What Matters in Rural and Microfinance

That has to be uppermost in our minds as we think about what microfinance means. For IFAD, the finance issue is crucial to the task of reducing rural poverty. We do not insist on any particular institutional model. The demand for financial services is very diverse even among the poor, and we believe that any sustainable response will have to be pluralistic. Some require access to more capital than local savings systems allow. I am thinking about those who face clear investment opportunities that will allow a sustainable improvement in food security and income. For this sort of effective demand to be met, it is essential that we foster linkages with upstream financial institutions with a much larger capital base. Support can take a wide variety of forms, from intense training of qualifying microfinance institutions, so they may become viable partners with the private sector, to taking equity stakes in private-sector institutions to increase their rural outreach. We have to keep in fr...

2011

Over the past couple of decades, global financing for development has changed dramatically. The biggest shifts have been the rapid increase of net private financing flows to developing countries, in particular to middle-income countries (MICs); the sustained growth of official development assistance (ODA) from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members, even excluding debt relief; the emergence of MICs as growth poles and sources of ODA with different approaches to aid delivery than those of DAC donors; and the expanded role of private aid. In addition, past trends of proliferation, fragmentation and earmarking of aid have continued. This paper reviews broad trends in global financing for development, with a focus on ODA and the growing importance of new development partners such as the so-called BRICS. In this context, it discusses the implications of this changing landscape for aid effectiveness and the role of ODA going forward.

Microfinance is emerging as an integral part of the new development paradigm, described by the phrase "participation and development. "Although the idea has become quite popular among donor agencies, development practitioners, and academicians, theoretical premises on which this idea is founded seem entirely unexamined. Accordingly, this article investigates the academic merits, as well as potential consequences, ofthis popular poverty alleviating model from the supplyside perspective and asks a provocative question: Do the microfinance ventures have features which suggest that the establishment ofthis new finance industry in the Third World countries might further complicate their pervasive poverty problems? The answer to this question appears affirmative to be affirmative. First, the microfinance idea is founded on two theoretical premises, both ofwhich are very controversial. Second, the lack ofmicrocredit is not the cause ofthe Third World's deplorable poverty situation--a fact that suggests that the supply of microcredit cannot alleviate poverty in these countries. Finally, the promotion of the microfinance ventures in the Third World has potentials to create private groups, which have vested interests in perpetuating their prevailing poverty situation.

2005

1980

Governments of many less developed countries have established rural financial agencies as important instruments for rapid agricultural development.• This paper examines some "funding problems" experienced * This paper draws heavily on my paper, "Funding Viability of Rural Development Banks" co-authored with Douglas H. Graham, and on my study of Public Development Financial Enterprises: A Case Study of the Jamaica Development Bank.

2005

Knowledge is essential in an increasingly complex world. In order to contribute to a better understanding of global development and an increased effectiveness of development cooperation, the EGDI secretariat of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs manages the Global Development Studies series. The studies in this series are initiated by the ministry, but written by independent researchers. The current study builds on a previous project, the Development Finance 2000-initiative. Leading up to the UN conference on development finance in Monterrey, March 2002, Sweden published studies on issues about the financing of multilateral aid, and of global public goods. The current study pulls threads together in an attempt at looking at all the components in the international system for development finance, and where that is likely to go in the near future. The arguments and positions expressed in this study are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Swedish government. Another task of the secretariat is to serve the EGDI (Expert Group on Development Issues), in its task of channelling research findings into the heart of policy making. The EGDI is an independent group of internationally renowned researchers and policy makers.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

12 See, for example, the development of a commercial model by the institutional network Acción International, and the subsequent transformation of Bolivia's BancoSol from a nonprofit to the first private commercial bank dedicated exclusively to microfinance. C Bruck 'Millions for millions' (2006) 82 The New Yorker 62.

2009

2011

Recent development challenges highlight a pressing need to reevaluate whether the post-World War II behemoths of international development finance are up to the tasks being demanded of them today. These challenges include both the problems to be addressed (climate change, HIV/AIDS, and abject poverty among them) and a change in attitude about the desired modalities for addressing them (financing via inclusive, participatory, partnerships rather than intergovernmental organizational fiat).The institutions that dominate the current order, the United Nations (“U.N.”) and the World Bank, have undergone a crisis of legitimacy. The U.N., though originally charged with protecting the global welfare, has not played a central role in the design and financial administration of the more recent innovations in development finance, such as carbon finance, microfinance, and public-private financing initiatives. Instead, it has ceded primary responsibility for innovative international development f...