Invest in Microcredit
Microcredit: programs
that extend small loans to very poor people for self-employment
projects that generate income, allowing them to care for themselves
and their families. – Microcredit
Summit, 1997 Data Snapshots on Microcredit THERE ARE NOW MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED MILLION microcredit borrowers worldwide, maintaining
repayment rates of 97 percent. The microcredit movement has
been growing at a rate exceeding 30 percent annually.
- The World Bank estimates that 1.2 billion people representing
240 million families live on less than $1 a day. The Microcredit
Summit estimates that $21.6 billion is needed to provide
microfinance to 100 million of the world's poorest families. The goal of the NGO members of the Summit is to reach 175 million borrowers by 2015.
- Most of the world’s poor people have no access
to credit from sources other than local moneylenders.
- The widely imitated Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (the original
inspiration for NamasteDirect) provides credit to
those in extreme poverty, also know as the landless poor. Some 94 percent of borrowers are women. Grameen
borrowers have a repayment rate of 98.3 percent. The
bank now lends $90 million a month to 7 million
borrowers, including 90,000 beggars. Grameen itself has been profitable for many years and its loan funds are entirely provided by deposits taken in, mostly from its borrowers.
- Studies have shown that during an eight-year period,
and with no credit service of any type, only 4 percent
of the poorest in Bangladesh pulled themselves above the
poverty line. But, more than 48 percent of the individuals
and families with access to credit from Grameen Bank were
able to rise above the poverty line.
- Savings are important for the poor both as a vital safety
net and as a source of funding that does not rely on external
sources. Savings programs are a feature of virtually all
microcredit initiatives.
Sources include: Global Development Research Center, Grameen, and the Microcredit Summit. |
