MicroFinance

WEBSITES AND ORGANIZATIONS

CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist
the Poorest)

CGAP is a consortium of 33 public and private development agencies working

together to expand access to financial services for the poor in developing
countries.

CGAP is a resource center for the microfinance industry, where it incubates

and supports new ideas, innovative products, cutting-edge technology, novel
mechanisms for delivering financial services, and concrete solutions to the
challenges of expanding microfinance.

CGAP publishes many papers on microfinance which are available for download

at this site.

FINCA International

FINCA
International Founder John Hatch developed the village banking method,
which uses the philosophy "Give poor communities the opportunity, and
then get out of the way!" The village banking method is unique in the
responsibility and autonomy given borrowers in running their banks and
in its emphasis on community, as well as individual, development.

Grameen Bank

Grameen Bank started in 1976 when Prof. Muhammad Yunus loaned $27 to 42 women

in a village in Bangladesh. Today Grameen Bank has 5.89 million borrowers
and has disbursed over USD $5.4 billion with a 98% recovery rate.

As Grameen Bank is now a formal bank it is often viewed as the ideal development

of a microfinance institution.

For an overview of Grameen Bank visit http://www.grameen-info.org/bank/GBGlance.htm

This site also includes a number of papers Prof. Yunus has written on microcredit
and social entrepreneurism.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is a project of RESULTS Educational Fund,
and was launched to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families with
credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the
year 2005.

The Campaign publishes an annual report "The State of the Microcredit Summit
Campaign" which documents their progress towards achieving this goal. You
can download the latest report here. [PDF]

The Microfinance Gateway

The Microfinance Gateway is managed by CGAP and is a comprehensive source
of information for and about the microfinance industry including research
and publications, discussion groups, specialized resource centers, organization
and consultant profiles, and the latest news, events, and job opportunities
in microfinance.

If you are new to microfinance and would like to get more involved in the

industry, this is a great way to find events and organizations in your area.

The MIX (Microfinance
Information eXchange)

The MIX is a not-for-profit private organization supported by CGAP, the Citigroup

Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockdale Foundation, and other
private foundations.

The MIX intends to address one of the key challenges of the microfinance

industry: the lack of reliable, comparable and publicly available information
on the financial strength and performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs),
which underpins the development of the market for microfinance services.

This is a great place to get more information about specific microfinance

institutions.

UNCDF Microfinance

resource for basic facts about microfinance, as well as learning what the UNCDF
is doing in this area.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund Microfinance website is a great

United Nations International Year of Microcredit 2005

The International Year of Microcredit 2005 called for building inclusive financial sectors
and strengthening the powerful, but often untapped, entrepreneurial spirit
existing in communities around the world.

Check out the official UN website for this event to see what you missed.

The Virtual Library on Microcredit

This resource began as a homepage on Informal Credit Markets and over time

became The Virtual Library on Microcredit, one of five programs of the Global
Development Research Center.

Today the Virtual Library on Microcredit is a repository of information
on alternative, non-conventional financial systems and microfinance/microcredit
issues. A great place to find microfinance book reviews, papers and news and
events.