Another Take on Microfinance Industry's Take on Research

This from the India Development Blog run by IFMR Research. The writer is Sushmita Meka, who is for me a fine, fresh voice in the microfinance blogosphere: Like me, she comments on the recent reply by six U.S. microfinance groups to last year's impact studies and the attendant press coverage:

It baffles me that, although their official take alludes to the irresponsibility of the media’s thirst for sound bites, the consortium’s introductory op-ed cloaks its argument in a series of them....If it weren’t for my belief that microfinance can empower individuals (and not only women, let’s not leave out the men!), I would never have quit my previous job to come seeking the evidence. Although I haven’t seen “thousands of women” whose lives have taken a turn for the better, I’ve seen enough to write a heartfelt story or two....That said, there is an ugly side to microfinance that a practitioner would (understandably) never choose to highlight....When the WSJ or others publish such stories, certain microfinance practitioners cry foul, claiming that the individuals cited are not representative of the larger picture, the larger impact of microfinance. What, then, is the difference between anecdotes from practitioners and anecdotes from others? And whose are we to believe? What happens to stories of drop-out clients for whom the “magic” of microfinance never quite materialized?