I had the chance to meet staff and borrowers from many microcredit projects in 2006, when I helped organize that year’s Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax, Canada.

Most microcredit programs have local roots, being managed and staffed by people from the same countries that they serve. Some of these credit programs are set up as cooperatives, so borrowers and depositors have voting input into the project’s policies.

Beyond loans and deposit services, the most successful projects tend to offer additional free or inexpensive services, such as vocational training, health insurance, crop insurance, or advocacy for small-business rights.

A substantial majority of the entrepreneurs who benefit from microcredit are women, who may be more excluded than men from mainstream financial services.

A few links for anyone interested in reading more:

http://www.mixmarket.org/ (MIX Market) is the 411 of microcredit organizations around the globe, with plenty of operational and financial data for analysts.

http://www.imon.tj/eng/ (IMON), based in Tajikistan, is one of the many organizations that receives Kiva funding. I’ve researched and written about IMON (and an affiliated organization, National Association of Businesswomen of Tajikistan) several times and think it’s among the best projects in its region. Their site includes detailed reports and lots of human stories about borrowers and staff.

http://www.microcreditsummit.org/ (Microcredit Summit Campaign) is the organizing group for the Summit series I mentioned. They publish good global overviews of the microcredit sector, who it’s reaching, and what goals the Summit Campaign’s signatory organizations are trying to reach.

See what she wrote about Abadou on her blog.

“Poverty won’t be solved by teaching people to read and write.”

We in the First World think education is the way out. As a former manager at World Vision who did some work in Africa, I know it’s not that simple. When mothers don’t have to watch their babies die of starvation, when people get immunizations and resources to fight drought and malaria, THEN they can take that next step, developing the skills to move to self-sufficiency.

I wrote my Blog Action Day post on Abadou, a one-year-old boy whose life was saved in the deserts of Mali. A reminder, I guess, that poverty does have a face.