Chapter 1

Thou Shalt Not Criticize Microfinance

 1. According to the 2011 Global Microcredit Summit, 205,314,500; 153,306,542 of whom are women.

See http://www.microfinancegateway.org/p/site/m/template.rc/1.26.17926/.

4. Duvendack et. al., What Is the Evidence of the Impact of Microfinance on the Well-Being of Poor People?

(London: EPPI Centre, University of London, 2011), p. 75.

 

5. One of the pioneers of commercial microfinance has coined the phrase “goat economics.”

See http://blog.800ceoread.com/2010/11/08/explaining-goat-economics-by-vikram-akula/.

 

6. David Roodman, “Does Compartamos Charge 195% Interest?” Center for Global Development, David Roodman’s Microfinance Open Book blog, January 31, 2011,

http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2011/01/compartamos-and-the-meaning-of-interest-rates.php.

 

7. Jonas Blume and Julika Breyer, Microfinance and Child Labour (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2011). Only one microfinance fund has explicit policies regarding child labor: World Vision, which operates a number of MFIs through its subsidiary Vision Fund.

 

9. See http://indiamicrofinance.com/bono-quote-microfinance.html.

 

10. Vivienne Walt, “Does Microfinancing Really Work? A New Book Says No,”Time, January 6, 2012.

 

11. See Nicholas Kristof, “The Role of Microfinance,” NYTimes.com, December 28, 2009, 

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/the-role-of-microfinance/.