Panelists: Microfinance

Christina E. Barrineau,
Chief Technical Advisor,
United Nations Capital Development Fund

Christina Barrineau has recently joined the United Nations as Chief Technical Advisor for the International Year of Microcredit 2005. As such, her efforts focus on bringing global attention to the importance of financial systems in achieving the millennium development goals. Christina is responsible for coordinating the activities of countless country teams of central bankers, universities, government officials, and private and public sector bankers; as well as organizing an international awareness campaign.

Prior to the United Nations, Christina worked for five years with Women's World Banking where she established and managed a global network for banking innovation in microfinance. The network comprised 22 financial institutions that collectively provided a wide range of financial services to more than 14 million poor and low-income clients. While with WWB, she worked with leading international financial institutions such as Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and Banco Santander, as well as with national and microfinance banks such as Bank Rakayat Indonesia, the Government Savings Bank of Thailand, Equity Building Society in Kenya, Mibanco in Peru and SEWA Bank in India.

Christina has established microfinance programs for financial institutions around the world. Before joining WWB, she spent ten years as an independent international advisor in the field of financial systems development. In this role, she negotiated partnerships between financial institutions to design products and delivery processes for micro, small and medium business enterprises. Among other accolades, she has pioneered work on pension plans and asset building models for informal sector workers. Christina holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia and is a Canadian national.

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