1,775 research outputs found
Distribution, growth, and performance of microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
Get PDFHow many microfinance institutions (MFIs) exist in the developing world? What are their current performances? In 1999, an International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) team on microfinance conducted a survey on MFIs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in order to offer a new in-depth analysis on the distribution and performances of MFIs at the international level. A systematic sampling has been adopted through the contacting of international NGOs and networks supporting various MFIs. The information has been complemented by a review of publications and technical manuals on microfinance. The database of MFIs from 85 developing countries shows 1,500 institutions (790 institutions worldwide plus 688 in Indonesia) supported by international organizations. They reach 54 million members, 44 million savers (voluntary and compulsory savings), and 23 million borrowers. The total volume of outstanding credit is 12 billion, or 72 percent of the volume of the outstanding loans. MFIs have developed at least 46,000 branches and employ around 175,000 staff. The IFPRI database underlines the presence of a multitude of MFIs that, except in unstable countries, are widespread, with no forgotten regions. MFIs are very diverse in terms of lending technologies and legal status, which allows room for innovation, but they remain highly concentrated. The data are analyzed by type of MFIs and by geographic regions. The results presented give an overview of the current development of MFIs and offer a benchmark for comparisons.Microenterprises Finance. ,Financial institutions. ,
Access to credit and its impact on welfare in Malawi:
Get PDFPoor rural households in developing countries lack adequate access to credit. Many development professionals believe that this lack of credit has negative consequences for poor people's agricultural productivity, food security, health, and overall household welfare. Improved access to credit, they argue, will help poor rural households engage in more productive income-generating activities both on and off the farm and raise their living standards. Community and member-based microfinance programs have thus enjoyed considerable political and financial support during the 1990s. Yet in Access to Credit and Its Impact on Welfare in Malawi, Aliou Diagne and Manfred Zeller argue that access to microcredit may not be an effective way of alleviating poverty if the necessary infrastructure and socioeconomic environment are lacking.Rural poor Malawi., Agricultural credit Malawi., Agricultural policies., Developing countries., Small business Developing countries Finance.,
Empirical measurements of households' access to credit and credit constraints in developing countries
Get PDFThis paper presents a new methodological framework for measuring the level of household access to credit. It provides an analytical framework for examining the determinants of household credit limits and derives implications on information needed to examine the extent to which households are credit constrained. Empirical application of this method involves directly eliciting credit limit information in household surveys. Illustrations are provided using data from Bangladesh and Malawi.FCND ,Credit Bangladesh. ,Credit Malawi. ,
Pathways of rural development in Madagascar
Get PDFThis paper is based on community-level data from 188 villages in rural Madagascar. The survey that was conducted in 1997 made extensive use of long-term recall questions ascertaining changes during the past 10 years in rice yields, wages, population, soil fertility, and other pertinent variables of rural development. We find that—on average for all villages—the yields of irrigated rice, the major food crop, and real agricultural wages declined, while the communities expanded their upland area by nearly a quarter and experienced deteriorating fertility of their upland soils. These patterns are consistent with the wide-held belief that rural areas in Madagascar have witnessed increased poverty, economic stagnation, and a continued degradation of the natural resources. Yet, the five agroecological regions in our sample exhibit quite different patterns of rural development, and at least one of them has experienced increases in yields and wages. From a policy perspective, it is important to better understand the driving forces of such diverse rural change. The overall decline in rural wages over the past 10 years is expected to have contributed to increased poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition in rural areas, as rural wage laborers traditionally belong to the poorest of the poor in Madagascar. In this paper, we present an econometric analysis of the determinants of and interdependencies between the three components of sustainable development: economic growth, environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation.Crop yields. ,Econometric models. ,Poverty alleviation. ,Rural development projects ,
An operational tool for evaluating poverty outreach of development policies and projects
Get PDFDevelopment institutions and projects frequently seek to target poorer segments of the population. Yet, existing methods for evaluating their outreach are generally unsuited to most operational settings, since they are either too costly and cumbersome (e.g., detailed income or household surveys), or they produce results that are not comparable between villages or regions within a country (e.g., participatory poverty appraisals). This paper presents a new and operationally suitable method to measure the poverty of clients of development projects in relation to the general population of nonclients. The method was developed in response to demands by donors and development practitioners for a low-cost evaluation instrument that could be used as a regular operational tool for assessing the poverty outreach of a development project or institution. While the method was originally developed for the purpose of assessing the poverty outreach of microfinance institutions (MFIs), we believe the method can be used for any development policy or project that pursues an explicit objective of reaching poorer people. The paper begins by discussing existing methods of poverty assessment. Next, the paper presents heuristic steps for identifying indicators of poverty to be tested in the case studies, including the questionnaire that was field tested in four countries with large differences in poverty-level, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts, and with MFIs that worked either in urban, rural, or mixed areas with different target clientele and financial products. The authors then describe the method of principal component analysis used to construct a poverty score as the measure of relative poverty. The paper concludes with a summary of results from four country case studies (two in Sub-Saharan Africa, one in South Asia, and one in Central America).FCND ,Poverty Research Evaluation ,
Do farmers benefit from participating in specialty markets and cooperatives? The case of coffee marketing in Costa Rica-super-1
No full textHistorically low prices in the conventional coffee market have caused financial and social hardship among coffee farmers. In the face of this crisis, specialty markets have attracted the attention of the international donor community. These market segments have shown consistent growth over the last decade and exhibit price premiums in international markets. Therefore, if higher prices are passed on to farmers, access to specialty markets could help to alleviate the crisis brought on by low prices in the conventional sector. The present study attempts to identify the factors that determine farmers' participation in specialized markets and whether participation in these markets leads to higher prices for farmers. A two-stage model is used to analyze farmers' marketing decisions and their effect on the prices received. This procedure allows us to control for the endogeneity bias introduced by the marketing choice. Our results indicate that farmers participating in the specialty coffee segment do in fact receive higher prices than those participating in conventional channels. Additionally, we find that participation in cooperatives has a positive impact on the probability that a farmer chooses to grow specialty coffee and analogously on the prices that they receive. Based on these results, it seems that efforts to increase participation in the specialty coffee segment and in cooperatives would help to lessen some of the hardships brought on by low prices in the conventional coffee sector. Copyright 2007 International Association of Agricultural Economists.
Sustainable agricultural intensification in forest frontier areas
No full textThe Lore Lindu region in Indonesia-as in many forest frontier areas in Southeast Asia-has experienced rapid deforestation due to agricultural expansion in the uplands, at the forest margins. This has resulted in aggravated problems of erosion and water availability, threatening agricultural productivity growth. At the same time, technical progress is promoting agricultural intensification in the lowlands. In this article, we examine how improved technologies for paddy rice cultivation in the lowlands have affected agricultural expansion and deforestation in the uplands. The question of a "forest-saving" or "forest-clearing" effect related to technical innovation is important from a sustainable development perspective and remains a controversial issue in the literature. We address this question for the Lore Lindu region with an empirical model in which expansion in the lowlands and the uplands is estimated simultaneously. We use data from an extensive village survey conducted in the region, combined with GIS data. To guide the empirical analysis, we develop a theoretical framework based on a Chayanov-type agricultural household model. The model analyzes farmers' land allocation decisions, taking into account the lowland-upland dichotomy in the agricultural sector. The empirical findings, corroborated by the analytically derived results, show how technical progress for lowland production affects land use at the forest margins and how these effects depend on the factor-intensity of the technology. The findings imply specific rural development policies for sustainable agricultural intensification in forest frontier areas. Copyright 2006 International Association of Agricultural Economics.
The capability dilemma in operational poverty assessment
No full textThis paper compares the standard economic welfare approach to poverty measurement to the empirical approaches proposed in the capability literature under the special focus of their suitability for operational poverty assessment, i.e. targeting and outreach evaluation. We question whether the measurement of per capita daily expenditures compared with a monetary poverty line justifiably remains the most widely used approach regarding poverty assessment. Its underlying value judgments and unsatisfactory assumptions differ considerably from those of the capability concept of poverty but the two approaches can be linked and critically compared with respect to the role of income, the conceptualisation of absolute poverty and the development of operational tools. We argue that despite the progress made in operationalizing the capability approach, there remain serious challenges when focussing on targeting and outreach evaluation and propose three alternative solutions for dealing with this capability dilemma in practice
Statistical sampling frame and methods used for the selection of villages and households in the scope of the research program on Stability of Rainforest Margins in Indonesia (STORMA)
No full textThe capability dilemma in operational poverty assessment
No full textThis paper compares the standard economic welfare approach to poverty measurement to the empirical approaches proposed in the capability literature under the special focus of their suitability for operational poverty assessment, i.e. targeting and outreach evaluation. We question whether the measurement of per capita daily expenditures compared with a monetary poverty line justifiably remains the most widely used approach regarding poverty assessment. Its underlying value judgments and unsatisfactory assumptions differ considerably from those of the capability concept of poverty but the two approaches can be linked and critically compared with respect to the role of income, the conceptualisation of absolute poverty and the development of operational tools. We argue that despite the progress made in operationalizing the capability approach, there remain serious challenges when focussing on targeting and outreach evaluation and propose three alternative solutions for dealing with this capability dilemma in practice
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