In the microfinance industry the idea of “empowerment” is often valued as a means to encourage female emancipation from male domination. This paper’s main purpose is to draw on women’s testimonies and narratives to highlight the fundamental importance within these processes of women’s...

Does microcredit empower women, or does it just discipline and control them in a new way? This paper draws on the case of self-help groups (SHG) in rural India to shed light on microcredit’s various contradictory effects. By adopting the rules of patronage, SHGs renew the domination of women...

[fre] Si la question de la pérennité des dispositifs de microfinance est aujourd’hui centrale, elle peut difficilement être dissociée de la question de la solidarité. À partir d’études de cas, cet article propose d’analyser dans quelles mesures pérennité et solidarité sont...

<DIV>Microcredit programs, which often give small loans to borrowers in developing countries who lack collateral, have been considered efficient tools for economic development in struggling regions around the world. Yet, recently, microcredit has come under increasing critic by experts who feel that...</div>

Purpose – The concept of social capital has known unrelenting success over recent years. However, some ambiguities continue to surround the topic. Several authors have spelled out the link between social capital and trust, but there has been limited empirical analysis focusing on the creation...

The unequal treatment of children is not gender neutral from the parent side. Our results show that women try to compensate through debt for the unbalanced situation faced by their daughters compared to their sons. However, the lack of symmetry between mothers' and fathers' financial situations...

Poor women borrow from multiple sources. This study examines whether the source of debt matters for women’s role in household financial decisions. Drawing on a household survey from rural Tamil Nadu, we categorise women’s loans along the lines of accessibility and formality into ‘planned...

[eng] Isabelle Guérin — The financial practices of women entrepreneurs : Senegalese examples.. African entrepreneurs in general, and women in particular, are confronted with two types of demands with distinctive temporalities : daily survival and the respect of long-term community...

[eng] Isabelle Guérin — Global Micro-Credit Summits : What state of affairs five years on ? The self-assigned mission of global micro-credit summits was to « sell » the tool to funding agencies. It is in such respect that the promoters do not hesitate to praise its virtues and to make...