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Poverty, Microcredit, and Mahatma Gandhi: Lessons for Donors
| Title: | Poverty, Microcredit, and Mahatma Gandhi: Lessons for Donors
| | Author: | Padmanabhan K.P. | | Publication: | International Social Science Journal / Blackwell Publishing | | Enumeration: | vol. 53, no. 169, pp. 489-499/September 2001 | | Abstract: | The most pressing moral, political, and economic issue of our time is poverty in developing countries. Donor support to poverty alleviation efforts through massive aid has not delivered the expected results. The primary reason for this failure is the incompatibility between the macro policy driven by globalisation, liberalis-ation and privatisation (GLP) and the goals of individual projects. This contradiction is best illustrated by the microcredit sector. While on the one hand donors support lending to micro enterprises, on the other GLP makes the very same micro enterprises unviable and micro finance institutions subsidy-dependent. Adapting Gandhian thoughts on economic development may be one way to resolve these contradictions and help the poorest. If donors spend more resources on promoting wage-employment through viable micro enterprises, instead of self-employment through micro finance, that would help millions of risk-averse and hard-core poor, particularly the poorest women to come out of poverty. The key issue, as Gandhi had emphasised, is putting purchasing power into the hands of the poor, with their self-respect intact. Source of Abstract: Provided by Publisher | | Tools: |
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