The bad – and good – news on microcredit, By Gregory M. Lamb, June 9, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “First Muhammad Yunus founded the nonprofit Grameen Bank, which lent tiny amounts of money to poor people to start businesses. It appeared to be a revolutionary success and he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in 2006. In 2009, for example, Grameen had 6.4 million active borrowers with an average loan size of $127. Then came the second guessing. For-profit companies got into the micro-loan business charging high interest rates in order to generate an attractive return for their investors. While nearly all of Grameen’s borrowers repaid their loans in full, other lenders didn’t do so well. Borrowers began to default. Pressured by their creditors, some in India even committed suicide when they couldn’t repay their loans…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty