|
Microcredit Alleviates Poverty
KOL Report
KATHMANDU, Dec 8 - More than 433,000 households living below the poverty level in Nepal were issued small collateral-free loans to start or to expand micro businesses till last year, according to a latest global report.
Given the average size of Nepali households, micro loans have contributed to more than 2.2 million poor people of the country a chance to raise their income level.
In other words, micro finance scheme so far has served 31 percent of the 7.2 million people, living below the poverty line.
The 2005 report on 'State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign', released Wednesday, states that around 16 institutions of the country catering microcredit services had disbursed micro loans to around 546,208 clients.
Of the total clients served so far, 433,923 people earn less than one dollar a day. And, around 39,000 of the poor population, who received loans till last year were women, the report states.
The Microcredit Summit Campaign, a project of the US based non-government organization RESULTS Educational Fund - which started in February 1997 - has four core objectives of reaching the poor; empowering women; building financially self-sufficient institutions; and ensuring a positive and measurable impact on the lives of clients and their families.
The campaign, initiated with the aim of reaching 100 million of the world's poorest families by the end of 2005, has already served 92.3 million clients residing in various countries of Asia, Africa and others in Latin America and Europe till the end of last year.
Of this number, around 66.6 million were categorized as the poorest of the poor.
Microcredit - a provision under which small collateral-free loans are provided to poor people for self-employment or to start any business - has emerged as the most promising and cost effective tool to reduce poverty and empower women in recent days.
Especially in a country like Nepal where 80 percent of the people do not have access to banking facilities, microcredit facility has become an integral instrument to reduce poverty, Ram Dayal Rajbanshi, manager of the Institutional and Social Development Department of Rural Microfinance Development Center (RMDC) told journalists at a press meet organized yesterday in Kathmandu.
"With the tiny loans, the desperate families have been able to bring back their hopes of living; the labourers have become micro-entrepreneurs; the micro-entrepreneurs have expanded their business; and people with nothing have accumulated some savings as well as physical assets," he said.
"Moreover, children, including girls have started going to school and women do not have to depend on husband's money during times of crisis and emergency."
However, we still have lots of hurdles to overcome and expand our reach to 1.4 million households, which have been identified as poor people but have not been included in the network, Rajbanshi added.
|
