Using data from a quick survey of various rural (RFIs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs) in East Asia, the paper tries to find out how those institutions and their clientele have been affected by the global financial crisis, how they have coped with the ongoing crisis, and what they plan to...

A recent publication of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has highlighted the food insecurity problem facing the globe: food production will have to increase by 70 percent in 2050 to keep up with a global population that is projected to grow from 6 billion to 9 billion. There has...

Illness or injury, death of a family member, man-made calamities and natural disasters have a devastating effect on those poor households cash flow, liquidity and earning capacities and thus, on household welfare. Demand for micro-insurance products is growing in view of continuing risks to...

The Philippine microfinance industry has developed over the years. From only a few large microfinance institutions (MFIs) with less than a million clients in the late ’90s,the industry has now more than 2,000 MFIs with almost 7 million clients. Large commercial banks, which used to ignore the...

The Philippine credit cooperatives have grown in financial resources and membership over the last three decades. These cooperatives are self-reliant and self-sustaining. This paper is an attempt to assess the importance and potential impact of any further sectoral development and to identify...

The shift to a market-oriented credit and financial policy was expected to spur rural financing by the private sector that would help usher growth in the agriculture and rural areas. However, the rural areas have continued to suffer from the lack of access to financial services of banks. Despite...

The recent currency and financial turmoil in East Asia have led to the evaluation of current financial and macroeconomic policies. The Philippines, which has been the worst hit in the 1980 economic crisis has indicated greater resilience in the 1990 financial crisis. Experts have attributed this...

Innovation in credit programs has alleviated poverty. The premise is that credit accessibility translates into productive activities that aid households to battle poverty. Despite this, the formal rural lending institutions are meeting only a very small percentage of the rural demand for credit....