Fighting Poverty with Microcredit: Experience in Bangladesh

Providing the poor with access to financial services is one of many ways to help increase their incomes and productivity. In many countries, however, traditional financial institutions have failed to provide this service. Microcredit and cooperative programs have been developed to fill this gap. Their purpose is to help the poor become self-employed and thus escape poverty. Many of these programs provide credit using social mechanisms, such as group-based lending, to reach the poor and other …