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Making Microfinance Work: Exploring Effective Strategies To Promote Tanzanian Women’S Economic And Social Status Through Microfinance, Kate E. Grantham

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores the possibility of using microfinance to improve the economic and social status of women in Tanzania. As originally conceived, microfinance involved the provision of small loans, or “credit,” to help poor individuals start or strengthen small business ventures. The perceived success of this credit-focused, group liability model early on generated considerable international attention, and brought women into the center of development planning. Beginning in the mid-1990s, a surge of critical scholarship emerged to challenge early assumptions about the relationship between microfinance, poverty reduction and women’s empowerment. Today, academic and popular media discussions of microfinance have devolved into …