Microcredit, microfinance, village banking and empowering the world's poor

June 8, 2003 10:01 AM

What could you do with $27? - Microcredit or microfinance provides working capital through small loans to the working poor. Read some of the wonderful accounts of people who built thriving businesses and new lives with from a jumpstart of as little as a $100 loan. Read the remarkable story of the Grameen Bank, and learn about Village Banking, and other inspiring efforts to bring dignity and help to the more than 1.2 billion people who live on less than one dollar a day. - more -
posted by madamjujujive (10 comments total)

More resources to learn about microcredit:
The Virtual Library on Microcredit
Microcredit Summit Campaign
posted by madamjujujive at 10:02 AM on June 8, 2003

This is why I love MeFi.

Enough with the Israel/Palestine/War On Terror/Bush Bashing crap.

It's damn fine to find out things like this exist on the net, much less in the world.

Thanks, Madamjujujive.
posted by swerdloff at 10:24 AM on June 8, 2003

If we are looking for one single action which will enable the poor to overcome their poverty, I would focus on credit.

this must be some kind of lefty bizarrothink, as any cretin knows there's no money in $20 loans. take the american credit industry - a voracious band of rapists intent on "liberating" every last dollar of equity posessed by the american consumer. now THAT's profitable.

wha? banks? helping people? it'll never work!
posted by quonsar at 10:41 AM on June 8, 2003

Brilliant post; this has helped a lot of people in the developing world, particularly poor women who would not have had access to funds otherwise (and therefore acts as an engine of societal change).
I believe that the economist who thought this up won a Nobel Prize for Economics...?
posted by plep at 11:45 AM on June 8, 2003

There's also FINCA.
posted by kozad at 1:10 PM on June 8, 2003

plep, apparently Mohammad Yunus founder of Grameen Bank has been nominated for Noble price in Economics a few times, as well as for the Nobel Peace Prize. He seems deserving, far more so than recipients like Kissinger and Arafat! The mind boggles!

kozad, FINCA is indeed an important force in this movement. And they have job openings.

Here's a good list of microlending links that I just stumbled on in looking up info on Yunus.
posted by madamjujujive at 1:36 PM on June 8, 2003

mjj - I think I was thinking of Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Economics Prize in 1998. Whilst not directly connected with the microbanking movement, his award was a boost for 'welfare economics' in general (and his work has probably provided some theoretical basis for microbanking) - many articles on him here. (And such a contrast with the 1997 winners, who were associated with Long-Term Capital Management, a failed hedge fund...)
posted by plep at 2:32 PM on June 8, 2003

What could you do with $27?

Get drunk.
posted by wfrgms at 4:26 PM on June 8, 2003

mjj - Wow. I can't believe this hasn't been covered before on Mefi. I Guess not. Thanks.

It's good for people in the developed world to learn about how these tiny loans can transform life for the world's poorest. It puts us, the rich, to shame.
posted by troutfishing at 1:04 AM on June 9, 2003

madamjujujive: Thanks for highlighting the Grameen Bank. In the past few years, the wife and I have given a lot of support to the Grameen Communications enterprise.
btw—great post!

~~[[[8^)
posted by Fezboy! at 7:36 AM on June 9, 2003