Suchergebnisse

Indonesia is a country with a deregulated policy environment in which microfinance institutions (MFIs) abound. Between 1970 and 1993 poverty has been drastically reduced from 60% to 14%. Three factors have been instrumental: explicit government policies, sustained economic growth and, since 1983, financial and economic deregulation. In the framework of a wider UNDP-supported program of the Asian and Pacific Development Centre in Kuala Lumpur on Microfinance for the Poor in Asia-Pacific, four MFIs were selected from Indonesia and analyzed in terms of outreach to the poor, resource mobilization, viability and sound (best) microfinance practices: a Grameen Bank replicating institution, a private rural bank, a national poverty lending program and an NGO-owned commercial bank. The Indonesian experience shows that only financially viable institutions can reach the poor in significant numbers, and how viability and sustainability can be attained in banking with the poor and the near-poor. Data from Bank Shinta Daya, which combines individual and group technologies, indicate that the latter cover their costs and greatly increase the bank's outreach to the poor as a new market segment, but initially add little to the bank's overall profitability.

The bulk of the world's extreme poor work in subsistence agriculture. Diversification out of this activity is often seen as the sine qua non of economic development. We evaluate whether the roll‐out of a mainstay development intervention—microfinance—into poor, agricultural and largely unbanked populations in rural Uganda helps borrowers to diversify into non‐agricultural labour activities. The new microfinance product is targeted to women, and differs from existing sources of formal and informal credit in that it allows them to borrow larger amounts but has inflexible repayment dates and the use of funds is monitored. We find that the arrival of microfinance enables women to diversify out of agriculture and into service‐based activities such as small‐scale trading. This low‐level structural change, however, is not transformative in that it does not lead—at least after two years—to significant uplifts in earnings, consumption, savings, investment and overall wealth.

"Microfinance and Social Performance" published on by Oxford University Press.

Can microcredit make an already slippery slope more slippery? : some lessons from the social meaning of debt / Thomas Dichter -- Is microdebt good for poor people? : a note on the dark side of microfinance / David Hulme -- Imagining microfinance more boldly : unleashing the true potential of microfinance / Imran Matin, Munshi Sulaiman and M.A. Saleque -- What's wrong with groups? / Malcolm Harper -- Finance begins with savings, not loans / Hugh Allen -- 'Institutional suspicion' : the management and governance challenge in user-owned microfinance groups / Susan Johnson and Namrata Sharma -- SHG's in India : numbers yes, poverty outreach and empowerment, partially / Frances Sinha -- Microfinance and farmers : do they fit? / Malcolm Harper -- The moneylender's dilemma / Kim Wilson -- Princes, peasants and pretenders : the past and future of African microfinance / Paul Rippey -- Microfinance under crisis conditions : the case of Bolivia / Irina Aliaga and Paul Mosley -- Methodenstreit and sustainability in microfinance : generalizations describing institutional frameworks / J.D. von Pischke -- Microfinance : some conceptual and methodological problems / David Ellerman -- Learning from the Andhra Pradesh crisis / Prabhu Ghate -- The chicken and egg dilemma in microfinance : an historical analysis of the sequence of growth and credit in the economic development of the 'north' / Thomas Dichter -- A practitioner's view of the challenges facing NGO-based microfinance in Bangladesh / S.M. Rahman -- De-industrialization and social disintegration in Bosnia / Milford Bateman -- Measuring the impact of microfinance / Richard L. Meyer -- From microcredit to livelihood finance / Vijay Mahajan -- Opportunity and evolution for microfinance / Mary Houghton and Ronald Grzywinski

This paper describes some emerging innovations in microfinance observed in Southeast Asian microfinance markets that make it possible for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to reach a greater number of poor households on a sustainable basis. It discusses the nature, importance and types of innovations. Innovations help reduce the MFI's transaction costs and risks. They also make it possible for poor households to satisfy their investment and consumption smoothing requirements. The paper draws some lessons from the experience with innovations and makes a case for government's important role in ensuring the proper functioning of markets. It points out government's pivotal role in system innovation because of the likelihood of its under-or-slow production by the private sector. MFIs have a clear advantage in process and product innovation to meet the requirements of poor clients. Thus, they should be given room in doing this.