Serving local communities for 35 years now

DID was founded November 16,1970.

The idea of creating a subsidiary within the Mouvement Desjardins (which later became Desjardins Group) devoted to international development grew out of a desire to share the success of Québec's cooperative model with visitors from developing nations where interest in the cooperative model started to rise in the 1960s.

These visitors from abroad were facing the same challenges that Desjardins had struggled with in the early part of the 20th century. It was a source of inspiration for them to observe how Desjardins as a financial institution responded to social concerns and was designed to meet the needs of the less fortunate.

So, in 1963 the Mouvement Desjardins initiated its international development efforts by setting up the ICD (Institut coopératif Desjardins). This Institute provided training for executives in charge of cooperatives in Asia, Africa and Latin America. From 1963 to 1970, many leaders within the Mouvement Desjardins devoted much time and energy to forging a commitment to international development.

Due to growing interest outside Quebec for increasingly specific technical expertise, in 1970 Desjardins decided to set up the CIDR, the Compagnie internationale de développement régional, a subsidiary providing technical support, which evolved into DID - Développement international Desjardins.

Since 1970, DID has continued to expand and evolve while constantly adapting the solutions it offers to the needs of its partners around the globe. It added new components such as Investment to its tools offering DID partner institutions access to a source of capital for investment or for financing their activities.

	Michel Lagacé (left), program officer at DID, during a mandate in Cameroon Michel Lagacé left Québec for Africa on January 2, 1972 for a two-year contract in Burkina Faso. He was the first technical advisor from Développement international Desjardins to sign on for a long-term mandate in a developing nation. Setting up a network of savings and credit cooperatives was his goal. Posted to Diébougou, he worked for two years to help set up the first three savings and credit cooperatives. This effort led to a longlasting and fruitful collaboration with the savings cooperative network RCPB (Réseau des caisses du Burkina Faso) with which DID is still involved. "Today as in the past, rural areas and regions have to rely on their own financial resources for development. Savings and credit coops help channel those resources so that they are available to local communities. When we started in Burkina Faso, we were already concerned about attracting enough members to guarantee long-term viability and growth potential." Today the RCPB is one of the largest microfinance institutions in West Africa.