Micro-Financing and the Economic Health of a Nation
Micro-Financing and the Economic Health of a Nation

Author: Bensson V Samuel MD PhD DBA CHCQM

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2021-03-01

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1664161481

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A change in finance for low-income people is occurring around the world. The microfinance movement provides services on a wide scale by competing, financially self-sufficient institutions to the economically active poor. Microfinance has been credited for promoting the Millennium Development Goals, poverty reduction, women's empowerment, and many other social benefits. This extensive microfinance survey aims to bridge the gap between academic economists and practitioners in the current microfinance literature. Micro-financing and the Economic Health of a Nation set a precedent for future work in the sector as the premier book to provide a detailed analysis of housing microfinance worldwide. By addressing a number of issues, including lessons from informal markets, savings and insurance, the role of women, the position of subsidies, impact assessment, and management incentives, this book offers an overview of microfinance. This book reviews essential issues for foreign and domestic microfinance organizations that are considering expanding into housing and for providers of traditional housing loans that aim to provide their services to poor clients who lack collateral or regular income, with clear guidance for practitioners and policymakers. Micro-financing and the Economic Health of a Nation can be used by students in economics, public policy, and development studies. This volume offers a reasoned, moderate voice on the virtues and problems of microfinance.

Microfinance Handbook
Microfinance Handbook

Author: Joanna Ledgerwood

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 1998-12-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0821384317

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The purpose of the 'Microfinance Handbook' is to bring together in a single source guiding principles and tools that will promote sustainable microfinance and create viable institutions.

The Future of Microfinance
The Future of Microfinance

Author: Ira W. Lieberman

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 493

ISBN-13: 0815737645

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A major source of financing for the poor and no longer a niche industry Over the past four decades, microfinance—the provision of loans, savings, and insurance to small businesses and entrepreneurs shut out of traditional capital markets—has grown from a niche service in Bangladesh and a few other countries to a significant global source of financing. Some 200 million people globally now receive support from microfinance institutions, with most of the recipients in the developing world. In the beginning, much of the microfinance industry was managed by non-governmental organizations, but today the majority of these institutions are commercial and regulated by governments, and they provide safe places for the poor to save, as well as offering much-needed capital and other financial services. Now out of infancy, the microfinance industry faces major challenges, including its ability to deal with mobile banking and other technology and concerns that some markets are now over-saturated with microfinance. How the industry deals with these and other challenges will determine whether it will continue to grow or will be subsumed within the larger global financial sector. This book is based on the results of a workshop at Lehigh University among thirty-four leaders in the industry. The editors, working with contributions from more than a dozen leading authorities in the field, tell the important story of how microfinance developed, how it has met the needs of hundreds of millions of people, and they address key questions about how it can continue to meet those needs in the future.

Microfinance in Africa
Microfinance in Africa

Author: S. Rajagopalan

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13:

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Africa is home to some of the poorest and vulnerable populations in the world. The ten poorest countries in the world are in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest incidence and greatest depth of poverty in the world. Fewer than one in five adults in Africa has access to the services of a formal or semi-formal financial institution. Microfinance in Africa is growing, though. A broad range of diverse institutions offer financial services to the poor and low-income clients in Africa. These include non-governmental organizations, non-banking financial institutions, cooperatives, credit unions, rural banks, Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), postal financial institutions and an increasing number of commercial banks. Increasingly, technology is being used to expand microfinance outreach mobile phone banking is one such example. This book provides an overview of the microfinance sector in Africa, reviews the performance and impact of microfinance institutions in the region, and outlines some of the opportunities and challenges that African microfinance has on hand.

The Global Findex Database 2017
The Global Findex Database 2017

Author: Asli Demirguc-Kunt

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2018-04-19

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1464812683

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In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

School Meals, Educational Achievement, and School Competition
School Meals, Educational Achievement, and School Competition

Author: Christel Vermeersch

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13:

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Vermeersch and Kremer examine the effects of subsidized school meals on school participation, educational achievement, and school finance in a developing country setting. They use data from a program that was implemented in 25 randomly chosen preschools in a pool of 50. Children's school participation was 30 percent higher in the treatment group than in the comparison group. The meals program led to higher curriculum test scores, but only in schools where the teacher was relatively experienced prior to the program. The school meals displaced teaching time and led to larger class sizes. Despite improved incentives, teacher absenteeism remained at a high level of 30 percent. Treatment schools raised their fees, and comparison schools close to treatment schools decreased their fees. Some of the price effects are caused by a combination of capacity constraints and pupil transfers that would not happen if the school meals were ordered in all schools. The intention-to-treat estimator of the effect of the randomized program incorporates those price effects, and therefore it should be considered a lower bound on the effect of generalized school meals. This insight on price effects generalizes to other randomized program evaluations. This paper--a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management 2, Africa Technical Families--is part of a larger effort in the region to increase our understanding of the impact of programs aimed at reaching the Millennium Development Goals.

The Microfinance Revolution
The Microfinance Revolution

Author: Marguerite S. Robinson

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9780821349533

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??? ... Microfinance is the method whereby financial services and credit is made available to the economically active but low income people of developiong countries. This book focusses on three key aspects of the phenomenon: 1) the shift from government- and donor-subsidized credit delivery systems to self-sufficient, sustainable microfinance institutions; 2) the results on the ground, on the way in which microfinance is helps people expand and diversify their enterprises, increase their incomes, raise their living standards and those of theri families, and boost their self-confidence; 3) the theroretical frameworks that had previously impeded the microfinance revolution, with suggestions for their improvement.

Financial Performance and Outreach
Financial Performance and Outreach

Author: Robert J. Cull

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 51

ISBN-13: 0601241630

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Microfinance contracts have proven able to secure high rates of loan repayment in the face of limited liability and information asymmetries, but high repayment rates have not translated easily into profits for most microbanks. Profitability, though, is at the heart of the promise that microfinance can deliver poverty reduction while not relying on ongoing subsidy. The authors examine why this promise remains unmet for most institutions. Using a data set with unusually high quality financial information on 124 institutions in 49 countries, they explore the patterns of profitability, loan repayment, and cost reduction. The authors find that institutional design and orientation matter substantially. Lenders that do not use group-based methods to overcome incentive problems experience weaker portfolio quality and lower profit rates when interest rates are raised substantially. For these individual-based lenders, one key to achieving profitability is investing more heavily in staff costs-a finding consistent with the economics of information but contrary to the conventional wisdom that profitability is largely a function of minimizing cost.

The Microfinance Revolution: Sustainable finance for the poor
The Microfinance Revolution: Sustainable finance for the poor

Author: Marguerite S. Robinson

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13:

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Microfinance is the method whereby financial services and credit is made available to the economically active but low income people of developiong countries. This book focusses on three key aspects of the phenomenon: 1) the shift from government- and donor-subsidized credit delivery systems to self-sufficient, sustainable microfinance institutions; 2) the results on the ground, on the way in which microfinance is helps people expand and diversify their enterprises, increase their incomes, raise their living standards and those of theri families, and boost their self-confidence; 3) the theroretical frameworks that had previously impeded the microfinance revolution, with suggestions for their improvement.

Due Diligence
Due Diligence

Author: David Roodman

Publisher: CGD Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1933286539

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The idea that small loans can help poor families build businesses and exit poverty has blossomed into a global movement. The concept has captured the public imagination, drawn in billions of dollars, reached millions of customers, and garnered a Nobel Prize. Radical in its suggestion that the poor are creditworthy and conservative in its insistence on individual accountability, the idea has expanded beyond credit into savings, insurance, and money transfers, earning the name microfinance. But is it the boon so many think it is? Readers of David Roodman's openbook blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis. Due Diligence, written entirely in public with input from readers, probes the truth about microfinance to guide governments, foundations, investors, and private citizens who support financial services for poor people. In particular, it explains the need to deemphasize microcredit in favor of other financial services for the poor.