Through an analysis of Ghana's HIPC Fund, which was established as part of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) process, this paper shows how aid-financed efforts to reduce regional inequality in Ghana have failed. Dominant political elites agreed to policies of regional inequality...

Abstract This paper argues that microfinance in South Asia, like mainstream finance in North America and Europe, "has lost its moral compass". Our particular concern is with microloans to vulnerable clients. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have increasingly focussed on financial performance and...

Since their emergence in 2001, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have become accepted as consensus objectives of international development efforts. They have generated controversies and literature that focus on the economics of whether and how they can be achieved. However, little work has...

The concept and practice of social protection in developing countries has advanced at an astonishing pace over the last decade or so. There is a growing consensus around the view that social protection constitutes an effective response to poverty and vulnerability in developing countries, and an...

This paper argues that two ideas – human development and results-based management – have been particularly significant in shaping the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are unlikely intellectual bedfellows, but by charting the evolution of the MDGs their many influences are...

This paper commences by examining the evolution of a programme designed to reach the poorest people in Bangladesh, to improve their immediate situation and to give them the assets and other skills to move out of poverty and dramatically reduce their vulnerability – BRAC's Challenging the...

This paper looks at the establishment and evolution of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. It traces the development of the Bank from its origins, providing microcredit to poor, rural women in Bangladesh, through a period of national expansion and institutionalisation, to the replication around the...

This paper provides a chronological account of the evolution of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It examines their historical antecedents; the UN conferences and summits that provided their content; the role of OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in formulating the...

This paper introduces a significant new multi-disciplinary collection of studies of poverty dynamics, presenting the reader with the latest thinking by a group of researchers who are leaders in their respective disciplines. It argues that there are three main fronts on which progress must be...

This paper identifies key processes shaping the microfinance sector in the coming decades. The paper examines the geography of microfinance, highlighting differing evolution patterns and challenges across the world. It looks at the widespread adoption of a financial systems approach in the...