• My First Foray into Microfinance
• One Rung Up and Flat
• Does the Gates Foundation funding of microcredit have impact? Who knows? [via SeaMO]
• KIVA FELLOWS: Microfinance experience can lead to encore career
• Beyond Microfinance: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty Alleviation

It’s no suprise that I am a big fan of microfinance lending platforms.  I have always been a big supporter of Kiva and Microplace, but am always looking for new platforms to join.  Recently, I discussed the launch of a new platform called Veecus, which is a new organization in the microfinance scene.

However, one of the newest platforms out there might not sound so new.  Wokai, who has been working on launching their new platform, has been discussing their journey through their blog.  Recently, Wokai announced that they are launching a pilot version of their lending platform.  With the pilot platform, Wokai is looking for 200 people to test out the site by making $50 in contributions directly to microentrepreneurs in Inner Mongolia, and providing feedback on this process.

Here is a short video clip describing their new platform:

SeaMo (www.seattlemicrofinance.org) will be hosting its third “Microfinance and Microbrews” at the Pyramid Ale House in Seattle. Please come and join us to meet others interested in microfinance and to hear from Cheryl Sesnon, the Executive Director of the local microfinance pioneer, Washington CASH, this Wednesday at 5:30pm.

More details: http://www.seattlemicrofinance.org/2008/09/24/microfinance-and-microbrews-october-22nd-featuring-washington-cash/

Facebook event page:  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/event.php?eid=44050814736&ref=mf

If you read many blogs, you likely already know that today is Blog Action Day — the goal being to help expand the conversation around alleviating poverty. From climate control to microfinance to saving children to inequality, Blog Action Day resulted in a lot of great thought about a variety of important topics. We need to start thinking more about how we can help rid this world of poverty. Putting our heads in the sand and ignoring today’s challenges is not acceptable. Instead, we need to tackle today’s critical issues with the energy of those passionate about the issues at hand. In order to reach the goal of halving the proportion of those living on less than a $1 a day by 2015, we’re all going to have to work together to make it happen and I believe microfinance is a huge piece of the overall puzzle.

I sincerely thank everyone who devotes their time, energy, and passion toward helping to alleviate poverty worldwide. The world is a better place because of you.

This week, Veecus, a new microfinance lending platform launched its beta version.
Veecus is an interactive platform allowing all members of the network to browse projects of microentrepreneurs and personal pages of users and lenders. Veecus also provides you with your personal space online and your own blog.
Veecus offers the possibility for lenders to choose projects depending on:

• the total amount of the loan requested by the microentrepreneur for their project
• the description of the project
• the duration of the loan
• the reputation of the partner microfinance institution
• the location of the microentrepreneur
• the interest rate associated to the loan

Veecus is run by a french limited company, run and owned by the co-founders Clément Carjat and Baptiste Fabre.  For those of you who like Kiva and myC4, Veecus offers a website in both French and English, giving a more international feel to microfinance lending.

For more information about Veecus and other P2P platforms visit P2P-banking.com

A couple of days ago I posted about Muhammad Yunus’ optimistic assertions about how well microfinance is weathering the financial crisis. The post prompted a comment from a reader who expressed some concerns about the claim. So, with the Dow touching 7800 today, I wanted to put the question out there for consideration and, hopefully, discussion. Will the global financial crisis hurt microfinance? If you have an opinion, post a comment. If you have data that support one view or another, link to them here. If you have questions of your own, throw them out there.

Finally, here are a couple of articles that contribute to the discussion:

“MFIs Fear Cash Drought”

“The Global Financial Crisis and Microfinance“

Progress is very hard to measure. It is even harder to quantify. Too often sufficient data is lacking and therefore relevant variables are omitted. Being able to accurately measure progress however, is extremely useful. Analyzing how far we have come in a certain number of years will gives us a better benchmark as to realistic future goals. With that said, I have been trying to figure out which indicators/statistics are most relevant in measuring the progress of Microcredit.

I (and I don’t think I am alone here) like numbers. I like to see statistical evidence that progress is happening - in addition to reading inspiring articles and stories. So for everybody out there who is like me and wants to see the evidence in graph form that Microcredit works and is progressing…..here you go.

I will start today by posting two graphs which I created using data from the Microcredit Summit Campain 07′ Report - I would recommending reading this report in full as well, as it is very insightful.

I hope these graphs are as inspiring to you as they are to me. In 2006, 69.8% of the total clients reached were considered ‘poorest clients’ – that is a significant increase from the 56.3% reached in 1997.

I realize that many more programs are reporting in 2006 than in the 1990’s, and that clearly the number of ‘poorest clients’ reached will be higher - but the bottom line is… Microfinance is growing and reaching more of the ‘poorest of poor’ than ever! And if you look closely at the percent increases you will see that while the number of programs reporting increased on average by 21.7% over the span of those nine years, the number of ‘poorest clients’ reached increased on average by 33%! Now that is exciting.

I will try to keep the graphs and statistical analysis coming! Until then…

At last week’s Clinton Global Initiative, former president Bill Clinton announced the launch of Leapfrog Investments. Leapfrog will invest in local microinsurers who provide insurance services to BoP clientele. (website)

Though the Millennium Development Goals are fairly broad in scope, I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that microfinance will continue to be a vital tool to eradicating poverty worldwide. There’s a great video put together by ONE.org that I wanted to share that shows some of the progress made toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

[via ONE]

Muhammad Yunus stated at a recent microfinance event, “Microfinance still works. [it hasn't been] hit by the meltdown process.” If he’s right, and I have not seen any statistics to back it up, then the safest loans to invest in over the last few years would have been the sub-subprime loans. (full article)