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Product Description
Microfinance has been a long-lived development fashion and in 2005 it enjoyed the accolade of a UN International Year. Many of the world's biggest multinational banks are now eagerly committing quite substantial sums to it, for business as well as public relations purposes. However, there are some important problems which risk being ignored or are fleetingly observed but then swept under the carpet in the current euphoria. The authors sound a timely and overdue warning to governments, bankers, donors and the general public and urges people to pause, reassess their expectations, re-think some policies and to recognise that microfinance is never a panacea and may sometimes be actively damaging to its intended customers. This important book will be of interest to students of microfinance, microfinance practitioners internationally, bankers, government ministries and NGO donor agencies, training institutions, and academics in finance, economics and sociology.
About the Author
Thomas Dichter has spent half of his 40-year career in international development working in microfinance on three continents. From 1994 to 1998 he was senior consultant to the World Bank's 'Sustainable Banking With the Poor' project. He is the author of Despite Good Intentions: Why Development Assistance to the Third World has Failed. Malcolm Harper was Professor of Enterprise Development at Cranfield School of Management, UK, until 1995, and since then has worked mainly in India. He was Chairman of Basix Finance (1996-2006), and is Chairman of M-CRIL, the microfinance credit rating agency.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
A frank and passionate look at ground level challenges
9 Sep 2010
Format:Paperback
Don't be discouraged by the title of this book!
This collection of articles is by people who really care about international development, and microfinance in particular, and are looking for ways to make both be successful. And in line with this drive to get results, many experts have seen the ground-level challenges that exist beyond the "and they lived happily ever after" stories that are most of what we hear about microfinance. Clearly it has great results some of the time, yet to continue to improve the field, there must be a frank look at the whole range of outcomes.
As with everything, the nitty gritty reality is more complicated than it first seems. What do people do with their microfinance loans? What happens socially when their new business folds and they can't pay back the loan? How successful is microfinance at raising people's standard of living? Where does the profit motive come in when it comes to running an MFI? These questions are considered carefully.
From reading these articles, I developed a finer tuned sense of the specific challenges that are being faced, and ideas for how the field can improve. As well I woke up to the challenges of measuring progress on poverty alleviation.
Overall a good collection of articles from around the world.
This collection of articles is by people who really care about international development, and microfinance in particular, and are looking for ways to make both be successful. And in line with this drive to get results, many experts have seen the ground-level challenges that exist beyond the "and they lived happily ever after" stories that are most of what we hear about microfinance. Clearly it has great results some of the time, yet to continue to improve the field, there must be a frank look at the whole range of outcomes.
As with everything, the nitty gritty reality is more complicated than it first seems. What do people do with their microfinance loans? What happens socially when their new business folds and they can't pay back the loan? How successful is microfinance at raising people's standard of living? Where does the profit motive come in when it comes to running an MFI? These questions are considered carefully.
From reading these articles, I developed a finer tuned sense of the specific challenges that are being faced, and ideas for how the field can improve. As well I woke up to the challenges of measuring progress on poverty alleviation.
Overall a good collection of articles from around the world.
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