Microfinance and Development Venture Capital

Accion Paper

The Global Microcredit Summit commissioned Accion International to produce a paper. Microfinance Through the Next Decade: Visioning the Who, What, Where, When and How by Beth Rhyne and Maria Otero note "While major advances will be made in reaching people who are currently unreached, including many very poor people, we expect that at the end of the decade there will still be a challenge to reach the poorest, rural and most remote clients."

"What's Wrong with Microfinance?"

Malcolm Harper, former chairman of BASIX in India, will be speaking at the Fletcher School tomorrow, Thursday, November 16th. The talk will begin at 5:30pm in Cabot 205. Everyone is welcome. Please see http://fletcher.tufts.edu/directions/Default.asp for directions. A light reception will be served after the event.

UPDATE: An article describing Malcolm Harper's talk can be found at the following website:

http://fletcher.tufts.edu/news/2006/11/harper.shtml

Forbes Article - MicroCredit: Why India is Failing

Hi all-

I highly recommend this article which just came out in Forbes magazine about microfinance in India. It's a very interesting read.  http://www.forbes.com/execpicks/global/2006/1113/026.html

Harvard and Fletcher-Tufts in India

A new report by Prabhu Ghate 'Microfinance in India, State of the Sector' has been released. Congratulations to Harvard Professors Cole, Mullainathan, Field and Pande for their work. Special recognition for Fletcher and Harvard students who worked on pieces of the research, most through CMF -

Elsy Alcala (KSG, Harvard), "What Savings Products do People Want?"

Shinjinee Chattopadhyay (Fletcher, Tufts) "Experiments on Repayment Schedules in VWS, West Bengal". (Reference accidentally omitted from report.)

Iris Korovesi (Fletcher, Tufts), "Staff Incentives in MFIs".

Carissa Page (Fletcher, Tufts), "Reputation and Communication in Microfinance".

Daniel Radcliffe (KSG, Harvard), "A Study of Indian Microfinance Regulation" (forthcoming).

Jeremy Tobacman (Harvard College), "Impact Evaluation of Weather Insurance with SEWA, Gujarat".
Download sector_report1.pdf

Microfinance as Business

David Roodman and Uzma Quresha have released an important piece which systematically reviews the flaws in various social and commercial perspectives in microfinance. You can google Microfinance as Business for a free download. It was released the same day as Millions for Millions, Connie Bruck's article in the New Yorker which contrasts the philosophy of Pierre Omidyar and Mohammed Yunus.