Making Microfinance Work

This training manual provides an overview of the key management principles necessary to optimize the services of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and brings together useful lessons from numerous MFIs worldwide to help managers strengthen the performance of their unit, branch or institution.Either used alone, or as part of a management training course, Making Microfinance Work offers various tools and advice. The markets and marketing of MFIs are examined and looks at the different ways in which managers can communicate the value of their products and services. It introduces effective methods for enhancing efficiency and productivity which minimize the trade-offs MFIs invariably face as they try to provide services over the long term.The topic of managing risks is also covered. This manual offers strategies to prevent risk from occurring and, if it does occur, explains how to rectify the situation. Practical techniques for allocating costs and determining prices are also highlighted, as well as the importance of plans, budgets and reports. Illustrations and case studies are used to assist managers in applying the concepts outlined in the text. An extensive list of additional reading and useful Internet resources is also provided

Microfinance has long been recognized as having significant potential to create jobs and reduce poverty. But to meet the twin challenges of growth and sustainability, managers of microfinance institutions (MFIs) must not only understand essential management functions: they must also be armed with innovative ideas and strategies to succeed in today's increasingly competitive environment. This book provides a valuable overview of the key management principles necessary to optimize the services of MFIs.Volume 1 examines the markets and marketing of MFIs and captures the different ways that managers can communicate the value of their products and services. It offers strategies to prevent risk from occurring and, if it does occur, explains how to rectify the situation. Practical techniques for allocating costs and determining prices are also highlighted, as well as the importance of plans, budgets and reports. Volume 2 includes chapters on various product options, including savings, insurance, leasing, money transfers, and even grants and nonfinancial services. It also explores how to combine different product menus to serve specific market segments, such as the ultra-poor, youth, women, and small and medium enterprises. It provides specific suggestions to manage diversification, including adapting the institutional culture, redistributing responsibilities, empowering staff, communicating with clients, reengineering systems, and managing change.

This is the second volume of a training course designed for middle and senior managers in microfinance institutions (MFIs). It builds on the acclaimed "Making Microfinance Work: Managing for Improved Performance" (2006). The book includes chapters on various product options, including savings, insurance, leasing, money transfers, and even grants and nonfinancial services. It also explores how to combine different product menus to serve specific market segments, such as the ultra-poor, youth, women, and small and medium enterprises. It provides specific suggestions to manage diversification, including adapting the institutional culture, redistributing responsibilities, empowering staff, communicating with clients, reengineering systems, and managing change.

Since its emergence in the 1970s, microfinance has risen to become one of the most high-profile policies to address poverty in developing and transition countries. It is beloved of rock stars, movie stars, royalty, high-profile politicians and ‘troubleshooting’ economists. In this provocative and controversial analysis, Milford Bateman reveals that microfinance doesn’t actually work. In fact, the case for it has been largely built on hype, on egregious half-truths and – latterly – on the Wall Street-style greed of those promoting and working in microfinance. Using a multitude of case studies, from India to Cambodia, Bolivia to Uganda, Serbia to Mexico, Bateman demonstrates that microfi nance actually constitutes a major barrier to sustainable economic and social development, and thus also to sustainable poverty reduction. As developing and transition countries attempt to repair the devastation wrought by the global financial crisis, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work? argues forcefully that the role of microfinance in development policy urgently needs to be reconsidered.

Winner of the 2011 Paul Davidoff award! This is a book about poverty but it does not study the poor and the powerless; instead it studies those who manage poverty. It sheds light on how powerful institutions control "capital," or circuits of profit and investment, as well as "truth," or authoritative knowledge about poverty. Such dominant practices are challenged by alternative paradigms of development, and the book details these as well. Using the case of microfinance, the book participates in a set of fierce debates about development – from the role of markets to the secrets of successful pro-poor institutions. Based on many years of research in Washington D.C., Bangladesh, and the Middle East, Poverty Capital also grows out of the author's undergraduate teaching to thousands of students on the subject of global poverty and inequality.

The idea that small loans can help poor families build businesses and exit poverty has blossomed into a global movement. The concept has captured the public imagination, drawn in billions of dollars, reached millions of customers, and garnered a Nobel Prize. Radical in its suggestion that the poor are creditworthy and conservative in its insistence on individual accountability, the idea has expanded beyond credit into savings, insurance, and money transfers, earning the name microfinance. But is it the boon so many think it is? Readers of David Roodman's openbook blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis. Due Diligence, written entirely in public with input from readers, probes the truth about microfinance to guide governments, foundations, investors, and private citizens who support financial services for poor people. In particular, it explains the need to deemphasize microcredit in favor of other financial services for the poor.

In Making Women Pay, Smitha Radhakrishnan explores India's microfinance industry, which in the past two decades has come to saturate the everyday lives of women in the name of state-led efforts to promote financial inclusion and women's empowerment. Despite this favorable language, Radhakrishnan argues, microfinance in India does not provide a market-oriented development intervention, even though it may appear to help women borrowers. Rather, this commercial industry seeks to extract the maximum value from its customers through exploitative relationships that benefit especially class-privileged men. Through ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis, Radhakrishnan demonstrates how the unpaid and underpaid labor of marginalized women borrowers ensures both profitability and symbolic legitimacy for microfinance institutions, their employees, and their leaders. In doing so, she centralizes gender in the study of microfinance, reveals why most microfinance programs target women, and explores the exploitative implications of this targeting.

'Can Microfinance Work?' presents a thorough-going and nuanced ethical assessment of the microfinance industry, drawing on the author's expertise in the fields of finance and applied ethics.