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        <title>Beyond Good Intentions - Micro-Lending</title>
        <description>Is micro-lending the solution to tackling world poverty? What is the impact of offering small loans to the poor compared to providing traditional forms of aid? Has the promise of micro-lending been overblown? What are the keys to success for micro-loan programs? Share your thoughts on Episode 9 and the unique work of kiva.org.</description>
        <link>http://www.beyondgoodintentions.com/share/list.php?44</link>
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            <title>Village-based banking -- novel alternative (4 replies)</title>
            <link>http://www.beyondgoodintentions.com/share/read.php?44,59,59#msg-59</link>
            <description><![CDATA[ At the heart of the microfinance discourse is the question of sustainable action.  A novel, perhaps radical, approach to micro-lending is to remove the external financing mechanism altogether and to form village bank pools from the participants themselves. The Women's Empowerment Program in Nepal, a program combining literacy with commercial training, has created more than 1,000 such village banks or savings circles. Interest income that would have gone to intermediary NGO lenders instead go as dividends to the village members! The circles or solidarity groups are a bit larger, 15-20 participants, to generate enough initial savings for projects. The initiative has had success in stimulating a broad range of grassroots economic activity. For more on this grassroots approach see:<br />
[<a href="http://www.onecountry.org/e124/e12401as_Nepal_project_story.htm" rel="nofollow" >www.onecountry.org</a>]]]></description>
            <dc:creator>Matt</dc:creator>
            <category>Micro-Lending</category>
            <pubDate>Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:00:56 -0500</pubDate>
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