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Microfinance Faces Uncertainty in Bangladesh
The Bangladesh government should reevaluate its pursuit to regulate and nationalize the operations of the Grameen Bank.
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- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Insights from Everyday Entrepreneurs: In Accion’s inaugural Orange Book, very small businesses share their stories
Very small businesses—those with five employees or less—represent over 90 percent of all small businesses in the U.S. As economic drivers in their communities, these businesses have valuable perspectives on entrepreneurship and the economy. Accion has released the Orange Book, a compilation of quantitative and anecdotal data sourced from these everyday entrepreneurs.
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- Uncategorized
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- microfinance
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‘Maybe It’s Time We Start Behaving Like a Business’: The struggle of one microfinance institution to balance its social impact with its bottom line
La Ceiba designed its microfinance programs and policies around the needs and capabilities of its clients - even when this conflicted with the best interest of the institution. But now, its interest income isn’t covering its loan loss, putting its survival in doubt. La Ceiba’s loan program leader offers a frank assessment of its struggle to balance social impact with business needs.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
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“Correlation is not causation”: Roodman takes issue with World Bank study
The issue is standard. Correlation is not causation. The Economist makes a strikingly confident statement about how one thing affects another. The problem is that in families and villages, everything affects everything. Taking more microloans can make people wealthier or poorer. Being wealthier or poorer can make people take more microloans. The arrows go in circles. Statistics can measure correlations. How do we make the leap to causation?
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- Education, Impact Assessment
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Rehabilitation and attack: microcredit helps the poor after all
FOR years the reputation of microfinance—which gives tiny loans to the poorest—rose and fell in tandem with relations between Grameen Bank and the Bangladeshi government. In 2006 the bank and its head, Muhammad Yunus, won the Nobel peace prize for reducing poverty and Mr Yunus toyed with setting up a political party, supposedly with the government’s blessing. Since then several studies have found limited or no benefits from microfinance, and in 2011 (for different reasons) a new government forced Mr Yunus to resign from the bank he had founded.
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- Uncategorized
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In India, Bandhan’s banking licence signals competition for rural microfinance
According to MFIs operating in rural areas, private banks have been charging interest rates of 24-26 per cent on a reducing balance.
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- Uncategorized
- Tags
- microfinance
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New-concept flood insurance could help Bangladesh’s poor
A new insurance scheme in which pre-determined flood thresholds trigger speedy compensation offers hope for poor people in flood-prone Bangladesh, experts say.
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- Uncategorized
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Value lending for MFIs to reduce risk
Tara Thiagarajan, chairman & MD of non-banking finance company-micro finance institution (NBFC-MFI) Madura Microfinance, is trying out a unique experiment.
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- Uncategorized