The crisis of microfinance

Shashi Tharoor in Al-Jazeera.net: The recent ouster of the Nobel Prize-winning Bangladeshi economist Mohammed Yunus as Managing Director of the Grameen Bank, which blazed a trail for microfinance in developing countries, has thrown a spotlight on the crisis engulfing a business that was once seen as a harbinger of hope for millions.

Yunus's tussle with the government of Bangladesh, which had tried to retire him on grounds of age (he is 70) before firing him from his own board, is entangled in his country’s complicated politics. But Bangladeshi President Hasina Wajed’s remark that Yunus had "spent years sucking the blood of the poor" echoes similar charges being made in neighboring India against companies and banks that sought to emulate Grameen.

Last November, Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s most populous states, cracked down heavily on private microfinance institutions (PMFIs), banning many of their activities and telling borrowers they did not need to repay their loans.

State authorities said they were prompted to take decisive action by a spate of suicides by borrowers who were unable to pay their debts. Roughly 80 clients were reported to have taken their own lives last year – an alarming figure, though tiny relative to the 26.7 million active borrowers from PMFIs in India….

Photo of Mohammad Yunus by Tanveer Islam, Wikimedia Commonsa via OTRS, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license