Microcredit is now under challenge from many quarters.
Staked to the Ground in a Savings Junkyard
On the whole, banking for the poor disappoints.
Making a Market
Past the gem-green banana trees cropped on dark, chocolaty soil and well beyond vast expanses of foddering brush ...
Excellent vignettes of four stars. Thanks, Suzanne.
When it all falls apart: VSLAs in crisis
More good anecdotal evidence about how SGs help poor people in crisis.
Do Savings Groups help the very poor in times of stress? It certainly seems like they do...
How to Launch an Adult Education Program
Personal note and reflections from Suzanne - so thoughtful!
CRS youth program.
Decision Fatigue
There is something to this, even though the experiment that Kim describes is WEIRD.
In Defense of Payments
...savings are transactions-in-waiting. People's aim is not to save or get into debt, what they want is to buy a bicycle, pay school fees, repair their home, or build up a reserve for medical emergencies.
Poor Fiction
Don't read this book, says Kim.
Saving and Thriving - I think
Does adding a diet and cooking piece making savings groups more expensive? Yes! But, does it make groups more relevant, entertaining and powerful for women? Yes as well.
Two cows... or three?
One of the good things about provocative writers like Milford Bateman is that... they provoke. Here's a cool head (Greg Pirie) writing about a hot head - a good short read.
A word on Micro-insurance
Wow. Microinsurance sounds like such a good idea. Just ask ONE QUESTION first...
What If? Mobile Financial Services and Freedom from Cash
Cash killers discuss...
Connected Savings, Would That It Were True...
What blocks the effortless transitioning from cash-based opportunities to secure, long-term investments? Cash. Cash must go.
Savings By Stealth
If James Bond got into Savings Groups, he could start by learning from Doña Santos, La Clandestina
Thrift and Thrill: Tales from Latin America, Part Three
Is there "gentle pressure" to embed raffles into Savings Groups in Latin America?
Small Change, Big Chance: Tales from Latin America, Part Two
"We decided to bet a dollar on the Pig. Though we lost, for a long and pleasing moment, we imagined what we would do with our payout – in this case, $60: We mentally spent it on beer and sandwiches..."
Gambling to Save: Tales from Latin America, Part One
"The regulators - in this case a supervisory agency not the central bank - seem under the spell of an aging movie star who promotes a very popular saving-whilst-gambling product...."