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This Focus Note summarizes the findings from Country-Level Savings Assessments in Benin, Bosnia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Uganda, which suggest five strategies for improving poor people's access to savings services.
The impact of commercialization and increased competition on the strategy and performance of MFIs in Latin America is examined, with particular focus given to „ mission drift‰˜that is, whether or not commercialization drives microfinance institutions to deviate from their original missions. Drawing on an analysis of 205 Latin American MFIs, the paper describes the state of the industry in the region, the rapid changes it has undergone over time, and the challenges it now faces.
The IGVGD program builds on a governmental food security intervention to provide financial services to the most destitute. This link between the government program and BRAC has facilitated the delivery of food grain assistance and savings and credit services to nearly a million women, over the last ten years.
SafeSave, a small MFI, provides unusually flexible savings and credit services to poor slum dwellers in Dakha, Bangladesh. Given financial services that take their needs into account, the poor will use these services in diverse ways-supporting the growing consensus in microfinance circles that MFI products and delivery systems need to be more responsive to demand.
This Focus Note summarizes original research by Leonard Mutesasira, Henry Sempangi, Harry Mugwanga, John Kashangaki, Florence Maximambali, Christopher Lwogs, David Hulme, Graham Wright, and Stuart Rutherford. It investigates client drop-out rates and the failure to attract potential clients among 13 MFIs in East Africa. Based on a research project coordinated by MicroSave-Africa of Uganda, the study highlights the importance of designing flexible, demand-driven financial products to both attract and retain clients, as well as to achieve significant outreach.
The first comprehensive study of the microfinance industry in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States is based on a 2001-02 survey of MFIs and funders and secondary-source data. The study also goes deeper than statistics and analyzes organizational models, industry profiles, poverty outreach, access to funding, legal and regulatory environments, and future steps.
This document discusses the results of extensive market research conducted by CGAP at the end of 2001 in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,and Mexico. It offers separate profiles of microfinance in Central America and Mexico, with a focus on the various players in the sector. It then outlines the main challenges faced by the microfinance industry in the region.
This paper draws from
existing literature on, and evaluations of, the Financial Services Associations
(FSA) which were developed in east Africa, to review performance to date and raise key questions on issues related to institutional sustainability. Topics covered include FSA products and services, outreach, financial sustainability, competition, governance, formal sector linkages, legal and regulatory environment, and donor support.
This informal note outlines some observations that emerged from a recent CGAP study on MFI competition in Bangladesh.
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