We provide empirical evidence on focusing on women in microfinance and its consequences for microfinance institutions (MFIs). Based on a global dataset, the results indicate that a focus on women is associated with group-lending methods, international orientation, smaller loans, and...

Discrimination against girls is well-documented, especially in Asia. We show that women try to level the playing field for their daughters by taking on debt. But wealth asymmetry between mothers and fathers perpetuates gender inequality across generations.

In the microfinance industry, "empowerment" is often described as a means to facilitate female emancipation from male domination. This paper draws on women's testimonies to highlight the fundamental importance of women's relationships with one another in this process. Women continuously...

</titre> Drawing on data collected in South-India and using a socioeconomic and comprehensive approach, this paper explores the effects of microfinance on pre-existing indebtedness and over-indebtedness. The analysis demonstrates the complexity of causality chains and the diversity of microfinance...

<alinea/> How and under which conditions can microfinance promote solidarity, solidarity being defined in terms of capability to redistribute power and wealth and to reinvent new forms of democracy ? Based on Indian cases studies, the paper gives evidence to the numerous challenges faced by microfinance...

This article examines the complexity and diversity of women?s informal financial practices and circuits using data from surveys conducted in Senegal and South India. An analysis of individual experiences reveals the subtlety and complexity of these practices and circuits: apart from economical...

</titre> <alinea/> Access to credit for small farmers is a major challenge in securing or even increase agricultural production. That this access is either difficult or impossible for farmers in developing countries. Yet the majority of peasants in developing countries are still excluded from the banking system....