Our history

CCFD-Terre Solidaire wishes to strengthen its action in the economic and social fields, by relying on a player capable of using investment tools at the service of its social vision. CCFD-Terre Solidaire’s visionary approach is twofold.

• Creation of SIDI, whose shareholders waive their right to remuneration in order to maximize the social and environmental impact of the activities carried out.
• Creation of the 1st solidarity finance product with Crédit Coopératif: FCP Faim et Développement. This product enables savers to share the income from their investment with CCFD-Terre Solidaire, which uses this resource to help finance SIDI’s support mission.

To extend its action, SIDI is investing in the development of Local Investment Companies capable of directly financing and supporting local entrepreneurs. Several of them, such as SIPEM in Madagascar and INDES in Chile, are still active.

SIDI’s individual shareholders are grouped together in an association, Epargne Solidarité Développement. Today, the company has over 1,564 shareholders.

The 90s saw the boom in microfinance. SIDI is fully committed to this movement and supports microfinance institutions by meeting their equity and refinancing needs, and by offering them enhanced support to consolidate their technical skills and improve their governance. At the same time, SIDI is supporting the development of Mutuelles de Solidarité, enabling the most isolated populations to gain access to “alternative” financial services.

SIDI is a founding shareholder of CERUDEB, now Centenary Bank, which has become the^1st microfinance bank and^2nd national bank in Uganda!

A label dedicated to solidarity finance

SIDI obtains the FINANSOL label, just created, for its equity shares. The label guarantees shareholders that their investment really does contribute to financing income-generating activities with a high social and environmental impact, and that SIDI provides them with reliable, regular and transparent information.

SIDI’s strategic plan confirms the priority given to the rural world and its determination to increase its support for family farming. To this end, it provides support to producers’ organizations and SMEs sourcing from small producers.

In order to generate significant leverage effects for the rural world in Africa, SIDI is innovating by creating, with two European investors (Alterfin and Etimos), the Fonds européen de financement solidaire pour l’Afrique (FEFISOL), the first European fund dedicated to rural microfinance in Africa!

Beginning of work with CCFD Terre Solidaire on ecological and social transition. Three years later, SIDI’s strategic plan confirms the shift towards ecological and social transition, which now underpins SIDI’s action.

To reinforce the tailor-made support it provides to its partners, SIDI has created the ACTES Foundation under the aegis of the Fondation Terre Solidaire, which is recognized as a public utility.

The ACTES Foundation focuses on four areas: resolving crisis situations, ecological and social transition, community finance and improving social performance. Authorized to receive donations and raise public subsidies, the ACTES Foundation provides additional resources dedicated to support, an essential pillar of SIDI’s mission as a social investor.

After ten years of partnership,
Soluti Finance
an institution dedicated to financing MFIs and agricultural entities in East Africa, became a subsidiary of SIDI following the withdrawal of its founding and majority shareholder, Strømme Foundation. For SIDI, this investment contributes directly to the achievement of its development objectives in East Africa.

This is FEFISOL’s closing year, as provided for in the shareholders’ agreement. Building on the fund’s success, its two founders, SIDI and Alterfin, have been actively working on the creation of FEFISOL II, which aims to be even more ambitious in terms of social and environmental performance. FEFISOL II will start operations in 2022. Eventually, it will be implemented in over 28 African countries, and should support 110 microfinance institutions or agricultural entities certified as fair trade and organic and sourcing from smallholders.

SIDI turns 40! With the adoption of its new strategic plan, SIDI continues to defend and promote the originality of its model, that of finance based on solidarity and the pursuit of social and environmental performance above all else.