The question raised in the title is an important one to the microfinance sector, especially since the Microcredit Summit held in Washington, DC, in 1997. In order to gain more transparency on the depth of poverty outreach, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP) supported research at...

How many microfinance institutions (MFIs) exist in the developing world? How well are they performing? What is their role in household economies? Are they using their funds efficiently? In 1999, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted a survey on MFIs in Asia, Africa,...

These 14 policy briefs summarize lessons learned from IFPRI´s multicountry program on rural finance and household food security with regard to the poors' demand for financial services. The lessons are derived from detailed household surveys conducted in nine countries of Asia and Africa:...

In most developing countries, it is the private, informal markets that the rural poor have traditionally turned to service their financial needs. Why have these institutions succeeded in providing services to the poor when formal institutions have not? Do these informal institutions provide any...

Two common approaches are used for measuring household access to credit and credit constraints in the literature. The first method infers the presence of credit constraints from violations of the assumptions of the life cycle/permanent income hypothesis. ...The second method uses direct...

Lending is a risky enterprise because repayment of loans can seldom be fully guaranteed. The failure of a large number of state-sponsored agricultural development banks in many developing countries was due, among other things, to their inability to ensure good repayment rates among their...

This brief considers the scope for policy action in seven areas: (1) regulation of microfinance institutions, (2) provision of saving services, (3) product innovation, (4) organizational issues in microfinance, (5) poverty impact of microfinance, (6) agricultural finance, and (7) subsidy and...

For poor rural families in developing countries, access to credit and savings facilities has the potential to make the difference between grinding poverty and an economically secure life. Well-managed savings facilities permit households to build up funds for future investment or consumption....

Governments, policymakers, and donors attach a great deal of importance to poverty outreach—the extent to which MFIs serve poor and disadvantaged locations—when evaluating microfinance institutions (MFIs). With the above considerations in mind, IFPRI undertook a study of the service...

This policy brief summarizes lessons learned from IFPRI's multicountry program on rural finance and household food security with regard to the poors' demand for financial services. The lessons are derived from detailed household surveys conducted in nine countries of Asia and Africa: Bangladesh,...