article thumbnail

Women as Microfinance Leaders, Not Just Clients

Harvard Business Review

We're a network of microfinance organizations; we exist to share practices and develop the leadership skills required by a sector that has grown up fast. And as you might be aware, microfinance is a phenomenon that, while it did not set out to be "for women," has mainly turned out to be.

article thumbnail

Making Microfinance More Effective

Harvard Business Review

While meeting this challenge is a clear priority for policy makers and donors, it is also a major profit opportunity for commercial players who can solve market failures and create real value. A major challenge for international development efforts is determining which financial tools provide durable buffers against such setbacks.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Banking on Women and Girls: Key to Global Poverty Alleviation

Harvard Business Review

On this 100th International Women's Day , it is right to reflect on how women have become the heart of the microfinance industry. It is easy to forget that the initial motivation for microfinance roughly 30 years ago was, to a great extent, gender neutral. Microfinance is about much more than extending credit.

article thumbnail

Businesses Serving the Poor Need to Get Over Their Unease About Profit

Harvard Business Review

Prahalad and his colleagues more than a decade ago in a series of articles and books, and it has stuck in the minds of businesspeople, policy makers, and nonprofits despite results that can only be described as dismal. The microfinance industry is a rare D and E success story. It's practically the law of the land.

article thumbnail

An Approach to Ending Poverty That Works

Harvard Business Review

Microfinance and other market-based interventions don’t generally reach them. ” Dozens of governments are now looking at ways to integrate graduation programming into their social protection policy and efforts. At BRAC , where I work, we call this subset the “ultra-poor.”

article thumbnail

Entrepreneurship Needs to Be a Bigger Part of U.S. Foreign Aid

Harvard Business Review

Because entrepreneurship reliably generates jobs, and joblessness — especially among young people or failing states – is probably one of the most significant root causes of the unrest and extremism vexing American foreign policy and threatening American security today. And this is a budding field.