I am not a regular blogger (does the noun exist ? It sounds slightly inappropriate) but I have succumbed to an invitation to share some hasty and ill-considered thoughts with a wider readership than myself. And, as is often the case, the subject is microfinance; I know quite a lot about it, if knowing means writing books about it, criticising it, directing and rating it, but like just about everyone who reads this note, I have never actually used it.
CHUCK WATERFIELD
CEO, MF TRANSPARENCY
Q: We were here a year ago talking about the Responsible Finance agenda, the growth in recognition of transparency in pricing etc. What’s changed in the last year for you?
We think of microfinance as being ‘invented’ in Bangladesh in the 1970s. To be sure, Grameen was the genesis of modern microcredit, the provision of small, unsecured loans to mostly women, for enterprise development. But microfinance – defined more broadly as financial services to the poor – goes back as far as money and commerce.
Interview by B. De Bruyne with E. Javoy (Planet Rating) and D. Rozas. Full disclosure: in addition to being co-author of MIMOSA, Daniel Rozas is the editor of the e-MFP blog.
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