Many of the poor borrow, more save, and most of them demand insurance products or related substitutes. However, most of these financial products, especially those catering towards the need for consumption stabilization are only offered by the informal market. Microfinance Institutions (MFIs)...

Since the 1970s, group-lending programmes have been promoted in many developing countries. Based on a survey that was conducted in Madagascar during 1992, the author presents the major characteristics of the formation, structure and conduct of the group-based credit schemes, makes an econometric...

This paper1 describes Participatory Wealth Ranking’s (PWR) accuracy in predicting the poverty status of groups identified by socio-economic indicators. On the basis of a census in 8 villages located in three of the six divisions of Bangladesh, 1660 households were scored using the...

Die Region südlich der Sahara steht wie keine andere im Zentrum der internationalenentwicklungspolitischen Aufmerksamkeit, so dass Afrika in jüngerer Zeit garals ‚hopeless continent’ bezeichnet wird (ECONOMIST, MAI 2000). Dies ist Ausdruckeines wachsenden Entwicklungspessimismus, der sich...