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Poverty
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Microloan Sharks
Commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs) must calculate two bottom lines: alleviating poverty for clients and also generating profits for investors. To achieve the latter goal, some MFIs charge their impoverished clients exorbitant interest rates. The recent Banco Compartamos IPO in Mexico raises a red flag, demonstrating how easily well-intentioned MFIs and their investors can shift from microlending to microloan-sharking.
Podcast
Vera Cordeiro Rio - Breaking the Cycle of Poverty-Related Illness
When Dr. Vera Cordeiro Rio worked at Hospital da Lagoa in Rio de Janeiro, she witnessed a constant admission/re-admission cycle in childcare treatment. To break that cycle, she gathered medical community volunteers to form Renascer, addressing root causes that prevent families from providing adequate care. In this audio interview, join host Sheela Sethuraman as she learns how Cordeiro Rio translated her passion translated into a methodology that is quickly sweeping through Brazil and the world.
She’s Crafty
World of Good connects female artisans in poor countries with retailers (including Whole Foods Market, pictured) in the West.
Do Companies that Engage in BoP Markets Outperform the Market?
A new index is creating a benchmark for comparing large-scale companies serving the markets for the very poorest.
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Design Thinking for Social Innovation
By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
The Problem With Fair Trade Coffee
Fair Trade-certified coffee is growing in sales, but strict certification requirements are resulting in uneven economic advantages for coffee growers and lower quality coffee for consumers.
Microfinance Misses Its Mark
Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn't cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries.
In Microfinance, Clients Must Come First
Few microfinance institutions articulate what, exactly, their ultimate goals are and how to achieve them. If the goal of microfinance is to alleviate poverty, the authors say, then MFIs should focus on helping their clients build successful enterprises, rather than on making more and bigger loans.
Romanticizing the Poor
Market solutions to poverty, which include services and products targeting consumers at the “bottom of the pyramid,” portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful.