Independent research for global prosperity
The news of Yunus's formal resignation is in a sense not news: the highest court in the land already ruled that he had to go. But it is also profoundly sad moment, so much so that I did not want to sully this transcendent moment with my perishable thoughts.
But you must be wondering: what next?
The New York Times has published an opinion piece by Muhammad Yunus on how to keep microcredit on this side of usury:
Update: I have blogged the English version of the documentary too.
I've been pretty oblique in recent posts about my evolving opinions of the Andhra Pradesh (AP) crisis. I've been trying to share my thought process with you. But that seems to have left me open to misinterpretation and criticism for poor construction. Perhaps I have taxed your patience.
Did you catch the microcredit debate at the Clinton Global Initiative conference last Tuesday? OK, I wasn't invited to the ex-president's annual gathering either. But, rather amazingly, I watched the debate live on my Droid while being a soccer dad. You can watch the whole thing at the bottom of this post. It was a good show. It put on one stage the two leading (disagreeing) voices in the hottest controversy in microfinance.
Last month, Lant Pritchett, the invariably instructive scholar of development, had to sit twice through my spiel about the different notions of "development" I employ in my book to evaluate microfinance and my curiosity about extending this analytical thread beyond microfinance.
[Update: Matt Flannery, CEO and Co-Founder of Kiva, replied to this post as a guest blogger. Kiva has also changed its site, and I have blogged more.]
This post is so long it needs an:
Executive Summary/Long Story Short
It's been a tough season for the proposition that "microfinance is a proven and cost-effective tool to help the very poor lift themselves out of poverty and improve the lives of their families." In May came a randomized trial of microcredit in Hyderabad finding no impacts on poverty 15--18 months out.
On CGD's Voices from the Center blog, I just posted a review of Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day, by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven.
