Chapter 4, "Background Check" (.docx .pdf), is a bit of a beast. It doesn't have an analytical drive. It tells "thumbnail histories" of the different forms of microfinance in operation today, reviews some cross-cutting themes such as the historically novel focus on women, then closes with a brief statistical survey of the microfinance landscape. Because it summarizes a huge amount of terrain, it has been hard to get right. In the last month or so, I have been trying to work the knots out, especially after I got comments from the peer reviewers.Among the changes:
- Added a summary text box at the top.
- Developed a direct definition of microfinance: methods of financial service provision that are suited to formal, business-like, non-governmental institutions serving the poor on a large scale.
- Clarified differences between Accion-style solidarity lending and classic Grameen-style group credit, which is generally called solidarity lending too
- Rewrote the history of self-help groups in India to explain the role of Aloysius Fernandez and MYRADA.
- Rewrote the Indonesia history to deemphasize the role of Bank Dagang Bali and describe the Badan Kredit Kecematan (BKK) banks in Central Java.
- Clarified the purpose of the "cross-currents" section as describing, rather than analyzing, various debates and dimensions of diversity within microfinance.
- Reworked the subsection on gender to incorporate BRAC's early role in focusing on women and to take a more balanced view on the relative importance of feminist ideas and the susceptibility of women to peer pressure in driving the focus on women
- Lots of finer editing.
Comments still welcome. On to the next. I think and hope most of the remaining chapters will require less reworking.
