In their article, In Microfinance, Clients Must Come First, Srikant Datar, Marc Epstein, and Kristi Yuthas assess the current debate on microfinance, and explain their theory for change. They recommend that microfinance institutions (MFIs) focus on helping clients build sustainable businesses rather than simply increasing the size and quantity of loans administered.

Quoted from the Stanford Social Innovation Review: To make microfinance work for more people, more often, in more places, MFIs need to think clearly about how their practices will bring about the changes they seek. This may mean making fewer microfinance loans and incurring more costs to support the loans they’ve already made. The benefit, of course, is the building of sustainable businesses. The challenge is finding ways to provide these additional services efficiently. In our current research, we are designing and testing these client-centered practices. We hope that our results will ultimately lead to the broader application of effective and cost-efficient client-centered microfinance programs.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 6:15 am and is filed under Publications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.