Bangladesh has the world's fastest growing, off-grid solar home system (SHS) coverage. In the past decade, the number of SHS installations has risen phenomenally--from a five-year target of 50,000 in 2003 to 50,000 a month in 2013, with support from the World Bank and other development partners....

Front Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- About the Authors -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Overview -- Can Microfinance Uplift the Poor? -- Inclusive Microfinance -- Assessing the Dynamics of Program Benefits -- Purpose and Organization of the Book -- Notes --...

Preface -- About the authors -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Rural nonfarm growth and poverty reduction -- Institutional growth and MFI performance -- Dynamics of microfinance benefits -- Are borrowers overindebted? -- Role of microfinance in poverty transition -- Diversification of income...

Simultaneity of borrowing, withdrawal of savings, and loan defaults due to the pronounced seasonality of agriculture often leads to investment failure of rural financial institutions. Lack of borrowing leads to lack of in-come- and consumption-smoothing, and in turn, causes inefficient resource...

Energy poverty is a frequently used term among energy specialists, but unfortunately the concept is rather loosely defined. Several existing approaches measure energy poverty by defining an energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as...

Lack of access to electricity is one of the major impediments to growth and development of the rural economies in developing countries. That is why access to modern energy, in particular to electricity, has been one of the priority themes of the World Bank and other development organizations....

This paper applies an econometric analysis to estimate the average and distribution benefits of rural electrification using rich household survey data from India. The results support that rural electrification helps to reduce time allocated to fuelwood collection by household members and...

In less-developed economies such as Bangladesh, the farm sector is the major source of employment and income, while the rural nonfarm sector provides as an additional source of income. But the rural nonfarm sector increasingly plays an important role in fostering the development of the rural...

This paper addresses whether microcredit participants in Bangladesh are trapped in poverty and debt, as many critics have argued in recent years. Analysis of data from a long panel survey over a 20-year period confirms this is not the case, although numerous participants have been with...