AEF

Rural & Microfinance Strategies

 

  • Armutsbekämpfung durch nachhaltiges Finanzwesen und Mikrofinanzierung

  Die Entwicklung eines tragfähigen Mikrofinanzwesens als integraler Bestandteil des Finanzsystems stellt eine besondere Aufgabe für die deutsche öffentliche und private Entwicklungszusammenarbeit und für die Koordinierung der Entwicklungspolitik dar... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Challenges, Opportunities and Options for the Development of RFIs

 Why does IFAD need rural finance guidelines? With its exclusive emphasis on rural poverty alleviation, IFAD enjoys a competitive advantage over other development agencies, and should strengthen its role by providing support for the development of rural finance as an important instrument. The goal of IFAD’s support for rural finance is the sustainable improvement of the livelihood of the rural poor... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Credit Guarantee Schemes

 In developing countries, the vast majority of small enterprises start their operations without any insitutional help. However, they find it difficult to grow without access to credit. Restrictions in access stem from high perceived risks involved, lack of information, high transaction costs, lack of track record, lack of adequate documentation and book-keeping, plus ignorance and prejudice... [weiterlesen]

 

  • IFAD Rural Finance Policy

 Rural finance is a vital tool in poverty reduction and rural development. Two thirds of the Fund’s current projects have a rural finance component; about 21% of the Fund’s resources are dedicated to rural finance. Most of IFAD’s target group are small producers engaged in agricultural and non-agricultural activities in areas of widely varying potential. Direct access to financial services affects the small producers’ productivity, asset formation, income and food security. This policy paper is designed to provide an overall framework for the Fund’s work in rural finance... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Linking Formal and Informal Financial Markets 

 In the past two decades, financial policies directed to the promotion of small-scale agriculture and of small-scale craft industries have been based on three premises [...] The imputed inability of small producers to self-help and self-reliance had far-reaching policy consequences. Development banks limited their business to credit, ignoring savings mobilization. In most rural areas, possibilities for opening savings accounts hardly exist... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Microfinance in Marginal and Upland Areas

 In the aftermath to Asian Financial Crisis, donors like IFAD are taking a fresh look at the relevance and potential of microfinance for the sustainable development of marginal and up-land areas in Asian countries. Three major points will be presented below, after having de-fined what is meant by microfinance... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Outreach and Sustainability of Rural Microfinance in Asia

 We in the community of microfinance specialists want to help alleviate poverty. We think microfinance is a useful tool. Yet, by bringing these two concerns together, we might be mixing up two diverging ends: one is poverty reduction; the other one the development of a healthy microfinance industry. If poverty reduction is our objective, then microfinance is likely to be only one of several instruments; in fact it might turn out to be of minor importance... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Rural finance for the poor - from unsustainable projects to sustainable institutions

  The large majority of the poor and poorest are rural. That has to be uppermost in our minds as we think about what microfinance means. For IFAD, the finance issue is crucial to the task of reducing rural poverty. We do not insist on any particular institutional model. The demand for financial services is very diverse even among the poor, and we believe that any sustainable response will have to be pluralistic... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Strategies for Developing Viable MFIs with Sustainable Services

 In most developing countries, access to financial services by all segments of the population, including low-income people, is a matter of growing concern. Many governments have responded positively to this concern by embarking on financial system reform. They have attempted to match people’s demand for adequate financial services with the government’s responsibility for macroeconomic stability and a sound financial infrastructure... [weiterlesen]

 

  • The Role of Microfinance in Rural Microenterprise Development

 In October 2006, the Syngenta Foundation held a seminar focusing on Capital for Development. The Foundation had just completed the review of its five years in operations and concluded it needed to focus more on the drivers of rural economic growth – both on-farm and off-farm if it wanted to achieve significant impact in reducing rural poverty... [weiterlesen]

 

  • Upgrading, Downgrading, Linking, Innovating - Microfinance Development Strategies

 In the transition process from financial repression to a prudentially deregulated financial system, an increasing number of developing countries are becoming concerned about access of the rural and urban masses to microfinance. Only viable institutions with sound practices, which mobilize their own resources and cover their costs from the margin, can respond to the increasing demand for microsavings, microcredit and microinsurance services on a sustainable basis. Three major approaches contribute to the development of a system of microfinance... [weiterlesen]