Feb. 26, 2007: Innovations in Microcredit

This is intended to provide more background to other posts today on aid, microcredit, development, foundations, banking endeavours, and taxpayer money.



Microcredit at AllExperts

experts.about.com/e/m/mi/Microcredit.htm

The Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) is another innovative institution; ... *Grameen Bank, generally regarded as the originator of the microcredit ...

Very Interesting -- Soon all will be using devices like the Blackberry, the Pearl, cell phones, and more new tools ... when they can be produced cheaply enough in the usual countries. ... Or subsidized by Western aid, perhaps.

Innovations in Microcredit

http://www.kbyutv.org/smallfortunes/innovations/

As the rise of loans for the global poor has increased, a number of innovations are occurring that suggest dramatic new changes in Microcredit. Some of these innovations include the following:

Types of Loan Products

[....] New Banking Tools

New tools for financial transactions ... Women's World Banking [.... The Grameen Bank has taught them so much ... with a little help from the Grameen Bank's friends.......]

New Institutions

Large, new players are entering the field of microfinance. For instance, the International Finance Corporation (IFC)

[....] Opportunity International uses a performance and benchmarking system to compare its 40 partners around the world on such criteria as outreach, profitability, and sustainability.

Large Scale Plans

Major donor countries in 2005 committed $34 billion to the International Development Association (IDA) [....]

Overseas Remittances

Immigrant workers in Europe, Japan, U.S., and other more-developed nations earn and send [....]

[....] From NGOs to Banks [ Details, details, details -- very interesting -- helping the poor ... It expands charity to a great business plan, IMHO. Worth reading ....another Titanic ... another iceberg ... and the band plays on ... ]

[....] Growing Businesses

[....] Green Microcredit

[....] Accelerating Microcredit

A matter of growing interest is how to expand microcredit from its current important but limited impacts into a major tool for empowering the poor.

[....] Hi-Tech Innovations

Providers of microcredit services are rapidly embracing the use of new technologies to expand their impact: computers, smart cards, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones and other tools, etc. [RIM's Pearl should come in handy, especially if they can be produced for a few dollars ... Watch for developments.]

[....] PDAs are being used by numerous NGOs to manage MFI client data.[....]

[....] Disaster Innovations

What happens to NGOs when calamities [....]

Other Innovations [....]

Children are becoming microentrepreneurs too. [....]

To buttress the claim that credit ought to be a human right, and to serve those on the lowest rungs of poverty's ladder, [....]

Did you notice that new human right? ....... Coming to a Canadian NGO, activists and Human Rights Commissions near you?

Lengthy ... worth reading.