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Microfinance: Articles & Websites

Use this guide to find resources related to microfinance (otherwise known as microlending, rural lending or rural finance).

Statistics

Accion's Center for Financial Inclusion provides publications and resources on the microfinance.

The Asian Development Bank has sponsored numerous studies. (Search on microfinance.)

Symbiotics offers specialized investment solutions that connect socially responsible investors, to micro-, small and medium enterprises and value chain development projects in low-income economies in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and South-East and Central Asia. Their publications include the Symbiotics Microfinance Investment Vehicles Survey.

Websites

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with sections on economic inclusion.

IDEAS: Economics and Finance Research, hosted by the University of Connecticut Department of Economics, is a large bibliographic database that is freely available over on the Internet.

The FinDev Gateway is CGAP’s independent knowledge platform where the global financial inclusion community comes together to share lessons and ideas on making financial services work for poor people.

The Inter-American Development Bank, contains research and analysis into the history of microfinance and how it's being used today for social good as well as performance.

Visit the Grameen Bank and Grameen Foundation websites to learn more about 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus.  You may also want to read Muhammad Yunus' book, Banker to the poor : Micro-lending and the battle against world poverty, at call number HG3290.6.A6 Y86 1999 in the Van Pelt stacks.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

Articles

In the World Bank E-Library, go to Recommended Readings and select MicroFinance from the list of topics to start. You can also search microfinance or related terms from the topics tab.

For most of the resources below, consider search terms such as: microfinanc* or microbank* or  microcredit* or microsaving* or microloan* or microlend* or microinsur* or micro financ* or micro bank* or micro credit* or micro saving* or micro loan* or micro lend* or micro insur*, where the asterisk searches the root of the word.