Beyond Micro-credit Putting Development Back into Micro-Finance

About this book

This title challenges the microfinance industry to consider the range of development goals for which microfinance can be used. These include not only poverty alleviation through providing savings, credit and insurance services, but also promoting livelihoods, empowering women, building people's organizations and changing institutions. This book illustrates each of these from actual microfinance practice and explores the organizational challenges of combining such development goals with financial service provision. It provides comprehensive coverage of microfinance practice in India, which has developed numerous innovations, from new products for promoting livelihoods to structures for democratic governance. It includes: detailed analysis of "self-help groups"; comparisons with microfinance practice in Bangladesh; and contemporary methods of assessing performance and impact.

Contents

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Glossary; List of tables; List of boxes; List of figures; The authors; 1 Introduction; 2 Introduction to the financial sector in India; Part 1: Micro-finance and development; 3 Micro-finance and social and economic security; 4 Micro-finance and livelihoods - the challenge of BASIX; 5 Micro-finance and people's organisations; 6 Micro-finance and system-wide change; Part 2: Micro-finance: organisations and institutions; 7 Self-help groups and Grameen Bank groups: What are the differences? by Malcolm Harper; 8 Costs in micro-finance: What do urban self-help groups tell us? by Mathew Titus; 9 Exploring empowerment and leadership at the grassroots: Social entrepreneurship in the SHG movement in India; by Ajit Kanitkar; 10 Sustainability and development: Evaluating the performance of Indian micro-finance; by Sanjay Sinha and Frances Sinha; 11 Rising to the challenge of scale in India: Growing the micro-finance sector; by Mathew Titus; 12 Emerging lessons and challenges; by Thomas Fisher; Bibliography; Index

Customer Reviews