Robert Peck Christen

Sustainability of Self-Help Groups in India: Two Analyses

This Occasional Paper reports on two separate studies of SHG programs. Part I looks primarily at the financial viability of SHG programs. Part II proposes a methodology for designing SHG programs to ensure their sustainability.

Managing Risks and Designing Products for Agricultural Microfinance

This Occasional Paper offers a model for providing financial services to poor, rural farming households that combines the most relevant and promising features of traditional microfinance, traditional agricultural finance, and other approaches.

Financial Institutions with a Double Bottom Line

This Occasional Paper summarizes the results of CGAP's survey of the global outreach of a broad set of institutions that extend financial services downward -- institutions with a "double bottom line" of financial and social/development objectives. The survey found that over 750 million accounts exist below the traditional level of commercial banks and that a substantial fraction of these predominantly savings accounts probably belong to the poor or near poor -- and represent an important opportunity for outreach.

Disclosure Guidelines for Financial Reporting by MFIs

This Consensus Guidelines represents the consensus of CGAP's member donors on microfinance institution (MFI) financial reporting requirements. The guidelines do not prescribe accounting policies or any particular format for financial reporting. Rather, they indicate the minimum information that should be included in MFI financial reports, regardless of how that information is presented.

Guiding Principles on Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance

Captured here is broad consensus on many principles of good practice in regulation and supervision of microfinance. The guidelines summarize these principles for government regulators and others engaged in moving microfinance into the formal financial sector.