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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Role Of Microfinance Workers In Financialization: Negotiating The Meaning Of Development In China, Xue Ma Jul 2020

The Role Of Microfinance Workers In Financialization: Negotiating The Meaning Of Development In China, Xue Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Microfinance is an attempt to alleviate poverty through offering collateral-free small loans to poor borrowers, especially women in developing countries or rural areas. Though it is indeed an actual economic activity, usually engaged in through some type of bank, there is much that is informal and context-bound in these transactions, making microfinance a kind of “social business.” While the impact of microfinance on women borrowers has been discussed many times, only a few studies have looked at the significance of the other members of the interaction: the microfinance workers, who are instrumental intermediaries between the women-borrowers and the microfinance institutions …


The Impacts Of Commercialization On Depth, Breadth, Scope, And Quality Of Outreach In Mozambique: A Case-Study, Courtney Johnson Dec 2017

The Impacts Of Commercialization On Depth, Breadth, Scope, And Quality Of Outreach In Mozambique: A Case-Study, Courtney Johnson

Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development—Student Research

In today’s microfinance, scholars and policy-makers across the world have emphasized the importance of financial sustainability, or the ability of a microfinance institution (MFI) to finance its operations. In order to reach financial sustainability, MFIs embrace commercialization, a process where an MFI undergoes restructuring in order to open up avenues to capital. Yet, scholars are concerned that this emphasizes on financial sustainability will cause the social good objective to suffer, a phenomenon known as “trade-off.” Indeed, studies have found that commercialization impacts MFI outreach in various ways. To my knowledge, no research has attempted to understand the impacts of commercialization …