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Microfinance is often considered one of the most effective, flexible, and sustainable strategies in the fight against global poverty.
Microfinance consists of making small loans, usually less than $200, to individuals, usually women, to establish or expand a small, self-sustaining business. For example, a woman may borrow $50 to buy chickens so she can sell eggs. As the chickens multiply, she will have more eggs to sell. Soon she can sell the chicks. Each expansion pulls her further from the devastation of poverty.
Microfinance, the Grameen way, includes several support systems that contribute greatly to its success. Microfinance institutions offer business advice and counseling, while clients provide peer support for each other through solidarity circles. This contributes substantially to the extremely high repayment rate of loans made to microfinance entrepreneurs.
An equally important part of microfinance is the recycling of funds. As loans are repaid, they are re-loaned, multiplying the impact of each dollar.
Microfinance has a positive impact far beyond the individual client. As families cross the poverty line and micro-businesses expand, their communities benefit. Jobs are created, knowledge is shared, civic participation increases, and women are recognized as valuable members of their families and communities.
Microfinance and Technology
Information and communication technology provide an unparalleled opportunity to improve the lives of the world's poorest people. With a doorway into the information age, people in the world's poorest villages are able to generate economic opportunity and better address the needs in their communities.One of the greatest success stories in international development is the Grameen Village Phone Program from Bangladesh. In rural villages where no telecommunications services have previously existed, the program provides cellular phones via a sustainable financing mechanism to poor entrepreneurs who use the phone to operate a business. Today, the program is being replicated in Uganda and Rwanda.
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Building bridges from big banks to small villages
Microfinance is capable of growing large enough to be available to serve all of the world's poor. However, its potential, as of yet, remains largely unrealized. In human terms, more than 75% of the world's 560 million poor families still lack access to efficient, affordable and appropriate financial services.Funding from donors is key to growing microfinance programs, but taken alone it is not enough. The microfinance industry requires as much as US$5 billion in financing to support annual growth estimated between 15 to 30% each year. The only way to bridge this gap is by using the vast financial resources of the capital markets, more commonly used by the business world, with banks and other investors providing loans, guarantees, bonds, equity investments, and other mechanisms.
By using loan guarantees and other financial tools, microfinance institutions can build on the base provided by donations -- multiplying the money, and the number of poor people helped, by as many as twelve times over. Thanks to these new tools, millions more poor people will be helped sooner. Learn more about the capital markets and microfinance.
Microfinance organizations
- Grameen Foundation
- We're a dynamic, nonprofit organization that uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world's poorest people. With tiny loans, financial services and technology, we help the poor, mostly women, start self-sustaining businesses to escape poverty.
- Grameen Bank (Bangladesh)
- Grameen Bank was started in 1976 by Professor Muhammad Yunus with the money in his pocket. Today it serves over five million poor clients in Bangladesh, helping thousands rise out of poverty each week.
- Opportunity International
- "Giving the poor a working chance - that's what Opportunity International is all about. Small loans, sometimes as little as $50, in the hands of a poor entrepreneur can transform the lives of individuals, families, and entire communities."
- Microcredit Summit Campaign
- "The Microcredit Summit Campaign brings together microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and others involved with microcredit."
- FINCA
- Provides financial services to the world's poorest families so they can create their own jobs, raise household incomes, and improve their standard of living.
Books About Microfinance
Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
Dr. Yunus' account of founding the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh with $27 out of his pocket
Amazon Price: $10.55 (as of 12/01/2009) 
The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank
Introduces microfinance and the growth of the Grameen Bank
Amazon Price: $21.33 (as of 12/01/2009)
Give Us Credit
Grameen Foundation president's story of Grameen's microfinance methodology and how it is taking root around the world
Amazon Price: (as of 12/01/2009)
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
Includes the story of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank
Amazon Price: (as of 12/01/2009)
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