Annotation This book examines the current level and pattern of access to finance for India's rural households, evaluates various approaches for delivering financial services, analyzes what lies behind the lack of adequate financial access, and identifies what it would take to improve access to finance.
A broader role for rural finance for food security. The saving and borrowing behavior of the food-insecure poor. Innovative rural finance for the poor: a food security perspective. Conclusions for research and policy.
Field study of obstacles to access to agricultural credit for poverty-stricken rural workers in Bangladesh - based on a survey of some 5000 households in 400 villages carried out from 1977 to 1981, looks at effect of supply and demand on the rural area financial market; analyses five credit systems; describes problems in reaching the target groups, debt repayment, subsidy and interest rate, etc. Statistical tables.
The rural poor can save, although commercial banks are rarely able to mobilize these savings in financial form. Rural credit demand is also high, not only to survive drought and other periodic disasters but also to help move out of poverty through investments that improve productivity and tap into economic opportunities. Yet the high perceived costs and risks of intermediation have deterred formal financial institutions from serving the rural poor. The experience of the World Bank-assisted Rural Savings and Loan Project in Benin shows that well-designed investment in grass roots financial institutions can fill this gap on a sustainable basis.
Local financial institutions represent the best choices in the financial system for small and medium-sized enterprises and farming households. Government agencies in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have proposed policies that would relax market entry criteria and allow the creation of diversified rural financial institutions. These measures will help improve PRC's financial market structure, promote better rural financial services, enable financing of labor-intensive economic activities, and promote socioeconomic development. This publication offers an overview of rural finance in the PRC, examines current financial policy and models, and offers recommendations for future reform measures.
Despite the fact that three quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas, the level of international development aid directed at rural areas has continued to decline over the last decade, particularly in terms of the agricultural sector. In 2001, lending for agricultural projects was the lowest in the World Bank's history. This publication presents the World Bank's new rural development strategy based upon a results oriented approach which stresses practice, implementation, monitoring and empowerment aspects. The strategy seeks to highlight rural development efforts, focusing on the needs of the rural poor, fostering a broad-based economic growth and addressing the impact of global developments on client countries.
To promote agricultural -- and hence economic -- growth, Pakistan must make more credit available to agricultural smallholders, the rural nonfarm sector, and women. Subsidizing interest rates is not the way to help marginal borrowers. Instead, they can be helped through fixed-cost subsidies and self-selected targeting. Pakistan's rural sector accounts for more than 70 percent of employment, and roughly two-thirds of rural employment is in agriculture. Less than a third of rural households get loans, only 10 percent of which are from institutional sources. Pakistan's credit institutions are not helping the country accelerate agricultural growth and reduce poverty. To improve performance in the rural economy and efficiency in financial institutions, rural credit markets must be liberalized. The government needs to initiate the following reforms: * Produce and price controls must be replaced by prudent regulation and supervision, combined with policies to stabilize the economy. * Commercial banks must operate in a competitive environment. They must be allowed to set interest rates for rural lending that cover their transaction costs. * Credit must be made available to support productivity growth for agricultural smallholders and small producers of the rural nonfarm sector, where Pakistan's growth potential lies. * Credit must be made available to women and to the rural poor for consumption-smoothing and for sustainable income-generating activities. Policy should be directed at developing a market-based financial system for rural finance, but because of market failures to support disadvantaged groups, a special-priority program may be needed to get credit to women, smallholders (with 10 acres or less), and the rural nonfarm sector (small-scale nonfarm activities such as livestock, fishery, forestry, and rangelands, and industrial microenterprises). Subsidizing interest rates is not the way to help marginal borrowers. Instead, they can be helped through fixed-cost subsidies and self-selected targeting. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) should be encouraged to help, keeping in mind such NGO success stories as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Badan Kredit Kecaratan (BKK) in Indonesia. Commercial banks should be encouraged to lend on other bases than the mortgage and passbook system. They could experiment with wholesaling credit through input suppliers, marketing agents, and NGOs. They should consider lending for such downstream agricultural activities as agroprocessing. The biggest challenge facing rural finance is the restructuring of cooperatives. The next important step for the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan would be a portfolio audit -- the results of which will determine next steps, such as major restructuring of its portfolio and changing its ownership. To improve rural financing, the system of property rights, title, and default enforcement must also be strengthened, among other reforms. This paper -- a product of the Agricultural and Natural Resources Division, South Asia, Country Department I -- is part of a larger effort in the region to analyze major issues of agricultural growth and rural development in Pakistan and working with the government in developing a strategy to address those issues.