In 2005, Uganda’ government fundamentally shifted the direction of its microfinance (MF) policy. Hitherto it had focused on integrating MF institutions into the financial sector, allowing them to take deposits. Since 2005, it focuses on savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs); with government...

Since the Mexican Microfinance Institution (MFI) Compartamos went public in 2007 – whereby promoting NGOs and private investors earned about USD 425 million – leading journals and magazines have repeatedly run rather sceptical articles about microfinance. They are mostly inspired by...

This paper (9,201 words) argues that there is more to the becoming of a market than income-level of the buyer. A market is a fine webbed institutional setting that is worthwhile for economists to study. It argues that there are five characteristics to look at, namely demand, supply, and beyond...

There are manifold reasons for microfinance association; the most common ones are advocacy, information, capacity building. However, the one unifying rationale of this organisational type appears to be wanting. The following paper makes two cases about the rationale of MF associations: 1. MF...

Institutions shape the incentives and opportunities people find and create. The institutions of poverty discourage accumulations of assets, disable accountability of governance, and dilute potential. After an empirical overview of past and present prevalence of poverty and its scholarly...

A crisis of microfinance in Andhra Pradesh (AP) is of highest interest to microfinance practitioners and scholars and politicians around the world, because some of the world’s largest microfinance institutions (MFIs) are based out of AP. The current crisis has shaken microfinance in India and...