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...

Digital Poverty

Hernan Galperin, Judith Mariscal

This book represents the first publication of the Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (REDIS-DIRSI), a regional network of leading researchers concerned with the creation and dissemination of knowledge that supports effective participation in the Information Society by the poor and marginal...

Producer Organisations

Chris Penrose-Buckley

Small-scale producers face huge challenges in todays world. They have to adopt a market-oriented approach if they want to compete in and benefit from local and global markets. This book opens with an explanation of why collective action in the form of producer organisations is a key strategy for i...

The State They're In

Matthew Lockwood

Two years on from the Gleneagles G8: What has been achieved? What has changed? In July 2005 the first edition of Matthew Lockwood’s The State They’re In asked the key questions of the moment: What are the roots of poverty in Africa and what should now be done about it? How can a better understanding...

Modelling the Impact of Trade Liberalisation

Lance Taylor

This hard-hitting research report presents a rigorous critique of the most widely used trade models based on computable general equilibrium (or CGE) models. The authors present concise analytical arguments explaining the fundamental weaknesses of typical CGE models. They show that these models tend...

Policy Entrepreneurship for Poverty Reduction

Julius Court, Simon Maxwell

International development is characterized by a concern for praxis, the union of theory and practice. But bridging research and policy is harder than it looks. This book focuses on two key questions: What factors affect the influence research has on policy and practice in international development?...

Small Customers, Big Market

Malcolm Harper

Sukhwinder Arora

This book shows commercial bankers that they can profitably provide microfinance services to the poor. It illustrates, through the experience of particular banks, why banks have become involved and how they have made a success of their involvement. The eighteen case studies all show that banks can...

Mapping the Shift in Business Development Services

Malcolm Harper, Jim Tanburn

Small enterprises not only need credit they also need many other services: training, advice, marketing, supplies, premises, accountancy, materials, technology and many others. Without them, credit alone may do no more than add the burden of debt to all the other problems entrepreneurs have to face....

Industrial Competitiveness in Africa

Sanjaya Lall, Erika Kraemer-Mbula

This book describes Africa’s position within the current industrial global setting and analyses the recent performance of African manufacturing relative to that of other developing regions. It stresses the rapidly changing technological challenges faced by African economies and Africa’s poor respons...