Microcredit in the Rural Areas of Northwest Yunnan Province, China: Investigating the Operation of, Results of, and Obstacles to Microfinancial Institutions
The UN declared 2005 the Silver Year of International Microfinance, due to the successes of microcredit programs in underdeveloped countries around the world since the phenomenon first started appearing in the eighties and nineties. Although programs succeed, it is not without great effort, extended time periods, and competent administration. Previous research of microfinance in Yunnan Province, China has indicated that some of the greatest barriers to success in the programs are their administrative costs and instability, information inequity, and borrowers’ misunderstanding of policies or refusal to adhere to those policies. The purpose of this paper will be to investigate in what ways microfinancial institutions are dealing with or could be dealing with these sorts of problems, and also to evaluate the efficacy of microcredit in Lijiang County for alleviating poverty and generating increases in income
