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Back in December 2006 I blogged a meeting in Paris at which the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a sort of microfinance think tank operating out of the World Bank, won a mandate to hold a mirror up to the aid agencies that fund it. A year and a half later, CGAP's new SmartAid Index looks at the quality of donors' work in supporting micorofinance.
The New York Times ran a story on Saturday by Elisabeth Malkin, called "Problems for Microfinancing in Mexico," that illustrates the difficulties of sizing up microcredit.
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