This year the Global Microcredit Summit was held in Valladolid, Spain from November 14 - 17, 2011. The patron of the summit was Queen Sofia of Spain who is a major supporter of microfinance. She not only inaugurated the Summit but also keenly participated in a number of discussions through the first two days.

Samit Ghosh participated in four panel discussions:

1.  Human Capital: Why Invest in People? How to Develop Skilled and Committed MFI Staff in Order to Reach Strategic Objectives, organized by Grameen Foundation; where he shared experiences of managing people during the crisis and on Ujjivan being recognized as the Best Company to Work for;

2. Lessons from Indian microfinance crisis, organized by Grameen Capital; where he highlighted the future of the sector in India with the new microfinance bill;

3. Microfinance for Safe Drinking Water, organized Hindustan Unilever; where Parinaam highlighted the success of the Jalmitra Program; and,

4. Grameen Global Network: Experience sharing & Program Update, organized by Grameen Trust. Ujjivan was invited to be a panelist at the session chaired by Professor Mohammed Yunus

Prof. Yunus talked about the pre-mature demise of microfinance falsely trumpeted by the media after the Indian crisis. He emphasized that microfinance was thriving around the world and needed it more given the current economic and financial crisis in the world. Samit Ghosh shared the best practices of Grameen Bank that have been adopted in Ujjivan: Importance to supporting education for the children of customers; Employee relationship – unique staff representative interactions; and on Grameen II and the phasing out of joint liability system as a solution to the current crisis