"This paper reviews the current level and pattern of access to finance for India's rural poor and examines some of the key microfinance approaches in India, taking a close look at the most dominant among these, the Self Help Group (SHG) Bank Linkage initiative. It empirically analyzes the...

"The aim of this paper is to understand the mechanism underlying access to credit. Gine focuses on two important aspects of rural credit markets in Thailand. First, moneylenders and other informal lenders coexist with formal lending institutions such as government or commercial banks, and more...

"Access to transfers and credit, whether cash or in-kind, is a major source of poverty alleviation and income generation in many developing countries around the world. Women may especially benefit from transfers and credit in countries such as Bangladesh, where they often have few work...

The rural space is home to 53 percent of Nigeria's population and more than 70 percent of its poor. While it is well understood in Nigeria that financial exclusion of the rural population stunts development, still fewer than 2 percent of rural households have access to any sort of institutional...

This report demonstrates that financial cooperatives can be sustainable providers of financial services in rural areas and development assistance needs to consider supporting them as a means to enhance access to rural finance. It does not suggest that financial cooperatives are the only...

This paper discusses rural finance aspects of the World Bank's rural development strategy, "Reaching the Rural Poor" (see report no. 26763) by giving an overview of recent implementation experience, discussing current issues, and highlighting priorities for the future. The primary objective is...

The history of rural - mostly agricultural - finance in Colombia, is characterized by a system which channels benefits to limited numbers of beneficiaries, at the expense of the public sector, and the economy as a whole. A legacy of powerful agricultural lobbies (coffee, livestock) has...

Since the early national plans, successive governments in independent India have emphasized the link between improving access to finance, and reducing poverty - a stance that has had influence globally. The need to improve financial access for India's poor, the overwhelming majority of whom are...

Over the past five years in Turkey, the agricultural and rural sector has seen substantial change in transfer policies which now place greater emphasis on improved equity and investment. These have been summarized in the earlier World Bank "Review of the Impact of the Reform of Agricultural...