Hugh Sinclair Replies
This is a reply from Hugh Sinclair to my review of his book. If you haven't read the book, I think you will get a good sense of his views and style from this post. ---David Roodman
Fury and delight: I thank David for performing “due diligence” on my book, and am pleased to see genuinely new issues appear to be attracting attention, long over-due perhaps. Identifying where yet more scrutiny is required in the embattled microfinance sector can only be a constructive development. The mysteriously over-looked principal-agent problem is indeed the central theme of my whistleblowing book, and to refer to my suggestions as laughably conservative may be premature. I am suggesting a new degree of scrutiny and regulation be applied to those entrusted to manage a significant proportion of capital flows to MFIs. Start asking too many questions about their activities and impact, or, God forbid, regulate the likes of Kiva - and such suggestions may not generate laughter amongst our trusted intermediaries.
The book is an insider’s memoir, and not a text-book. It is aimed at the non-academic audience; the (wo)man on the street, who is largely spared the subtleties of these blogs and quasi-academic debates, and yet maintains a limited, at times uninformed impression of the wonders of microfinance. Insiders know this idealism, optimism or hype, is fantasy, but the (wo)man on the street usually does not. I attempt to plug this gap. We are not all experts in everything, sometimes we have to trust the experts, but in microfinance extreme caution is required.