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Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution.
The Hunger Project (THP), founded in 1977 with the stated goal of ending world hunger in 25 years, is an organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. It has ongoing programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where it implements programs aimed at mobilizing rural grassroots communities to achieve sustainable progress in health, education, nutrition, and family income. THP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization incorporated in the state of California.
Grameen Bank is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
Accion is an international nonprofit. Founded as a community development initiative serving the poor in Venezuela, Accion is known as a pioneer in the fields of microfinance and fintech impact investing.
The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a network of private, non-denominational development agencies founded by the Aga Khan that work primarily in the poorest parts of Asia and Africa. Aga Khan IV succeeded to the office of the 49th hereditary Imam as spiritual and administrative leader of the Shia faith-rooted Nizari Ismaili Muslim supranational union in 1957. Ismailis consist of an estimated 25–30 million adherents.
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
Opportunity International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization chartered in the United States of America. Through a network of 47 program and support partners, Opportunity International provides small business loans, savings, insurance and training to more than 14 million people in the developing world. It has clients in more than 20 countries and works with fundraising partners in the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Opportunity International has 501(c)(3) status as a tax-exempt charitable organization in the United States of America under the US Internal Revenue Code.
Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM) is a microfinancing agency of the Aga Khan Development Network.
Freedom from Hunger is an international development organization working in nineteen different countries. Rather than provide food aid, Freedom from Hunger focuses on providing small loans and business education to poor women. It is a nonprofit, nongovernmental, nonsectarian organization classified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charity. It was evaluated in 2011 by GiveWell who found their programs had little to no lasting impact.
Kiva is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, that claims to allow people to lend money via the Internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students in 80 countries. Kiva's mission is "to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive." They have been accused of deceptive business practices, misleading donors into believing their funds would be used for specific individuals and misrepresenting other aspects of their operations.
Poverty in Pakistan has been recorded by the World Bank at 39.3% using the lower middle-income poverty rate of US$3.2 per day, and 78.4% using the upper middle-income poverty rate of US$5.5 per day, for the fiscal year 2020–21. In September 2021, the government stated that 22% percent of its population lives below the national poverty line set at Rs. 3030 (US$10) per month.
The Grameen family of organizations has grown beyond Grameen Bank into a multi-faceted group of profitable and non-profit ventures, established by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of Grameen Bank. Most of these organizations have central offices at the Grameen Bank Complex in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it started attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells. In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.
Five Talents is a Christian charity that provides savings programs, and financial literacy and business training for those in need in developing countries. They make use of a form of savings-led microfinance. Five Talents' programs serve people regardless of religious background, and they aim to transform lives through economic empowerment, creating long-term solutions to poverty in the developing world.
Financial inclusion is defined as the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services. It refers to a process by which individuals and businesses can access appropriate, affordable, and timely financial products and services. These include banking, loan, equity, and insurance products. Financial inclusion efforts typically target those who are unbanked and underbanked, and directs sustainable financial services to them. Financial inclusion is understood to go beyond merely opening a bank account. It is possible for banked individuals to be excluded from financial services. Having more inclusive financial systems has been linked to stronger and more sustainable economic growth and development and thus achieving financial inclusion has become a priority for many countries across the globe.
Fonkoze is Haiti's largest microfinance institution serving the poor in Haiti, with 44 branches located throughout the country. The name Fonkoze is an acronym for the Haitian Creole phrase "Fondasyon Kole Zepòl" meaning "Shoulder-to-Shoulder Foundation." Its Goal is to aid Haitians with financial and development services to lift themselves out of poverty. Fonkoze's development programs include Adult Education, Ultra-Poverty Alleviation and Boutik Sante, a health program designed to create a new business opportunity for Fonkoze's existing clients while also providing much-needed health products, services and education to rural communities throughout the country. Fonkoze is a family of three organisations working together to achieve its mission:
- Fonkoze Foundation: a Haitian non-profit which provides development services such as health education, literacy and business skills training to Fonkoze's microfinance clients and to ultra-poor families.
- Fonkoze Financial Services: a Haitian microfinance company with a double bottom line: to lift families and communities out of poverty while operating in a financially self‐sustaining manner.
- Fonkoze USA, a 501(c)(3) non-profit which provides technical, communications and fundraising support in the US for its Haitian partners.
Women's World Banking is a nonprofit organization that provides strategic support, technical assistance and information to a global network of 55 independent microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks that offer credit and other financial services to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world, with a particular focus on women.
Christian Missionary Fellowship International (CMFI or CMF International) is a non-denominational, non-profit, Christian organization that sends out missionaries and partners with Christian ministries around the globe. Based in Indianapolis, CMF has missionaries and ministry partners in more than 25 countries. The purpose of CMFI is to transform lives and communities through church planting, serving the urban poor, international campus ministry, international development, and marketplace ministry.
The MicroDreams Foundation is an American non-profit organization founded by Gregory Casagrande in 2002 as a microfinance accelerator that helps small, growing micro-enterprise development organizations reach financial self-sufficiency. Over the past nine years, MicroDreams has provided substantial support to the SPBD microfinance network in all four of its branches in and has helped to scale up other young emerging partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. MicroDreams uses loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance to help provide meaningful economic opportunities to the poorest members of society.
South Pacific Business Development is a network of Microfinance institutions working in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga to eliminate poverty. Its aim is to provide women in poor rural villages with the opportunity to start, grow and maintain sustainable income-generating micro-enterprises, build assets through saving as well as finance home improvements and childhood education. SPBD also provides its clients with a range of training, financial services and ongoing motivation so that they can climb permanently out of poverty.
References
- ↑ "Endpoverty.org Form 990 2015". ProPublica. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
- ↑ ""Home" on". endpoverty.org. Retrieved 2009-10-14.
- ↑ ""Partner Programs" on". endpoverty.org. Archived from the original on 2009-09-16. Retrieved 2009-10-14.
- ↑ ""Our History" on". endpoverty.org. Archived from the original on 2009-09-16. Retrieved 2009-10-14.
- ↑ "How Microfinance is Helping Poor Households and Businesses Survive and Thrive: 6 Things to Know". Asian Development Bank. 2020-08-27. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
