Overview | Facts & Figures | Success Stories
Facts and figures
Today, 3 billion people in the world do not have access to basic financial services such as savings, loans, insurance, and remittances. Often, they do not have the possibility to save today in order to improve their future, or to borrow in order to finance their projects, and even less to ensure their families' future.
In this context, and for nearly 30 years, a number of organizations have taken up the challenge to help those with no access to savings, credit or insurance services. These organizations, called microfinance institutions (MFIs), are most often savings & loan cooperatives, NGOs or programs implemented by international institutions. By the end of 2004 there were an estimated 10,000 such institutions worldwide helping more than 80 million people.
Often small and community-oriented, these MFIs can offer microfinance services to a few hundred people in a rural village or urban shantytown. They can sometimes be more complex and develop on a regional or national scale. Several dozen have even become the largest banks in their respective countries.
Although microfinance alone cannot solve the problem of worldwide poverty, many studies and concrete examples show that it has allowed millions of families to have a better life and improve their day-to-day existence. In fact, an impact study carried out by PlaNet Finance in Morocco in 2004 showed that microcredit had had a positive impact on the level of profits, investment and access to markets and the macroeconomic level as well.
A few figures
- Today, 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than ¥100 per day, including 900 million women
- Another billion people live below the povery line of ¥200 per day
- 80% of the world's population has no access to credit. Of these, 5-600 million can, thanks to a microloan, develop an income-generating activity
- More than 80 million people have benefited from services provided by the more than 10,000 existing MFIs
- Total financing currently available for microfinance has risen to US$1 billion per year
Focusing on Women
Male-female inequality is a handicap to economic growth. Microcredit allows women to run their own business and thus win economic independence and negotiating power in the household. It has been shown that when a woman's income increases, her family's well-being improves. Women are more altruistic than men, and spend more of their income on their families. Thanks to microcredit, women can improve their own lives as well as those of their children.