As an effective financial tool for socio-economic development, today microfinance has gained enormous success in tackling poverty on a global scale and helping various governmental and non-governmental actors to achieve their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Given the positive impact of...

A considerable and growing literature exists on social transfers in developing countries, that is, direct transfers in cash or kind to individuals or households in poverty. Many studies have examined the contribution social transfers can make to reducing poverty and vulnerability in the...

Through a detailed life history of Bismarck, a Nicaraguan youth gang member turned illegal drug dealer turned legal entrepreneur, this paper explores the potential relationships between formal and informal economic activity. It focuses particularly on the various economic activities that he has...

This article introduces and explores issues regarding the question of what constitute valid forms of development knowledge, focusing in particular on the relationship between fictional writing on development and more formal academic and policy-oriented representations about development issues....

years, some disadvantaged groups-the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)- remain mired in acute poverty. The present study assesses their poverty and relative deprivation, and the underlying factors. Our analysis of the 61st round of the NSS for 2004-05 confirms higher incidence and...

Although great importance is attached to the role of education in national development in Southeast Asia, its role has been ambivalent. In the colonial period, education was a central way in which societies mobilised to challenge and resist European rulers. Yet education has also been the...

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 presents an attempt to provide a first overview of the collective activities of conservation non-government organisations (NGOs) working in Sub-Saharan Africa, presenting findings on the work of over 280 organisations. The number of NGOs in existence grew in the 1980s and blossomed in...

Sierra Leone has recently emerged from a long period of political instability and civil war, and is ranked among the world’s poorest countries. Thousands of displaced people are in the process of returning to their villages to rebuild their mainly farming-based livelihoods, and many are...

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...