One of the reasons I personally dislike Micro-finance. This sounds like fun, lets make poor people buy loans with HUGE interests rates for stuff they don't need. Seems to me that money for food would help out more than giving them money so they can be more "political".
2 comments:
I think the point is to teach a man to fish, so he can eat for his whole life. Giving food is like a band-aid. There is only so long the food will last. Properly investing your micro-loans has been proven to greatly help the poor much more than simple donations. Of course, the key work is "properly."
I was going to say the same thing! It seems that the problem here is that the loans are being used improperly. The article shows that people are taking out multiple micro-loans to pay for their kids' college education or to build a home. These are important investments, of course, but they are not the kind of sustainable investments that micro-finance was intended for. Micro-financing was originally intended to allow the poor to start small businesses, which eventually yield profits that pay off the loans.
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