In northern countries, some still believe–and wrongly so–that poor people lack the physical or intellectual means to work or support themselves financially. Microfinance makes short work of such clichés.
Microfinance works on the principle that financially destitute individuals are capable of starting up income-generating activities if they are only given the little bit of help they need to launch their projects.One of the services this poverty-reduction tool can offer is lending a small amount of money–a microloan or microcredit–to a person who earns just barely enough to survive, and thereby enabling him or her to develop an agricultural or activity, a trading activity, or a microenterprise.
Over one hundred million microenterpreneurs
The 2007 report of the World Summit of Microfinance Campaign listed 3.316 microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide as of December 31st, 2006. These MFIs were serving more than 130 million persons. Among the poorest customers, 85,2 %, are women. By the end of 2006, 92,9 million people had taken advantage of microfinance services. So, assuming that every family consists of five persons, approximately 464.6 million (including family members) have benefited.
Download the complete report 2007
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Understand microfinance in 20 minutes with the DVD “An idea, a loan, a future: Microfinance in practice”. Available free of charge upon request by email to adainfo@microfinance.lu
