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> Posted by Siddhartha Chowdri, Program Manager, Disability Inclusion, India, CFI
How does the microfinance community view persons with disabilities (PWD)? This economically disenfranchised population makes up less than one percent of microfinance clients around the world, leaving the vast majority of PWD excluded. Many PWD would benefit from financial services. Yet even the most intense Google, Bing, or Yahoo search will yield almost no in-depth research into how persons with disabilities are perceived among the leaders and staff of microfinance institutions (MFIs). For my focus country of India, no research at all is related to this topic. We hope that a new CFI paper authored by Vipin Gupta of Credit Suisse, Making Microfinance Accessible to Persons with Disabilities: Awareness and Attitudes Among Indian Microfinance Institutions, will be the starting point for more research and action in this area.
Annapurna Staff Members and v-shesh Researcher with Focus Group Discussion Participants, Odisha
Over the last two years CFI has been working with three leading Indian MFIs – Equitas, ESAF, and Annapurna – to refine and develop tools that institutions across the world can use to make themselves more accessible to PWD. CFI also partnered with v-shesh, an India-based social enterprise with expertise in disability inclusion. At the start of this work, CFI and v-shesh decided to conduct research on the existing environments at these MFIs. The purpose of this research was two-fold:
- Learn which areas related to disability inclusion should be emphasized during the planned trainings and accessibility audits.
- Establish a baseline understanding of the existing views of disability inclusion at the MFIs for subsequent monitoring of changes.
Last November, the v-shesh team surveyed hundreds of MFI staff at all levels as well as MFI clients – both with disabilities and without. They also conducted intensive focus group discussions to gather additional qualitative information to prepare for the trainings.
> Posted by Hema Bansal, India Director, the Smart Campaign
As a child growing up in India, I was always intrigued by stories from Myanmar, but disturbed by conflicts that it had witnessed. Not knowing much about the country, as an adult I still had an innate desire to visit. On May 7th and 8th, I attended the Responsible Finance Seminar, organized by Entrepreneurs du Monde (EDM), held in Myanmar’s city of Yangon. I was completely awed by the mystical peace of the city, I was also impressed by the demonstrations of support at the seminar for instilling client protection in Myanmar’s microfinance industry. It’s a great opportunity for a young market to secure responsible practices from its outset.
Myanmar, the second-largest country in Southeast Asia, remains one of its poorest. Decades of isolation have severely affected its development. In terms of financial inclusion, a large proportion of the population in Myanmar relies on informal lenders. The formal sector only serves about 20 percent of the population, largely because of the existing financial institutions’ limited capability.
In May 2011, President Thein Sein publicly recognized microfinance as a means of development by enabling local and foreign investors to establish fully privately-owned MFIs. Since the rationalization of licensing in Myanmar, around 110 MFIs have been registered. Deposit-taking institutions have been allowed to set-up shop rather easily due to low minimum capital requirements and the absence of separate prudential regulations from non-deposit-taking institutions, such as rules pertaining to reporting standards and portfolio quality management.
> Posted by Joshua Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative
There is unfortunately no reliable substitute for family support when it comes to helping a person succeed with their schooling, with their disability, or with their microfinance loan.
Thomas Friedman of The New York Times recently asked educators in Shanghai what made Chinese schools successful, compared to schools in the United States. The unequivocal answer was that while improved teacher training that the U.S. emphasizes was of course important, far and away the key to student achievement was intensive parental involvement; Chinese schools spend time and resources insuring that parents are trained in how to help their children learn.
A heretical Mr. Provocative agrees with conservatives that throwing billions into the latest education reform fad will have extremely limited success as long as family support is anemic or absent. (This is not to say that reformers don’t routinely ask parents to take more responsibility but clearly such a nudge is not enough.) “It’s the parents, stupid,” or, “It’s the family, stupid.”
We have to point at the family as the prime mover even when this is hurtful and it causes “guilt and shame.” Nothing wrong with pricking the conscience. This is a “theory of change” that is millennia old and has long had some success for most religions—in a positive way. But public policy cognoscenti shun the language of judgment and conscience. In not asking more of families are we not party to what George W. Bush called “the bigotry of low expectations?”
My “it’s the family, stupid” sentiment has been reinforced by listening to a recent Ted Talk by Stanford graduate and Rhodes Scholar, Rachel Kolb, who was born profoundly deaf.
> Posted by Maura Hart, Communications Manager, Microfinance CEO Working Group
In conjunction with the release of two new publications on over-indebtedness, the MCWG has launched the Over-Indebtedness Transparency Discussion Forum as a platform for discussion and encourage readers to join in. We invite you to share your thoughts and questions with other microfinance practitioners.
Understanding the causes and potential remedies for over-indebtedness is critical to socially responsible lending. The fallout from over-indebtedness can be extensive, not only to the clients whose inability to repay loans can lead to social, economic, and personal problems with long-lasting repercussions, but if over-indebtedness is widespread, it can create adverse economic impact on the community and ultimately cause a significant economic crisis in that region. We have seen tragic examples of this in Bolivia and India just in the last 15 years.
Recognizing the ongoing urgency of this issue, the Microfinance CEO Working Group – a collaborative effort by the leaders of eight pioneering microfinance organizations – Accion, FINCA International, Freedom from Hunger, Grameen Foundation, Opportunity International, Pro Mujer, VisionFund International, and Women’s World Banking – commissioned two new studies:
The Working Group and our colleagues in the socially responsible lending community are anxious to avoid a debt crisis in Mexico, similar to those that have caused major upheavals in other countries. The Working Group commissioned Over-Indebtedness in Mexico: Its Effect on Borrowers to learn of the causes of over-indebtedness in Mexico directly from borrowers and those who are on the frontlines of the loan application and approval process.
Over-Indebtedness: A Risk Management Approach is designed to help other microfinance institutions (MFIs) identify the leading indicators of the trend toward over-indebtedness and mitigate the risks—and ultimately reduce the likelihood that over-indebtedness will happen. The study examines the leading indicators of over-indebtedness and suggests steps MFIs can take to avoid over-indebting their clients. It also identifies the risk mitigants and controls that will reduce the likelihood of MFIs being affected should over-indebtedness hit the wider market.
We hope these two papers will be the catalyst for an open dialogue among practitioners and thought leaders in the microfinance sector so that we might collaborate to develop preventive solutions. As these initiatives become established, the Working Group will share these resources with other MFIs and the microfinance sector. We also plan to provide additional platforms to continue the fruitful discussion of over-indebtedness remedies.
> Posted by Joshua Goldstein, Principal Director for Economic Citizenship & Disability Inclusion, CFI
It has always been my unexamined belief that as economies mature the so called “informal sector” will shrink and with it the microfinance market. Sometimes unexamined beliefs based on instinct or intuition turn out to be right when subject to a fact-rich inquiry. But not this time. Upon investigating I uncovered growth trends in the informal sector and in urbanization, suggesting a refocusing for microfinance.
The informal sector is growing everywhere in the world. This segment of the economy, though its definition varies, includes activities of the working poor that are unrecognized, unrecorded, unprotected, or unregulated by public authorities. In more developed countries, also considered part of the informal economy are employment positions that have tenuous connections between the worker and formal structures and few, if any, labor rights or benefits. Globally, estimates for the total informal economy vary between 50 and 60 percent of the world’s population. According to Gallup’s 2012 World Survey, only about 40 percent of adults around the world, across all countries and income groups, have a fixed income for over 30 hours per week.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI
#174334287 / gettyimages.com
#174334287 / gettyimages.com
What’s the percentage of MFI clients worldwide that are LGBT? How about the percentage of staff at MFIs? Broader yet, how inclusive is the financial services industry of queer and trans people?
As you’d probably guess, concrete answers to these questions aren’t available. And even raising the issue is controversial in many countries. Over the past year anti-gay legislation was enacted in Russia, Nigeria, Uganda, and India. The notion of financial institutions working towards LGBT-inclusive operations is far off in many countries.
But here in the U.S. (and in other areas worldwide) change is happening, as demonstrated at the Out on the Street Summit last week in New York City. The event, part of the Out on the Street initiative, featured senior leadership from some of the largest financial services providers in the world, including Michael Corbat, CEO of Citigroup, and Ajay Banga, President and CEO of MasterCard. Held on May 1, the event focused on business opportunities and leadership strategies for and within the LGBT community, as well as the financial services industry’s role in advancing LGBT equality.
> Posted by Joshua Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative
#157402110 / gettyimages.com
#157402110 / gettyimages.com
It is time for an impact study on the value of so many microfinance conferences. What drives and sustains this cottage industry, rife with redundancy, terrible for the carbon footprint, a wound to a poor NGO’s bottom line, and arguably a poor use of staff time, especially when said staff is in charge of putting the conference together?
Yes, I know the arguments for attending and/or putting on conferences: networking with newbies and golden oldies; sharing interesting, even industry disruptive ideas; exploring or deepening partnerships with other kin; raising the visibility of the industry through the media that finally this time will give microfinance the coverage it deserves.
And ABOVE ALL, may the gods be merciful, connecting us with the funders to insure the NGO’s future in perpetuity—or at least until the end of the calendar year.
All these are valid and honorable reasons to attend—in moderation.
As for me, I am a guilty regular at the parties among other guilty regulars, who I am quite sure may harbor some of the same doubts about the number of annual microfinance extravaganzas on the docket that I do—all conferences claiming to be the one indispensable conference that no one can afford to miss. Like me, they surely reflect on how the bucks spent on air fare, four star hotels, lavish meals, and other extravagances could be used directly to relieve a thousand human beings suffering in poverty somewhere with a direct cash transfer. And instead are being used to cosset us like the poverty royals that we are.
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director, CFI
The following post was originally published on USAID’s microlinks.
Elisabeth Rhyne joined USAID shortly after the seminal PISCES (Program of Investment in the Small Capital Enterprise Sector) studies were completed in the 1980s. From 1994 to 1998, she was the Director of USAID’s Office of Microenterprise Development, where she developed and led USAID’s Microenterprise Initiative.
The breakthrough innovations that sparked the birth of microenterprise credit in Latin America occurred in the early 1980s, and USAID was very much the driving force. Through PISCES, the Program for Investment in the Small Capital Enterprise Sector, operational from 1979 to 1985, USAID and its partner organizations began to discover the principles of success for lending to the poor, opening the way for the microfinance industry.
To understand the origins of this microfinance strategy, it helps to visualize PISCES at a time when three streams of thought came together. First was the “Spring Review” on directed agricultural credit carried out by the rural finance gurus of Ohio State University, Dale Adams and Claudio Gonzalez Vega, with J.D. von Pischke of the World Bank. Their work revealed the waste and dysfunction of subsidized agricultural credit doled out by bankrupt government credit banks. These banks were swallowing hundreds of millions of development dollars annually. The Ohio State team’s manifesto was that financial institutions must make credit decisions based on risk assessments, not politics, and charge interest rates that would allow operations to be sustainable. That review launched a gradual shift by USAID, the World Bank, and other aid agencies away from public development banks. But, if public development banks were sidelined, who would serve the poor?
At the same time research mainly by the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed the importance of the “informal sector,” small-scale businesses operated by low-income households. These were especially important in urban areas as a source of livelihood for a vast portion, and sometimes even the majority, of the poor in developing countries. (Why this was a revelation was a mystery to me – one has only to stroll through the poor areas of a developing country to see the scale of the informal sector.) The ILO’s work excited the interest of USAID’s Office of Urban Development. Michael Farbman and his colleagues there wanted to figure out how development organizations could assist the proprietors of small and microenterprises to improve their businesses and work their way out of poverty.
> Posted by V. McIntyre, Freelance Writer for the Harvard Kennedy School
The Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion is building a movement toward full financial inclusion by 2020. This blog series spotlights financial inclusion efforts around the globe, shares insights from the FI2020 consultative process and highlights findings from “Mapping the Invisible Market.”
Here’s a financial inclusion puzzle for you. In marketplaces in Peru, small shop owners often take out loans from illegal and possibly dangerous lenders, gangs that operate on motorcycles. Cheaper and safer legal lending channels are available to these customers, but they don’t use them. How would you design a product that would draw these borrowers into the formal sector?
This was the question Guillermo Palomino, chairman of the microlending organization Edpyme La Cruz in Peru and advisor to several Latin American MFIs, brought to small group discussions in the Rethinking Financial Inclusion: Smart Design for Policy and Practice program offered by Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education.
The first step was to develop a clear statement of the problem: use of illegal loans may endanger customers and exposes them to high interest rates and it may also expose their communities to increased criminality. Palomino explains, “The customer has no legal contract, no real knowledge of what the interest rate is, what the penalties are, when they might be applied, or what might happen if they default with these lenders.”
However, an effective solution would involve understanding the appeal of illegal loans. The HKS group worked to define the factors contributing to the problem, both at the surface and at deeper levels.
In essence, the formal sector was not offering customers the ease they required. With the illegal lenders, Palomino explains, “You call a cell phone and a guy shows up on a motorcycle with a little bag. He’ll give you $500 and say, ‘Okay, I’ll be back next week.’” Formal loans, in contrast, require signatures, background checks, address verification, and projected cash flow. These are minor hassles for some, like the formally-employed rich, but major hurdles for the poor. As Palomino describes, “These microbusinesses don’t have people to handle paperwork, go back and forth for signatures or pick up money—because then who takes care of selling the apples or bags of rice?” In probing for underlying causes, the small groups discussed how the regulatory demands pertaining to the loan approval process also present a challenge.
> Posted by Joshua Goldstein, Principal Director for Economic Citizenship & Disability Inclusion, CFI
I spent the first two hours of the conference in a speed dating exercise called First Connections, where delegates had five minutes to give each other their elevator pitches before moving chairs to meet the next delegate. I recognize that common perceptions of this sort of activity perceive it as always awkward and often a waste of time. In this case, however, my speed dating was at the annual Skoll World Forum, and its value was indicative of the diverse connections needed to solve the complex challenges of my work on disability inclusion, and of those attending the Forum.
The Skoll World Forum, held in Oxford, England, brings together social entrepreneurs, as well as funders, politicians, media, and others who, in Founder Jeff Skoll’s words, are committed to “solving the world’s most pressing problems.” I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in the 11th annual Forum, based on my contribution to a global civil rights struggle to end discrimination against persons with disabilities. My scope of work within this ambitious movement has been developing a set of tools and trainings with my colleagues at the Center for Financial Inclusion to make microfinance institutions and other financial service providers disability inclusive. Along with facilitating the industry’s integration of these tools and trainings, we’re working with in-country stakeholders to develop disability inclusion plans in Ecuador, India, Paraguay, and elsewhere. But achieving disability inclusion in financial services requires more than financial services providers. It also requires the involvement of technology providers, telcos, government officials, educators, community groups, and other actors.
Over 1,000 people from 60 countries gathered to share their ideas and innovations at Skoll. The hope of event organizers is that such a high-level convening of disparate leaders will produce new collaborations and lead to new innovations. And when I say disparate, I mean disparate. I crossed paths with Eli Williamson, Co-Founder of Leave No Veteran Behind, an organization providing educational and employment assistance to veterans facing hardship, as well as Chris Underhill, MBE, Founder of the global mental health organization Basic Needs, and Mabel van Oranje, Chair of Girls Not Brides, which combats child marriage.
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