Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
New York Times Reports On Rise, Fall Of Microloans In Developing Countries
The New York Times reports on how microlending has "prompted political hostility in Bangladesh, India, Nicaragua and other developing countries." Such negativity "toward microfinance is a sharp reversal from the praise and good will that politicians, social workers and bankers showered on the sector in the last decade." The article notes "[p]hilanthropists and investors poured billions of dollars into nonprofit and profit-making microlenders, who were considered vital players" in helping to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the MDG target to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Such attention "helped the sector reach more than 91 million customers, most of them women, with loans totaling more than $70 billion by the end of 2009," with half of all borrowers from India and Bangladesh.
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