The Microfinance and Self-employment Environment for the Socially Excluded: Country Report Czech Republic

This country report on the Czech Republic's "Microfinance and Self-employment Environment for the Socially Excluded" presents the following findings:

• A high proportion of poor people are found among the unemployed;
• "Child poverty" is mostly found in single-parent families;
• The biggest source of social exclusion is an increasing unemployment rate among young people;
• The "Roma" an ethnic minority, are more frequently at risk of social exclusion.

The report examines the following aspects of the Czech Republic's environment for microfinance and self-employment:

• The entrepreneurial context;
• The policy for micro-enterprises;
• The "welfare bridge";
• The financial bridge for the socially excluded;
• Funding for microcredit providers.

The report concludes by listing the following lessons from other European countries that policy-makers in the Czech Republic might consider replicating:

• Search for scale and impact of policy instruments: the variety of small loan schemes with different conditions and rules make efficiency gains and promotion difficult. The Czech republic would do well to learn from France that has a large, nationwide single instrument that allows for scale and impact;
• Conduct more research and collect relevant data for development of a micro-enterprise or self-employment strategy: The focus on small enterprises makes it difficult to find relevant sources of information on microfinance and self-employment in the Czech Republic.