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Development numbers: the political economy of data production from ‘above’ and ‘below’
01.06.2014
A review of two books collectively; Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About it and Who Counts? The Power of Participatory Statistics -
Reviews and resources
01.12.2012
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Reviews and resources
01.06.2010
This article reviews the book 'What Works for the Poorest? Poverty Reduction Programmes for the World’s Extreme Poor', Edited by David Lawson, David Hulme, Imran Matin and Karen Moore. The book provides some important insights into programming experiments that demonstrate that programmes reaching the extreme poor can be implemented, are affordable and cost-effective, and have results. -
Reviews and resources
01.03.2010
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Microfinance is dead! Long live microfinance! Critical reflections on two decades of microfinance policy and practice
01.12.2009
The rise of the financial systems approach has been central to the past two decades of microfinance practice which aimed to achieve sustainability through scale and building profitable institutions. This resulted in extensive debates over its ability to reach poor and very poor people. The approach rode the wave of the Washington Consensus which promoted economic reform and liberalization. Now the policy discourse has moved even further away from a poverty focus to advocate financial inclusion for the unbanked into the mainstream financial sector. On these terms microfinance seems to be dead. However, the diversity of approaches on the ground aimed at poor people and hard-to-reach rural areas, points to a survival of ‘microfinance’, albeit largely outside the mainstream of the Washington consensus. This article also discusses where these developments leave the women's empowerment agenda that has been so central to microfinance. -
Social Protection in Africa
01.06.2009
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Reviews and resources
01.03.2009
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Village Savings and Loan Associations: experience from Zanzibar
01.03.2007
The continuing failure of MFIs to reach remote and rural areas, especially in Africa, has renewed interest in finding alternative models of service delivery that can achieve this goal. The Village Saving and Loan Association model promoted by CARE is an accumulating savings and credit association that is timebound, with a periodic action audit at which all the funds are paid out. The approach was implemented in Zanzibar in 2001–2002 and CARE then left the area. This article reports findings from a follow-up study to assess the performance of the groups. The number of groups had grown and overall outreach had expanded to some 4,500 members. The financial performance of the groups was strong with returns on savings of 53 per cent. The context for this strong performance is a relatively well-off and well-educated population that is likely to have favoured strong group governance. -
Tackling the 'frontiers' of microfinance in Kenya: the role for decentralized services
01.09.2006
Formal microfinance organizations have difficulty extending their services to remote rural areas in Kenya, as elsewhere in Africa. This article proposes to map the frontiers of microfinance in Kenya based on poverty incidence and population density. It then presents a spectrum of centralized and decentralized models, from banks to MFIs, SACCOs, ASCAs and ROSCAs. The more decentralized models, which involve greater user-ownership and management, have the potential to provide services to poorer people and in rural areas due to inherently lower cost structures and key characteristics of their services, despite many challenges to their long-term effectiveness and sustainability. Five organizations in Kenya that are reaching into rural areas are analysed to explore where the frontiers lie. It concludes by discussing potential strategies for the improvement of decentralized services as the 'bottom up' spike of a two-pronged approach which complements centralized service delivery.