Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2017.1314790
Doing business with the poor: the rules and impact of the microfinance institutions
Wajid Khan
Sun Shaorong
Ikram Ullah
Sažetak
Of the total global population, at least 14.5% are living on less than
$1.25 a day, 34% of the females in the least developed countries are
unable to complete their primary education, and some 805 million
are believed to be food insecure. To bring these numbers into
accordance with the Millennium Development Goals, there are at
least a dozen of different programmes operating around the world.
Microcredit, being one of those programmes, is considered superior
to the rest for being the only participatory approach and for being
general enough to cater for a number of policy interventions.
Microcredit or credit to the poor is provided under two very different
mechanisms; the welfarist mechanism and the institutionalist
mechanism. Each of these mechanisms has its advocates, as well as,
its critics. The current paper empirically evaluates the two approaches
in a systematic way. By using purposively collected data from the
North West Pakistan and vigorous methodologies, we show that
commercialization of microfinance institutions has indeed shifted
the focus from either poverty reduction or women’s empowerment.
Instead, the focus is now on more secure and profitable advances.
Moreover, we also show that the welfarist approach in eradicating
poverty and empowering women is superior to the now popular
financial system approach.
Ključne riječi
Poverty; microfinance institutions; income/price policy
Hrčak ID:
182581
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.12.2017.
Posjeta: 1.010 *