Market for 33 percent interest loans. Financial inclusion and microfinance in India.

Financial inclusion is the process of building viable institutions that provide financial services to those hitherto excluded. These may include savings, insurances, remittances, and credit. Microfinance became the most dominant method for achieving financial inclusion. However, different microfinance schools of thought recommend opposite ways for attaining financial integration. India is a particularly insightful case study due to the sheer number of people excluded from formal financial services, as well as the spectrum of actors and approaches. The aim of this article is threefold. First, defining financial inclusion, depicting its status quo in India and comparing it to its South Asian and BRICS peers using recently released data from the Global Findex database. Second, focusing on microfinance as the dominant vehicle for achieving financial inclusion by scrutinizing its definitions, contrasting its two leading "schools of thought" and analyzing the central role of its dominant group-based approach. Third, the article will examine why people opt to take micro-credit at 33 percent interest rates

Blended Value Investing: Capital Opportunities for Social and Environmental Impact

This paper is offered not as a fully comprehensive survey of the emerging area of blended value investing, but rather as a set of examples of how such investing practices are being developed and applied around the world. The paper's intent is not to provide a single answer for all investment challenges, but to demonstrate how groups of investors are mobilizing capital on new terms to meet the challenges of emerging investment opportunities, as well as the demands of investors seeking out new asset classes in which to place their capital.This paper presents innovations in capital finance that promise to bridge market-rate interests with strategic opportunities to create blended value that benefits shareholder and stakeholder alike. The following examples speak to an evolving capital convergence wherein mainstream capital markets and investing will increasingly become drivers of new solutions to historic problems. Blended value investing funds and instruments offer financing strategies a set of tools that go beyond traditional philanthropy or market rate investing and which complement the vision we all share of a world with greater equity and opportunity for its members.This paper also identifies several areas of research that would help advance the field of blended value investing. Finally, the paper concludes with words of caution that suggest a prudent approach to developing blended value capital markets. It offers a critique of the state of the markets, presents a strategic vision for the blended value capital markets, and suggests specific steps that participants might take in moving toward the ideal

Rural Women and Microfinance in Ghana: Challenges and Prospects

Agricultural Finance, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Thinking Beyond Credit

Credit is often seen as an indispensable vehicle for the poor to get out of poverty, or as the tool that allows farmers to get access to new technologies, to increase productivity and their incomes. But many existing credit programmes often undermine farmers’ independence, tie them into dependency relationships, and oblige them to take all the risk. There are better ways to help farmers build their own resource base and independenc

POVERTY AND MICROFINANCE IN ERITREA – A DISCOURSE

The poverty levels in Eritrea are alarming. In the light of the escalating nature of poverty, there is an urgent need for a poverty alleviation initiative to reduce miseries of the majority of the poor. An attempt is made in this paper to analyse the incidence of poverty in the country with a particular focus on Agriculture. It also shed a light on the agriculture sector and its crucial role in providing 75 per cent jobs to its people. The paper also delves with the microfinance institutions particularly the Saving and Micro Credit Porgramme and its impact in reducing the poverty. It concludes that microfinance has strong capacity to drive economic growth and poverty reduction in Eritrea.Poverty, Eritrea, agriculture extension, agriculture technology, Microfinance

Shining a Light on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries: Report on the 3rd Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries

More than 30 years after the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), discrimination on the basis of gender and its consequences for society is still struggling for mainstream attention especially in aquaculture and fisheries. FAO's 2010/11 flagship report on the State of Food and Agriculture highlighted the gender gap in agriculture and estimated that raising women's farm productivity by 20-30% could lift 100-150 million people out of poverty. Held as part of the 9th Asian Fisheries and Aquaculture Forum at Shanghai Ocean University from 21 to 23 April 2011, the 3rd Global Symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF3) of the Asian Fisheries Society shone a light on the gender gap in the fish sector. This, the Society's fifth women/gender symposium, attracted a record number of papers and stimulated lively discussions. It was followed by a FAO Special Workshop on Future Directions for Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Action, Research and Development which will be reported on separately

Microfinance Institutions in Nigeria

The advocation of micro – financing was triggered by the poor performance of the conventional finance sector. The essence was to reach the overwhelming population of the poor to assist in the drive to alleviate poverty. Barely a million had been provided with some credit in Nigeria while a yawning 40 million poor people are yet to be attended to. In terms of supply, commercial and development finance institutions are in the fore front of the outfits that provide credits to the microfinance institutions. Despite their efforts, rates of interest, inequitable distribution of wealth and income and outreaching the poor constitute challenges to the operations. The establishment of microfinance institutions in Nigeria was based on weak institutional capacity, weak capital base, existence of a huge unserved market, utilization of SMEEIS fund among other thingsmicrofinance, financial institutions, agricultural credit and finance

Innovations in rural and agriculture finance

Most rural households lack access to reliable and affordable finance for agriculture and other livelihood activities. Many small farmers live in remote areas where retail banking is limited and production risks are high. The recent financial crisis has made the provision of credit even tighter and the need to explore innovative approaches to rural and agricultural finance even more urgent. This set of 14 briefs clearly points out the importance of business realities faced by small farmers, including low education levels, the dominance of subsistence farming, and the lack of access to modern financial instruments. These conditions mean that new and innovative institutions are required to reach small farmers. Emerging communication technologies provide new opportunities for rural banking by reducing business costs and alleviating information asymmetries. New financing instruments, such as weather index-based insurance and microinsurance, also have great potential for managing the risks faced by small farmers. In addition, bundling financial services with nonfinancial services like marketing and extension services offers new opportunities for small farmers to increase their productivity and incomes. Finally, an enabling policy environment and legal framework, enforcement of rules and regulations, and a supportive rural infrastructure all contribute immensely to making sustainable access to finance a reality. Table of Contents: •Innovations in rural and agriculture finance: Overview by Renate Kloeppinger-Todd and Manohar Sharma •Financial literacy by Monique Cohen •Community-based financial organizations: Access to Finance for the Poorest by Anne Ritchie •Rural banking in Africa: The Rabobank approach by Gerard van Empel •Rural banking: The case of rural and community banks in Ghana by Ajai Nair and Azeb Fissha •Rural leasing: An alternative to loans in financing income-producing assets by Ajai Nair •Determinants of microcredit repayment in federations of Indian self-help groups by Yanyan Liu and Klaus Deininger •M-PESA: Finding new ways to serve the unbanked in Kenya by Susie Lonie •Biometric technology in rural credit markets: The case of Malawi by Xavier Giné •Credit risk management in financing agriculture by Mark D. Wenner •New approaches for index insurance: ENSO insurance in Peru by Jerry R. Skees and Benjamin Collier •Microinsurance innovations in rural finance by Martina Wiedmaier-Pfister and Brigitte Klein •Combining extension services with agricultural credit: The experience of BASIX India by Vijay Mahajan and K. Vasumathi •Bundling development services with agricultural finance: The experience of DrumNet by Jonathan Campaigne and Tom RauschAgricultural innovations -- Developing countries, agriculture finance, Financial crisis, microinsurance, Poverty reduction, rural banking, Rural finance, Rural households, Small farmers,

Why is finance critical? A dialogue with a women's community in Sri Lanka

The busrt of the bubble has given momentum to the search of escape routes from the current transnational financial system and its underlying principles. For the past century, The transnational financial system has relied heavily on currency exchange, security backed loans, stocks and shares - all operated through banks, investment agencies, insurance brokers and stock markets. This global financial architecture centred on monetray values. It strived for financial wealth and achieved it for few out of many. This study shows that the practice of finance can create a wealth of a different - a scoial- nature. Applying an ethnographic approach to financial practices, this study tries to uncover how the sociocultural aspects of finance practiced among the poor rural women in Sri Lanka lead to the creation of social wealth beyond financial wealth. It discovers how finance is critical to such communities becauise it is creating wealth beyond financial measurement. Finance comes to Sinalhese women's everyday lives through traditional savings systems - seettu, household and group saving and it operates through frienships, kin relationships and social realtions. These community organisation develop social wealth through their thrifts, based on traditional practices of saving.Since transnational finance is driven by monetary values only, it overlays structures and that ignores local cultures, social networks and community identies necessary for the creation of social wealth. As a consequence, encounters with transnational finance inspire resistance in citizens of developing nations such as Sri Lanka. In an attempt to preserve their more tradional ways of exchange, communities find themselves workign agianst finance. Therefore in this paper I am interested in engaging in a dialogue with a rural community, to learn their ways of organising finance and the extent to which finance becomes critical to their everyday live

Empowering women to achieve food security:

CONTENTS: Brief 1. Overview / Agnes R. Quisumbing and Ruth S. Meinzen-Dick Brief 2. Land Rights / Eve Crowley Brief 3. Water Rights / Barbara Van Koppen Brief 4. Rights to Livestock / Beth A. Miller Brief 5. Technology / Thelma R. Paris, Hilary Sims Feldstein, and Guadalupe Duron Brief 6. Education / Elizabeth M. King and Harold Alderman Brief 7. Labor Markets and Employment / Ruthanne Deutsch, Suzanne Duryea, and Claudia Piras Brief 8. Health and Nutrition / Stuart Gillespie Brief 9. Social Capital / Mercy S. Dikito-Wachtmeister Brief 10. Microfinance / Manohar Sharma Brief 11. Safety Nets / Michelle Adato and Shelley Feldman Brief 12. Law and Legal Reform / Gita GopalFood security., Women Social conditions., Gender issues., Agricultural technology, Agricultural growth, Childcare and work, Gender, Property rights, Education, Natural resource management,