Foundation, the Credit Agricole Group of Morocco, the Banque Populaire Group, the CDG Foundation, and Al Amana Microfinance.
The director of the CMS, Naima Sahil, stressed that this annual award event has become a significant part of the Moroccan entrepreneurship ecosystem. The awards are designed to reward micro-entrepreneurs who succeeded in setting up their projects. Sahli stressed the vital role of these enterprises in creating jobs.
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During the event, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the CMS, Mohamed Karim Mounir, highlighted the achievements and the growing number of winners since the launch of the PNME in 2012. He added that this ceremony is an opportunity to reward successful small businesses and is also a breeding ground for the exchange of solutions rising project holders need.
The president of the FNAM, Ahmed Ghazali, stressed the outstanding “courage and perseverance [of this year’s winning micro-entrepreneurs] despite the difficult circumstances related to the spread of Covid19.” He congratulated winners and highlighted the efforts allocated by the CMS’s executives to support the stakeholders and actors of Morocco’s microfinance sector.
The awards included CMS Special Award for Formalization, Human Development Award, Innovative Microenterprise Award, Female Microenterprise Award, Youth Microenterprise Award, Responsible Tourism Award, Rehabilitation Award, Green Economy Award, and Encouragement Award.
The activities of the 2021 Award recipients are mostly focused on crafts, services, local products, and agriculture.
