Title: Efficiency and Sustainability in Microfinance
Abstract: More than many other development strategies, microfinance, that is, the provision of financial services to the poor on a sustainable basis, sets high expectations. It is supposed to help attain — more or less directly — several of the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000. Microfinance should enhance access to education, health services, water and social services. In addition, it should extend and deepen the market, pushing out the frontier of the financial sector (von Pischke, 1991), pioneering where commercial institutions do not (yet) dare to tread. Such positive externalities are rarely associated with other poverty-reducing strategies. Above all, microfinance institutions are expected to be able — ultimately — to pay for themselves. After just a few years of start-up support, they should in principle become fully self-financing.1 The question is: is that actually happening?
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 30
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