The State of Microcredit
2/6/13
If I had had the stamina, I would have inserted into my book a chapter on the history of the microfinance movement.
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CGD Policy Blogs
An Object Lesson in Corporate Crisis Management
3/31/12
Stern advice from Daniel Rozas for the Andhra Pradesh microfinance industry on how it should manage---and should have managed---the crisis of 2010:
The SKS Story in Pictures
3/20/12
Visual highlights from David A. Smith's unique telling of the story of SKS Microfinance. At this writing, the series is three posts long with a fourth on the way. Hat tip to +David Maymudes.
The Rise and Decline of Indian Microcredit
3/4/12
Here are two graphs of data from the Mix Market showing the rise and decline of microcredit in India---or at least in Andhra Pradesh.
Eye-Witness Accounts of Akula's Humble Harvard Talk
3/1/12
Two Kennedy School students who were there have blogged Vikram Akula's remarkable mea culpa.
Hala Hanna provides more detail than I've seen anywhere else (and a great photo):
Akula Admits Error
2/26/12
Vikram Akula, who founded SKS Microfinance in India, and long aggressively defended it in the face of controversy, apparently has publicly stated that he made mistakes. I just have this fragment from a summary of the talk he gave at a Harvard Business School conference (HT @sushmitameka):
akula
AP on AP: Important Story on SKS Internal Investigation of Suicides
2/24/12
Erika Kinetz of the Associated Press has just put out an important story about the Andhra Pradesh microfinance crisis of 2010. It resonates with my sense that the microcredit-suicide link, though hard to prove, was plausible:
Amount × Collection Practices = Debt Burden
2/3/12
Sanjay Sinha points out that government-backed Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have indebted the poor of Andhra Pradesh three times as much as the microfinance institutions (MFIs) have. That certainly should be food for thought for anyone who heaps calumny on the MFIs.
New Year's Reflections on the State of Indian Microfinance
1/4/12
Like me, Sanjay Sinha, the director of the microfinance rating agency M-CRIL, sees the speed and nature of growth in India's microfinance sector as a core cause of the debacle in Andhra Pradesh in late 2010. He's written an article on microfinancefocus.com reflecting on these and other lessons.
He closes with a warning to the rest of the world:
Moneylenders Help Fill the Vacuum in Andhra Pradesh
11/30/11
The India office of MicroSave has just release an excellent piece of research on how people in Andhra Pradesh perceive various sources of credit---private microfinance, self-help groups, moneylenders---and how they they are responding to the sudden disappearance of one of them. It is based in large part on discussions with 76 groups of borrowers.