& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Legal framework needed to make MFIs efficient

Microcredit summit session says

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Speakers at working sessions of the regional microcredit summit yesterday described good governance and transparency as crucial to microfinance institutions that should be regulated through a legal framework to make them more efficient.
"Microcredit is an area that needs a regulatory commission. It is the NGOs that are suggesting to form a watchdog for them," said Professor Muhammad Yunus, managing director (MD) of Grameen Bank.
A watchdog is needed to facilitate developing the local economy with local money, he said, adding stocktaking was essential for transparency and efficiency.
Yunus was presiding over an associated session on 'Experience of Grameen Replicators: Financing, Institutionalisation, Innovations and Achievements' of the four-day Asia Pacific Region Microcredit Summit Meeting of Councils that began at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel on Monday.
Speaking as a panellist, Harihar Dev Pant, executive director (ED) of Nirdhan Utthan
Bank Ltd of Nepal, said his organisation started its journey as an NGO. But Grameen Bank's success in reaching the poor encouraged them to transform it into a bank.
"Every financial institution needs supervision. Good governance and transparency are major issues in microcredit," he remarked.
Udaia Kumar, MD of SHARE Microfin Ltd of India, observed that a proper legal framework was crucial for the growth of microcredit.
"Legal framework is needed for the MFIs to mobilise funds and give credits. Of the total 73 million clients in India, we have reached only seven million and the rest are waiting to get access to finance," he added.
Dolores M Torres, president and chief executive of CARD Bank of the Philippines, said holding meetings and collecting repayments were initial challenges for her institution, which was now partially owned by the borrowers.
Zahirul Alam, ED of Integrated Development Foundation, said his organisation started with only Tk 100,000 in a remote area where no other NGO was working.
FROM PAGE 1
Political situation was not favourable. But Grameen microfinance model worked there successfully. People who started with only Tk 1,000 are now handling Tk 100,000, Zahirul reported.
"We forgot all our woes when we saw with a Tk 500 loan a farmer could improve his life and gradually became able to handle more money."
"We could make it [the microcredit programme] sustainable and now we use our surplus funds for health and education," Zahirul mentioned.
George Oetomo of the YDBP of Indonesia said his organisation achieved a 200 percent growth in 2003. "It is not only in 2003. Our growth is almost double every year," he claimed.
Speaking at another workshop on 'Empowerment of Women through Microcredit,' Professor Naila Kabeer of Institute of Development Studies (IDS) said, "Contrary to some microfinance evangelists' beliefs, microcredit is no magic bullet for development."
Microfinance has to be geared in
such a way that ensures that women can make strategic decisions independently and themselves, and have access to decision-making processes of society affecting their lives, Naila added.
She also thought it important to track the changes in women's empowerment resulting from microcredit from the grassroots up to the macro-level, especially the difference in society's perceptions of women before and after they received microcredit.
Professor Naila said microcredit projects should perhaps measure the level of discrimination present in their spaces of operation before setting up microcredit programmes.
Lotta Nycander in her presentation said, "Although I do believe microcredit is instrumental in empowering women, it's not sufficient."
She supported the focus of microcredit lenders on women, saying a great many women were vulnerable, as their economic hardship led to an increase in trafficking of women, especially in South Asia.