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Indian cotton farmers look to micro credit
January, 31 2007
India - In India's cotton growing region of Vidarbha, where, on average, three debt-trapped farmers are committing suicide every day, a silent revolution is taking place
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Developing an Islamic Microfinance Model
January, 31 2007
Sri Lanka - The recent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh highlights a new awareness of the potential and power of microfinance programs. What's more, the Nobel committee has validated the link between poverty alleviation and peace saying, "Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.
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A possible “Islamic” alternative to Microlending
January, 31 2007
- With Muhammad Yunus having won the Nobel prize for economics, Microfinance has become a hot item for many seeking to make money and “lend” a helping hand. Much criticism has surrounded Microfinance, from Muslims and Non-Muslims alike, questioning the ethics and viability of the practice
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Women's World Banking Hosts Rural Finance Workshop with Grupo Financiero Banorte in Monterrey, Mexico
January, 30 2007
Monterrey, Mexico - Women's World Banking (WWB), a leading global microfinance network, will host a workshop on Rural Finance in collaboration with Grupo Financiero Banorte, a leader in rural finance in Mexico and a member of the WWB Global Banking Innovation Network, in Monterrey, Mexico, February 21-23. The workshop will build better understanding of the rural markets and agricultural risks faced by farmers and explore successful customer-responsive strategies for microfinance institutions and banks serving rural areas
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Reliance, Bharti may storm microfinance
January, 30 2007
Bangalore - Reliance Retail and Bharti, which has joined hands with Wal-Mart, could storm the micro-credit space as they look to establish rural supply chain linkages to service their mega retail forays
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Put your money where your heart is
January, 30 2007
The Philippines - Two Mondays ago, I attended the first anniversary of the Pinoy Micro Enterprise (Pinoy ME) consortium at the Tiendesitas shopping complex. The consortium was organized by former President Corazon C. Aquino through the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation to wage war against poverty through micro enterprise. In President Aquino’s view, the war against poverty can be waged by raising People Power to another level
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Buchanan Completes Microfinance Securitization Worth $60 Million
January, 29 2007
United States - Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC recently handled the MicroFinance Securities (MFS) XXEB deal, a securitization of cross-border loans to approximately 30 microfinance institutions. The transaction directed $60 million of international capital to low-income entrepreneurs in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa
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Microfinance is a Band-Aid Solution to Poverty
January, 29 2007
The Philippines - A while ago, Stephen Daley and I co-authored a Mercatus Policy Series based on Daley’s field work research on microfinance in the Philippines. While microfinance may have some impact for some people in the slums of Manila, Daley’s field work research led us to think that most microfinance beneficiaries don’t graduate (i.e., don’t enter the formal world) and remain poor. Our conclusion was that at best microfinance is a band-aid solution to poverty. The real problem is elsewhere: it is located in the institutional context that influences how individuals exercise their alertness to discover gains from trade.
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Only a million Kenyans operate bank accounts
January, 29 2007
Kenya - Mrs Monica Mutua, a peasant farmer in Kitui District, has never had reasons to open a bank account.
She is lucky to harvest surplus maize at the end of any season. On market days she sells small quantities of sweet potatoes and tomatoes, for which she is paid in cash, and she uses her meagre earnings to buy necessities for her family.
Mutua has little in the way of savings except some money she contributes every month to her local women’s group, and surplus food stored in her granary. The closest she has ever been to a bank is walking past one in Kitui town on her way to the District Hospital.
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Not Grameen Bank but it was else!
January, 27 2007
Boston, USA - Many people believe that the Grameen Bank initiated 'small loans' or 'micro credit financing' first in the world. Such notion is not based on fact
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IMF Executive Board Approves US$258 Million Stand-By Arrangement for Peru
January, 26 2007
Washington, United States - The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved a 25-month SDR 172.4 million (about US$257.7 million) Stand-By Arrangement for Peru to support the country's economic program. The Peruvian authorities have indicated their intention to treat the arrangement as precautionary
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A little goes a long way
January, 25 2007
Uganda - In northern Uganda, an armed conflict between the government and a rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has raged for nearly two decades and has uprooted millions of people from their homes. Dislocated by war, people have been forced to resettle in camps for the internally displaced, like the makeshift community that has formed by the side of the highway in Karuma, south of the city of Gulu.
Here, separated from the plots of land where they used to grow food to feed and support their families, the people were in dire need of some means to generate income. Humanitarian agencies provided emergency assistance. But a system of village banking — a form of microfinance that gives small loans and encourages savings among people who otherwise do not have access to financial services — offered an alternative to dependence on outside aid.
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The growth of micro-finance in fishing communities
January, 24 2007
Gambia - In this edition of Focus on Fisheries, the writer focus on the growth of micro-finance in fishing communities as it is known that micro-finance helps poverty reduction and fisheries management
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Kenya Passes Microfinance Bill to Regulate Microfinance Institutions Operating Within its Borders
January, 24 2007
Kenya - The government of Kenya passed the Finance and Microfinance Bill. The bill, drafted in 2000, requires all microfinance institutions (MFIs) to be open to mandatory audits from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the authority that regulates the country’s commercial banks. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki supported the bill in an effort to curtail the entry of bogus microfinance institutions into the market
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IFC organizes roundtable on microfinance in Lebanon’s post-crisis environment
January, 24 2007
Lebanon - The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, organized a roundtable entitled “Reconstruction Microfinance in a Post-Crisis Environment” to share relevant international experiences with Lebanese microfinance institutions and banks. IFC’s technical assistance facility, the Private Enterprise Partnership for the Middle East and North Africa, invited international experts and practitioners with experience in microfinance operations in conflict-affected areas and natural disaster zones
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A Bill that leaves a lot to be desired
January, 24 2007
India - While the government has long been talking about the need to create a regulatory framework for the microfinance sector, it is only now that a draft microfinance Bill is ready and is slated to be tabled in the Budget session of Parliament
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HIV/AIDS Affected Shanxi Families Supported By Microfinance
January, 24 2007
China - A Beijing conference has highlighted lessons learned from a United Nations microfinance initiative that has empowered people living with HIV/AIDS in China's Shanxi province to lift themselves out of poverty and restore hope in their live
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IFC invests $175m in telecoms
January, 24 2007
Nigeria - The International Finance Corporation (IFC) says it invested $75 million in the telecommunications, and manufacturing sectors of the Nigerian economy between 2003 and 2005
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NASSI to launch micro -finance bank
January, 24 2007
Nigeria - The Nigerian Association of Small-Scale Industrialists (NASSI), FCT Chapter will soon launch a micro-finance bank with a capitalisation of N200,00 million through a private placement
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Commercial Micro-Finance Gains Trust in D.R. Congo
January, 23 2007
Congo - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Tuesday, it is giving $29 million to a German micro-finance bank's Africa division. In Kinshasa, Franz Wild looks at the success of its Democratic Republic of Congo operations
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Investing in ‘Peace through Loans’
January, 23 2007
Kosovo - KosInvest and World Vision Kosovo will begin a unique project this month, which aims to build on peacebuilding as a significant impact of microfinance in the ethnically divided province of Kosovo.
The 'Peace through Loans' project will create intentional opportunities for holistic economic and social development between the different communities
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Vision for Serbia continues as political coalition struggle begins
January, 23 2007
Serbia - While the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, (SRS) has claimed victory in the first elections in Serbia since the dissolution of the State of Union between Montenegro and Serbia, World Vision and AgroInvest are committed to striving for 'life in all its fullness' for the people of Serbia
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Atwima-Mponua Rural Bank Loans USD 431,000 to 2,000 New Microcredit Borrowers in Ghana
January, 22 2007
Ghana - 2,000 new micro-credit borrowers in Ghana now have access to funds thanks to the lending of an additional 3.8 Billion Cedis, or about USD $431,000, by Atwima-Mponua Rural Bank at Nyinahin. A recent Ghana News Agency (GNA) release indicates that the Rural Bank is focusing on group loans, but also states that the head of the microfinance department, Dominic Baah Ayim, is concentrating on encouraging perpetually good individual savings habits. Mr. Baah Ayim asserts that an important component of successful micro-lending in Ghana is teaching people to avoid the “temptation of flamboyant lifestyles whenever their businesses begin to grow.”
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USAID Grants 9.9 mm to Microfinance Organizations in Iraq
January, 21 2007
Iraq - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded USD 9.9 mm in grants to establish and/or to continue to develop sustainable Iraqi microfinance institutions. The USAID is a U.S. government organization that was created on September 4th 1961 to administer foreign economic assistance programs. These microfinance corporations throughout Iraq currently support lending to approximately 17,000 active clients with a total loan portfolio of approximately USD 19 mm.
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Government to legislate on microfinance
January, 19 2007
India - The government is drafting legislation on microfinance institutions to help create an appropriate environment for the provision of such services, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced here Thursday
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Banks' rural bad loans high at 40% says RBI
January, 17 2007
India - Banks suffer a high default rate of about 40 per cent in rural areas, as against just 10 per cent by non-governmental agencies engaged in providing microfinance
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Remove obstacles to loans for private sector
January, 17 2007
Ghana - The Executive Director of the Central Region Development Commission (CEDECOM), Mr John Akowuah, has called on micro-financing institutions to remove obstacles that impede the granting of loans to the private sector
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EBRD adopts new Belarus strategy
January, 16 2007
Belarus - The Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has adopted a new strategy for Belarus committing the EBRD to deepening its involvement with the private sector over the next two years, particularly in the area of microfinance and small business lending. However, it once again reiterated serious concerns over political developments, saying there had been significant backtracking in some aspects of democratic governanc
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a modest proposal
January, 16 2007
South Africa - Brijeshwar Mandal works in New Delhi for a small business as driver and has an office supplied cellphone. He sends money home to his family in a village in rural Bihar by transferring funds through the mobile network. No village postmaster or telegramwalla can now extort a fee from his illiterate wife. What if his existing prepaid SIM card could act as a credit card - something no bank would ever issue Mandal - and he could not only order his train tickets through his cellphone but also make routine payments for his employer such as purchasing petrol or other sundry goods
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A financial supermarket
January, 14 2007
Mumbai - Retail firms are planning to offer financial products in their stores. While picking up vegetables next time, you may also put a couple of mutual funds in your basket.
Retail firms are queuing up to sell credit to the burgeoning consumer class. In the process, they are offering a basket of financial products to them
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Pension Fund TIAA-CREF Makes Second Microfinance Investment and Deposits USD 22mn with Community Developers – Shore Bank and Shore Bank Pacific
January, 12 2007
United States of America - TIAA-CREF has purchased multiple Certificates of Deposit (CDs) worth USD 22mn from the Shore Bank and Shore Bank Pacific, US based community development focused banks. This investment sends strong signals about TIAA-CREF’s focus towards Social Investing. As MicroCapital had reported earlier, TIAA-CREF has recently announced a USD 100 mn Global Microfinance Investment Program(GMIP) and had made its first investment by buying a USD 43 mn private equity stake in ProCredit, a microfinance institution (MFI) holding company in September 2006
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Rabobank acquires 49 percent stake in Zambia National Commercial Bank PLC
January, 07 2007
Zambia - The Dutch Rabobank and the Zambian government have agreed that Rabobank will acquire 49 percent of the shares in the Zambia National Commercial Bank PLC (Zanaco). This participating interest ensues from the Zambian government’s privatisation programme and as it relates to Zanaco. The Zambian government selected Rabobank following an international competitive tender for a number of reasons including the fact that Rabobank intends to increase the number of Zanaco branches particularly in the country’s rural areas. Rabobank will furthermore invest in an extensive long-term program that will enable Zanaco to develop into a leading financial services provider in Zambia, consistent with the Zambian government’s stated privatisation objectives
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A Better Way to Wire Cash Home?
January, 02 2007
United States of America - An upstart challenges the remittance trade by proving it can benefit immigrants and make money using microfinanc
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