appropriate multilateral fora, to establish voluntary inter-
national standards of fiscal and contract transparency, 
such as the public disclosure of budget documentation, in-
cluding receipts and expenditures by ministry, and govern-
ment contracts and licenses for natural resource extrac-
tion, including bidding and concession allocation practices. 
(b) PARTNERSHIPS FOR TRANSPARENCY.—The Ad-
ministrator is authorized to use funds made available 
under this chapter to support improvements to fiscal and 
contract transparency in partner countries. 
(c) REQUIREMENT.—The Administrator shall not 
provide direct government-to-government assistance under 
this Act for any government that fails to make its national 
budget publicly available on an annual basis. 
(d) DEFINITION.—In this section, the term ‘‘govern-
ment-to-government assistance’’ means assistance for a 
project or activity that is managed directly by a partner 
government entity using its own financial management 
and procurement systems. 
Subchapter A—Microenterprise Development 
Assistance 
SEC. 1111. FINDINGS AND STATEMENT OF POLICY. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) Access by women and the poor to financial 
and business development services is a vital factor in 
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reducing poverty and promoting sustainable eco-
nomic growth in developing countries. 
(2) Microfinance and microenterprise develop-
ment programs have demonstrated high impact and 
long-term sustainability because they build capacity 
for self-help among the poor, especially women, 
thereby broadening the base for and increasing the 
inclusiveness of economic growth. 
(3) In order to ensure that microenterprise pro-
grams promote the maximum financial inclusion of 
women, gender analysis should be integrated into 
microenterprise program design, implementation, 
monitoring and evaluation. 
(4) A comprehensive approach to microenter-
prise development includes support for the provision 
of credit, savings, insurance, education and training, 
technical assistance, business development, and 
other financial services to women, poor people, and 
other marginalized groups. 
(5) Microenterprise development and micro-
finance are particularly important to enhancing the 
livelihoods of refugees, displaced persons, and those 
affected by conflict, whose routine employment op-
portunities and access to productive resources have 
been reduced or disrupted. 
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(6) Microenterprise and microfinance activities 
should be thoroughly integrated into all aspects of 
development, especially including agriculture and 
health. 
(7) United States Government support for 
microfinance 
and 
microenterprise 
development 
should complement private initiatives in this area by 
focusing on those who lack access to formal financial 
services, and on countries and sectors that have been 
underserved by private capital flows. 
(8) United States Government funds should be 
used to catalyze and attract additional resources, in-
cluding private sector funds, investment funds, and 
the savings of the poor, such as through matching 
fund opportunities and challenge grants. 
(9) United States Government-supported micro-
finance lending should accept a higher level of risk 
than private lending in order to promote innovative 
products and methodologies and serve poorer and 
harder-to-reach populations. 
(10) United States Government support for mi-
croenterprise development and microfinance should 
build the capacity of local institutions in order to en-
able them to better meet the credit, savings, and 
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training needs of microfinance and microenterprise 
clients. 
(11) Microfinance and microenterprise activi-
ties, especially those benefitting the very poor, 
should be a significant component of development 
assistance. 
(b) STATEMENT OF POLICY.—It is the policy of the 
United States to promote a global strategy of financial in-
clusion for all, and especially the very poor and women, 
through support for microfinance and microenterprise de-
velopment in partner countries. 
SEC. 1112. MICROENTERPRISE FUND. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator shall establish 
a centrally managed fund for microfinance and microen-
terprise development activities, to be known as the ‘‘Micro-
enterprise Fund’’. Assistance provided through the Micro-
enterprise Fund shall be in addition to assistance other-
wise made available for such purposes. 
(b) ACTIVITIES.—Assistance provided through the 
Microenterprise Fund shall be used to advance the policy 
described in section 1111(b), including through the fol-
lowing activities: 
(1) Expanding the availability of credit, savings 
and other financial and nonfinancial services to 
microfinance and microenterprise clients. 
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(2) Training, technical assistance and business 
development services for microenterprises. 
(3) Capacity-building for microfinance and mi-
croenterprise institutions. 
(4) Improving the legal and regulatory environ-
ment for microenterprise and for financial institu-
tions that serve the poor and very poor. 
(5) Developing new and innovative microfinance 
and microenterprise products and services. 
(6) Developing, identifying and testing tools 
that facilitate better targeting of programs to the 
very poor, women, and other disadvantaged groups. 
(7) Providing targeted core support for micro-
finance and microenterprise networks and other 
practitioners. 
(c) TARGETING OF ASSISTANCE.— 
(1) VERY POOR AND WOMEN.—At least 50 per-
cent of the assistance provided through the Microen-
terprise Fund shall be targeted to microenterprise 
clients who are very poor, and a significant propor-
tion of such assistance shall be targeted to women. 
(2) POVERTY
ASSESSMENT
TOOLS.—In tar-
geting assistance pursuant to paragraph (1), the Ad-
ministrator shall identify, field-test, and certify for 
use no fewer than two low-cost methods to assess 
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