This site is very intermittently updated now. But the the links and especially my delicious bookmarks are upodated and may point you to fresh interesting material if you share my tastes.
The conference described below is now over, but follow the links and you will find summaries of the discussion, which are a good picture of what the microfinance community is thinking about.
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You may be interested in this virtual conference on microfinance:
Tonight there was an excellent piece by BBC Newsnight on the impact of mobile phones in Africa generally, and Kenya specifically. See the 18 minute video here. (Or a short text article with alternate video link here.)
It’s also a vivid picture of life in Kenya generally, quite removed from a lot of the more cliched media pictures. It made me feel like going back there.
This reinforces the message of stories like Ringing the Changes in Nigeria and plenty of other evidence that mobiles are having a major impact on life.
As I said about this before: The kind of revolution that actually works.
As you probably know, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
The text of his lecture at the awards ceremony is available here. The video of the lecture is currently not working, but footage of the ceremonial parts of the event can be found in the YouTube videos below. Note that these give a flavour of the celebrations, with a lot of music and dance, as well as discussion of Yunus’ work and thought. Yunus’ own lecture starts 16 minutes and 45 seconds into Part 2, but is incomplete.
Ceremony Part 1 (Approx 40 min)
Ceremony Part 2 (Approx 30 min)
. . .
It turns out that there is also a website devoted to Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank. This site appears to be something like a fans and supporters site, rather than Yunus’ own doing, but it has lots of useful information, and it seems he was willing to cut the ribbon for its launch, so is presumably happy with it.
An official site seems to be planned, and “coming soon” here.
Meanwhile buried in the very professional fan site – as I hope I can call it without offending anyone! – there are links to a number of videos by Ashoka.
I haven’t had time to view them yet, as they are each about 40 minutes long, but they appear very interesting. Although they definitely have a promotional spin, rather than being independent documentaries.
The one on Yunus’ life (“Banker to the Poor”) looks especially interesting as it gives a real insight into the making of the man.
There’s some very good material on YouTube about microfinance.
If you know little about this powerful approach to tackling poverty, the first video below “Breaking through poverty with microfinance” is an excellent place to start.
It is, of course, a sales pitch for the Grameen Foundation. But it captures what is inspiring about microfinance, and the spirit of the people working in this field.
If you’re already knowledgeable, the later videos below will be stimulating.
But on a more serious note, this site seems to be a good source of microfinance news, especially for those looking to get some return on their investment, and wanting to judge the performance of commercial funds.
Their stated aim is this:
Since microfinance is currently dominated by governments and charities, objective information with a business orientation is scarce and buried under academic jargon. We seek to provide honest, candid information on microfinance as an emerging investment class.
If you have no idea what microfinance is, you can learn something about it in these places:
There is an excellent in-depth introduction and survey of the field by the Economist, available here. Non-subscribers can currently get it as a PDF from the ACCION website.
