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Unitus today released a rather sudden announcement that it will be releasing its staff and “shift[ing] its resources and activities to areas of maximum socio-economic impact for underserved people throughout the world that have yet to attain either scale or … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
USAID’s most recent report on microfinance and microenterprise development tells an interesting story and, in my view, shows just how widely microfinance has been (and continues to be) misunderstood. While many advocate that microfinance institutions focus on people under the … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Back in December, we expressed concerns about LAPO, one of Kiva‘s largest microfinance partners. Last month, the New York Times ran an article implying criticism of LAPO. Now, Kiva has suspended its partnership with LAPO. A couple of questions this … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
I’m very interested in the recent debate over microfinance interest rates (see our response to the NYT article, as well as Te-Ping Chen’s comments at Change.org). It seems that realizing how high interest rates can be has been a wake-up … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Recent coverage of microfinance has had a sharp focus on interest rates, implying some line between “reasonable” interest (associated with “social investment”) and “excessive” interest (associated with “loan sharking”). In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega, outraged that interest rates there were … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
One of the more difficult things to understand about the microfinance institutions we’ve investigated is the “true” interest rate they’re charging their borrowers. In July 2009, David Roodman of the Center for Global Development wrote: It appears that many MFIs … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
