BRAC, the world’s largest NGO with a large microfinance program serving more than five million Bangladeshi families, is another example demonstrating that microfinance can and should serve the world’s poorest. Through their Income Generation for Vulnerable Groups Development (IGVGD) Program, it is able to reach the destitute poor and graduate them to fullfledged, long-term microfinance clients. The IGVGD Program is a collaboration between BRAC, the World Food Program and the Bangladesh government to serve destitute rural women who have little or no income-earning opportunity by offering them free grain, skills training, and microloans. Participants receive 18 months of free grain as basic nourishment from the government. Then a BRAC unit specializing in training organizes the participants into groups, collects savings, and provides them with skills training such as raising poultry and livestock.
Upon completion of training, participants receive tiny loans of about $50 to fund a small-scale income generating activity. In addition, the program provides participants with BRAC’s essential health care services that incorporate annual check-up, basic curative care and family planning among other vital services.17 The results of BRAC’s IGVGD Program are very impressive. To date, the program has served 1.6 million destitute women, and nearly two-thirds of these participants have “graduated”
from absolute poverty to become microfinance clients who have not slipped back into requiring further relief assistance.18 Overall, longitudinal studies of the IGVGD Program shows that the economic and social conditions of participants have improved based on measurements of income and assets, land and homestead ownership, ownership of beds and blankets, and food security.
Microfinance: A Platform for Social Change by Marge Magner March 2007 Grameen Foundation
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Grameen Foundation
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Grameen Foundation's mission is to empower
the world's poorest people to lift
themselves out of poverty with dignity
through access to financial services and
to information.
With tiny loans, financial services and
technology, we help the poor, mostly
women, start self-sustaining businesses to
escape poverty. Founded in 1997 by a group
of friends who were inspired by the work
of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, our global
network of microfinance partners reaches
over 3.6 million families in 25 countries.
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