Few ideas have been so celebrated or been capable of generating such high and broad worldwide expectations like microfinance. The aim of this essay is to critically sketch the current mainstream microfinance movement and to shed light on its broken promises and emerging contradictions. The paper claims that modern microfinance could increase its internal as well as external sustainability as a ...

In this research we investigated the extent to which Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) use ICT to deliver business services and train staff. We performed literature review on ICT for business service delivery and staff skills development in MFIs. We next investigated the actual ICT usage by MFIs in Uganda with focus on ICT literacy, business applications, and planning. We used questionnaires to ...

The purpose of this article is to present and discuss the values and limits of microfinance within the context of poverty reduction, international development and community empowerment. The main thesis is that microfinance requires a more complex strategy than simply the provision of credits. The development of financial capital depends on the increase in human capacity and social capital. Micr...

This paper describes the microenterprise and microfinance sectors of seven English-speaking Caribbean states, examines main constraints on the development of a well functioning microfinance market in these countries, and highlights the amount, type, and results obtained in microenterprise projects financed by the Inter-American Bank in the last fifteen years. It suggests that English-speaking C...

Microfinance is the array of financial services, including loans, savings and insurance, available to Poor entrepreneurs and small business owners who have no collateral and would not otherwise qualify for a standard bank loan. Recent proliferation of microfinance market has swiftly increased the competition in microfinance Indian market, new technology and new devices are emerging at phenomal ...

OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the associations between microfinance programme membership and intimate partner violence (IPV) in different socioeconomic strata of a nationally representative sample of women in Bangladesh. METHODS The cross-sectional study was based on a nationally representative interview survey of 11 178 ever-married women of reproductive age (15-49 years). A total of ...

This article aims to identify the determinants of financing microenterprises in Burundi by microfinance institutions. Using logit model and exploiting data from loan portfolios Burundian institutions, econometric analysis reveals that is strongly correlated with characteristics these and/or those their micro-entrepreneurs on one hand, nature guarantee presented when applying for credit other ha...

OBJECTIVE To explore whether adding a gender and HIV training programme to microfinance initiatives can lead to health and social benefits beyond those achieved by microfinance alone. METHODS Cross-sectional data were derived from three randomly selected matched clusters in rural South Africa: (i) four villages with 2-year exposure to the Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equ...

Microfinance sector has witnessed a burgeoning outreach under microfinance institutions model which poses a question on the sustainability of the programme. Even if repayment rate for the major MFIs are greater than 95 %, it may neither be an appropriate indicator of institutional sustainability nor on impact. In this paper an examination on the outreach and sustainability of microfinance insti...

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of Islamic microfinance in the light of ongoing erosion of confidence in the viability of current financial system, full of speculatory finance in the prevailing global financial market. For example, the sub-prime crisis of 2007-2008 in the US with its effects all over the world was mainly due to the inadequate market discipline which i...