Speaking Out

Jo Rowlands, Nikki van der Gaag

Many poor people around the world are denied the opportunity to have their say. Politics generally works well for those in power, but those in poverty are often excluded from forums that directly affect their welfare and so are unable to hold decision-makers to account. Speaking Out describes differ...

The Poor and their Money

Stuart Rutherford

Sukhwinder Arora

The Microfinance revolution is usually considered to have been led by the NGOs, donor agencies, and more recently banks who offer poor people financial services. But what can we learn from the ways that poor people already manage their money? What are the essential elements that they prize so much t...

Microfinance Self-Help Groups in India

Frances Sinha

Self-Help Groups (SHGs), a means of reaching rural women with savings and credit services, have taken off dramatically in India, where an estimated 25 million women are members. Their benefits are social as well as economic: SHGs encourage women to become active in village affairs, or take action ag...

Fuelling Economic Growth

Michael Graham, Jean Woo

The private sector is playing an increasingly important role in the funding of scientific research. As public sector research declines in the countries of the north and the south, research and development carried out by the private sector becomes more important for innovations that have economic pot...

Development, Divinity and Dharma

Malcolm Harper, DSK Rao, Ashis Kumar Sahu

Faith-based institutions are getting involved in economic development programmes, including microfinance, and many foreign donors are looking to religious organizations for new ways to reach the poorest people. This book considers the work of a number of these, of different faiths, and asks what is...

Expanding the Frontier in Rural Finance

Maria Pagura

Despite significant innovations in rural microfinance over the years, millions of people around the world still do not have access to financial services. Can linkages and strategic alliances between formal and informal financial institutions and private firms help resolve this problem? Drawing on 12...

Competition and Development

Susan Joekes

Competition and Development: The Power of Competitive Markets

Village Savings and Loan Associations

Hugh Allen, Mark Staehle

While many banks and microfinance institutions provide valuable services to the poor in the developing world, they are most successful in economically dynamic urban or peri-urban areas. 30 years since the start of the microfinance revolution, poor people who live in many rural areas and urban slu...

Conversations with Practitioners

Guy Winship

This is a collection of interviews with leading microfinance practitioners and specialists discussing the challenges facing microfinance institutions as they attempt to become more market-oriented, competitive and sustainable. It was written by a recognised leader in the field on the basis of extens...

The Aid Chain

Tina Wallace, Lisa Bornstein, Jennifer Chapman

The Aid Chain explores the role of funding conditions in shaping co-operation and resistance as aid moves from donors, to NGOs, to local communities. Significant proportions of aid flow through the non-governmental sector but questions are increasingly being asked about the role of NGOs and whether...