It’s the Politicians: Microfinance in India Continues to Take an Unfair Beating

Staff Author / December 27, 2010

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India have been taking a serious beating recently. The threats and actions of politicians are so bad that they threaten the future of the industry in the country, and the primary reason is microfinance’s success.

MFIs are working wonders to help people pull themselves out of poverty. Foreign aid has a bad track record over the past decades of being largely unsuccessful in alleviating poverty. MFIs have shown that there are alternatives to government-driven aid and that the private sector can—and under the right circumstances will—play a role in helping the poor. (more…)