Assessing Microfinance: Striking the Balance Between Social Utility and Financial Performance

Florent Bédécarrats and Cécile Lapenu

Chapter 4 in Microfinance in Developing Countries, 2013, pp 62-82 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Microfinance was designed as a development tool, but remains firmly anchored in the market economy, creating an ambivalence that blurs the traditional distinction between the political and economic, the public and private, the commercial and social. Its hybrid nature makes it unique among development tools: microfinance benefits from financial, fiscal and regulatory support, while maintaining relative independence from governments and donors and their fluctuating agendas. The result is a heterogeneous and complex sector that articulates different scales: the local, given it is microfinance, and the national, as states closely supervise retail-banking activities. But it is also a global field, involving various transnational actors: NGOs, cooperation agencies, investors, private entrepreneurs, multilateral agencies, and so on.

Keywords: Social Performance; Initial Public Offering; Credit Union; Social Audit; Social Assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: Assessing Microfinance: Striking the Balance between Social Utility and Financial Performance (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-30192-5_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137301925

DOI: 10.1057/9781137301925_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().