Tag: microcredit

We are pleased to share this opportunity to follow along with Diane and Travis as they visit partners in Haiti in the photo journal below. The photos are from a visit in April 2017 to see our partners at KOFAVIV and IJDH as well as learning more about the work of Fr. Joseph Philippe and… Continue reading Visiting Partners in Haiti: a photographic update

In the contemporary debate on microcredit, the voices of those whose lives it affects on a daily basis are conspicuously absent. The goal of our project is to change that—to bring recipients’ experiences and opinions into the global debates on microcredit.

  Microcredit advisor Kasia Paprocki published this new research article at Geoforum to advance the notion of “social dispossession”, specifically by focusing on her own prior field research in rural Bangladesh. Social dispossession is the author’s original and new framework to interrogate the systemic abuses of microcredit borrowers. As more fully defined from the article’s… Continue reading “Social Dispossession” in Microcredit

In the efforts to address poverty, the voices of those impacted by economic insecurity are too often conspicuously absent. The Goldin Institute’s work builds on the experiences and perspectives of those living in poverty and designs solutions based on their knowledge, strategies and aspirations. The current debate about the efficacy of microfinance is marked by… Continue reading Improving Microcredit from the Perspective of Borrowers

12 The Goldin Institute trained a team of twelve community researchers in oral testimony techniques. 150 The research team conducted over 150 interviews with peer microcredit recipients in Arampur. 8 This village of 1500 households now has eight microcredit banks leading to an oversaturated debt market. 3+ The majority of households surveyed now hold three… Continue reading Microcredit Stats

Six New Studies Point to the Inflated-Promise of Microcredit in Transforming the Lives of the Poor We just became aware of this report, which compiles comprehensive research critical of the standard microcredit model.   Economist Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a co-founder and co-director of J-PAL, co-author of the India and Morocco… Continue reading Studies Show Microcredit Shortcomings

Interested in learning more about the promise and peril of microcredit? The current debate about the efficacy of microfinance is marked by the absence of those who have most at stake in the controversy: loan recipients. The Goldin Institute is working to lift up these voices—most often marginalized women—and restore their perspectives, insights and aspirations… Continue reading Goldin Institute’s Travis Rejman Interviewed on Worldview

Microcredit Summit in Dhaka Groundbreaking meeting between microcredit recipients, lenders and regulators, hosted in June 2010. We are pleased to share the recently compiled transcript from the “Listening to the Experiences of Microcredit Recipients” roundtable discussion that took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh on June 21, 2010.  This groundbreaking summit was the first dialogue between microcredit… Continue reading Transcript of Roundtable Dialogue in Bangladesh

Community Based Oral Testimony Rethinking Research from the Perspective of Community Experience In debates on development, the voices of those it affects the most are often conspicuously absent.  Our strategy for bringing their voices back in was simple: we decided to ask them. We adopted a strategy known as “oral testimony” which relies on extended… Continue reading Community Based Oral Testimony