Beyond Micro-Credit : Putting Development Back into Micro-Finance

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Introduction to the financial sector in India. I. Micro-finance and development: 3. Micro-finance and social and economic security. 4. Micro-finance and livelihoods: the challenge of BASIX. 5. Micro-finance and people's organisations. 6. Micro-finance and system-wide change. II. Micro-finance: organisations and institutions: 7. Self-help groups and Grameen Bank groups: what are the differences?/ Malcolm Harper. 8. Costs in micro-finance: what do urban self-help groups tell us?/Mathew Titus. 9. Exploring empowerment and leadership at the grassroots: social entrepreneurship in the SHG movement in India/Ajit Kanitkar. 10. Sustainability and development: evaluating the performance of Indian micro-finance/Sanjay Sinha and Frances Sinha. 11. Rising to the challenge of scale in India: growing the micro-finance sector/Mathew Titus.12. Emerging lessons and challenges/Thomas Fisher. Appendix: capacity- building and organisational learning project for development finance in India. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. "Micro-finance is fast growing as a major development strategy and international industry. It seems to provide a practical workable tool to address the deep-seated challenges of poverty.But can it really fulfill this promise? All too often the development goals of micro-finance are lost, either behind technical and managerial solutions in pursuit of financial sustainability, or behind a narrow focus on the poorest. "This book analyses Indian micro-finance in depth to explore how development can be put back into micro-finance. It sets out 390 pp.…