You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2010.
>Posted by Charlotte Connors
Amitabh Saxena, author of ACCION’s “InSight #27; Accelerating Financial Inclusion through Innovative Channels: 10 Obstacles for MFIs Launching Alternative Channels—and What Can Be Done,” was recently featured as a guest blogger in two exciting forums, where he discusses some implications of his recently completed research:
CGAP Technology Blog: “Is microfinance still relevant in branchless banking?”
Mobile Money for the Unbanked: “Why and How to Engage Microfinance Institutions for your Mobile Money Deployment”
Download your copy of his paper today.
> Posted by Melissa Lumpkin
Since the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, I’ve been in close communication with the President and Directeur Général of Sogesol. The DG confirmed that she, along with several staff and ACCION’s resident advisor, were at the Sogesol headquarters in Petion-Ville when the earthquake hit. Fortunately, they were able to get out of the building and safely home. Yet, a disaster of this magnitude leaves no one untouched – all have lost many close friends and witnessed widespread destruction. Our own resident advisor, Cassandre DuPont, wrote, “Melissa, the conditions here in Haiti are unimaginable. Please… help. It is worse than a war zone.”
It is hard to find words to express the relief I felt upon learning that Cassandre was evacuated and arrived home this week. But I realize that many will not have the same happy ending. Sogesol has ten branches and 194 employees in the Port au Prince metropolitan and surrounding provincial areas severely affected by the quake. The fate of all staff and clients in the Port-au-Prince area is not yet known, but Sogesol’s management continues to try to locate them. Emergency relief has begun, to get food, water and medical care to the many in need. Yet, once the initial crisis has passed, the earthquake’s destruction of local Haitian businesses will be sorely felt by the families, neighbors and communities that depend on them for basic goods and services. The poor Haitians that Sogesol serves will desperately need support to help rebuild their livelihoods.
This is not the first time Haiti and Sogesol have experienced natural disasters Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
Paul Rippey, a senior fellow with the Center for Financial Inclusion and manager of the Center’s Energy Links project, has started the blog ALTmf with a series of podcasts about savings groups. These groups – called Saving for Change by ACCION, VSLA by CARE, and SILC by CRS – are a new kind of microfinance centered on savings, totally member run, reaching people below the radar of many microfinance institutions, and with a focus on efficiency and transparency.
The blog is personal project of Paul’s, and as an independent site, he is working to make it as interesting and provocative as possible. Check it out, subscribe, and leave comments at http://www.altmf.com/.
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
Check out the latest Energy Links podcast in which Roey Rosenblith, co-founder of Village Energy in Uganda, talks with host Paul Rippey about his start-up solar lighting company, which seeks to add maximum local value by assembling products in country.
Roey also shares about his recent experiences as a passenger on NorthWest Flight 253 on Christmas day, which barely escaped being blown up, and reads part of his blog post on that experience, which appeared on the Huffington Post.
Listen to Roey’s podcast here >
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
In case you missed Elisabeth Rhyne’s post as we entered the holiday season, we give it to you again…
The Market as a Measure for Microfinance
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne
December 23, 2009
Many thanks to David Roodman for bringing people’s attention to an argument that I have been making for years: that measuring microfinance’s impact is far more complex than finding a one-to-one correspondence between a given loan and a client’s subsequent economic status.
I’d like to take the discussion a step further and consider why this message has been so hard to get across to donors and investors, researchers, and the general public. First, let’s look briefly at the main points.(If you disagree with any of them, I hope you’ll read the longer excerpt on David’s blog, or the chapter available here of The New World of Microenterprise Finance, on which it’s based.) Here they are:
- The causal links between receipt of financial services by individual borrowers and their subsequent economic growth are affected by many factors, finance being but one part of a complex process of decision making by enterprises and households. Clients use finance for a variety of purposes: protection against bad times, facilitation of efficient business operations (liquidity), and financing of investments. And they face a wide range of external forces, like competition, markets, health, weather, security, etc. The effect of finance is not likely to be as clear-cut as the effect of these other factors. Evaluations tend to strip out the richness of these dimensions.
- The service-client relationship is best measured by a market test of demand, or the willingness of clients to pay. If people pay full cost for a service on an ongoing basis, then evaluators can be sure that the service is valued at least as highly as its price.
- Microfinance has been all about building institutions, and more important, Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Courtney Piper
Looking back on the recent holidays, I am reminded of the ease with which I can transform into the resident Grinch when encountering life’s little annoyances, especially during the holiday season. You and I can, however, take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in our not-so-seasonal sensibilities. According to a nationally representative survey in the current issue of Consumer Reports, a number of “daily annoyances” bother many Americans. These annoyances run the gamut from not getting a human on the phone (when calling customer service) to traffic jams, receiving spam emails, and unreliable internet and/or cell phone service.
What was the number one irritant? “Hidden fees,” which respondents rated 8.9 on average, out of 10 (10 being the most annoying). Also among the top five irritants was “incomprehensible bills,” rated 7.8. So hiding fees and making bills indecipherable aren’t just ethically questionable—they’re downright annoying! These survey results illustrate the need to make pricing information more transparent across industries as well as helping to solidify the robust business case for greater pricing transparency.
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
Let your New Year’s resolution for 2010 be to subscribe to the Center’s podcast series!
The Center has a growing library of podcasts on topics ranging from microfinance and energy to client protection and housing innovations. The latest include some exciting, and quite musical, pieces by Paul Rippey…
- Asif Dowla, Climate Change and Microfinance
Asif Dowla talks with host Paul Rippey about the new paper, sponsored by Grameen Foundation and Oxfam USA, on Climate Change and Microfinance. Professor Dowla discusses how MFIs can “climate proof” their financial products, and of the importance of remittances and savings in a changing climate. - Jacob Moss and the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air
In this 13th episode, Paul Rippey interviews Jacob Moss of the EPA, who has led the effort to create the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air. Jacob and Paul talk about stoves, including some breakthrough models that might change everything!
Learn and listen more here >
And stay tuned for a new Energy Links podcast coming your way very soon…
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne
Kudos to Nicholas Kristof, long an advocate for microfinance, for spotlighting the importance of offering the poor a safe place to save their money as well as access to credit. Kristof, however, casts microcredit and microsavings as separate and or even opposing activities, when in fact they are two sides of one coin–both part of the full range of financial services that microfinance practitioners increasingly seek to provide.
“Microcredit” became “microfinance” 15 years ago precisely because the industry recognized the importance of savings as an asset-building strategy. This shift was not easy, because only sound financial institutions can provide the level of safety that the guardians of the assets of low-income people deserve. The best microfinance institutions around the world have worked hard to obtain licenses for deposit-taking, and to do so they have had to become formal financial institutions.
BancoSol in Bolivia and Mibanco in Peru (both members of the ACCION International family) are excellent examples of organizations that started as NGOs and are now commercial banks, changing form so that they could offer savings accounts as part of a full range of financial services, which also includes money transfers and microinsurance. Banco Sol now has nearly twice as many savers (235,000) as borrowers (120,000).
“Microcredit” has been a dated term for more than 15 years, at least among practitioners. We’re about microfinance–provision of a suite of financial services to help the world’s poor build and preserve wealth and manage risk.
> Posted by Kelley Mesa
Are you a student or recent graduate and want to get your feet wet in microfinance? Then check out our open position for an Outreach Intern. This paid internship is focused on building our social networking capabilities and web presence. You will work with the publications and communications officers to develop the Center’s interactions with external and internal audiences.
Click here to find out more and apply for the position >
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