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1、April 29, 2004Debate Stirs Over Tiny Loans for Worlds PoorestBRAC has found that the very poor are more likely to drop out of microcredit programs.By CELIA W. DUGGERORMA, Bangladesh Nearly every woman in this village seems to have gotten tiny loans to invest in a miniature business. None has made be
2、tter use of the cash than Firoza Akhter, a shrewd, flinty young mother who put her profits from four loans into cows, goats, land, a sturdy house and private tutors for her daughter. I can make money out of anything, she boasted in her wheezy voice, a gold, flower-shaped stud glinting in her nose. H
3、ers is a shining success story for microcredit. But while she came from humble origins, she was not among the poorest of the poor. Like many of the 50 million people who take part in microcredit programs, she hovered at the upper fringe of poverty. Today there is a growing push for the nonprofit gro
4、ups and banks that run such programs to reach deeper into the ranks of the poor, though there is little rigorous evidence juding whether the very poor benefit from microcredit, economists say. Since 1988, the United States Congress has appropriated $2 billion for such programs. In new rules to take
5、effect next year, it has put teeth into a requirement that half of American aid for these loans defined as $1,000 or less in Europe and Eurasia, $400 or less in Latin America and $300 or less in the rest of the world go to the very poor living on less than $1 a day. The new rules have stirred strong
6、 opposition from other donors and a range of microfinance institutions, which contend that the industry may grow faster and ultimately help more very poor people by aiming at a wider pool that ranges from people who are struggling but not poor to those much further down the economic ladder. This lim
7、bo dance to serve the poorest is a distraction from a much broader issue of trying to reach a billion people who have no access to credit or a safe place to save their money, said Elizabeth Littlefield, a former managing director at J. P. Morgan who now heads the Consultative Group to Assist the Poo
8、r, an association of donors. Researchers for this countrys largest microlender, the Bangladesh Rural Action Committee, or BRAC, have found that people near the poverty line are the main users of microfinance and are more likely to get more and bigger loans and build successful microenterprises.By co
9、ntrast, BRAC has found that the very poor are more likely to drop out of microcredit programs.But the groups leaders say the microcredit industry needs to try new approaches to help the poorest people. They have coupled small loans with skills training and grants of food. And they are experimenting
10、When the dynamic Ms. Akhter got her first loan, for $50, she said she already had $250 saved from working as a cook and raising chickens, the family trade. I thought I could increase my capital by taking the loan, she said. She invested it in a calf she later sold for $100. Her next $80 borrowed at
11、27 percent interest she loaned out at more than triple that rate.Amit Bhargava/Corbis, for The New York TimesWomen in Bangladesh preparing to make payments on small loans they received under a program to help poor people start businesses.Today her skillful investments have helped her become relative
12、ly prosperous, despite having left her husband in disgust after he took a fourth wife. She was always enterprising, said her father, who gave her chicks to tend when she was just a girl.Since the 1980s, wealthy nations and international organizations have provided billions of dollars for microcredit
13、 programs. The idea that small loans enable millions of poor people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps has captivated liberals and conservatives alike.But there are still no stringent evaluations of microcredit programs generally viewed as credible by experts. Energetic, entrepreneurial peopl
14、e do well with microcredit, said Jonathan Morduch, an associate professor of public policy and economics at New York University. But others who are less skilled and trained, how do they do? Can very poor households get decent returns or not? Thats the big question policy-wise.At a time when the Unit
15、ed Nations is pursuing the eradication of extreme poverty as the worlds top development goal, advocates of the new congressional rules fear that the poorest people are too often neglected.They have mobilized elected officials from the United States to Britain and Japan to petition the World Bank, th
16、e largest provider of microfinance funds, as well as the African, Asian and Inter-American development banks, to adhere to the same emphasis on the very poor that was adopted by the United States Congress.Its a myth that you cant reach the very poor, said Sam Daley-Harris, a musician-turned-advocate
17、 who founded the Results Educational Fund, which lobbied Congress for the new rules. He points to Share Microfin, an Indian lender, as evidence that the very poor can be helped with microcredit.In the village of Gorma, the experience of Bina and Kanu Sarkar, a gaunt couple with anxious eyes, illustr
18、ates the complexities of escaping poverty, even where microcredit is available.Here, the paddy fields are alive with barefoot men delicately planting tender rice seedlings and oxen lazing in the sun. The landscape is a gentle, quilted patchwork of scratchy brown burlap and soft green silk, but the l
19、ife it supports is hard.Before microlenders arrived, the poor had little choice but to become deeply indebted to moneylenders who charged exorbitant interest rates of 120 percent or more a year. Microfinance institutions in Bangladesh generally charge from 20 to 50 percent.Mrs. Sarkar last year beca
20、me one of BRACs 3.5 million borrowers. She used the $50 to buy her husband a rickshaw, which will save him 35 cents on the daily rickshaw rental fee once the loan is paid off. But even with the extra earnings, the Sarkars, both illiterate, will be desperately poor.Johara Khatun took a loan from a no
21、n-governmental organization to invest in a teashop that she runs along with her husband. Some lenders in Bangladesh, the heartland of the microcredit movement, are experimenting with new ways to reach the poorest of the poor.Pushpa Rani, left, took a loan from the Bangladesh Rural Action Committee,
22、or BRAC, to invest in her sons tailor shop.The choice is whether to see a doctor or buy food, he said, laying out the pitiless arithmetic of poverty. The government doctors dont check us properly because we dont pay them money. Even if they prescribe medicines, we cant afford them.If his strength co
23、ntinues to seep away, the rickshaw will be no use to him, he explained. The evening before, after miles of hard pedaling, he was forced to forfeit a fare when his stomach pain grew unbearable. He had to ask his passengers to get down.As he related the story, Akash clambered into the rickshaw and ped
24、aled out of the dirt courtyard. His father leapt up to chase the boy in a panic, fearing a crash would destroy the one asset he needed to feed his family.If I cant work for even a day, my wife and children go unfed, he said, clutching his belly.Some lenders here in Bangladesh, the heartland of the m
25、icrocredit movement, are experimenting with new ways to reach the poorest of the poor. For years, BRAC has offered some poor women free wheat and training along with micro loans.But now it has entirely dropped the use of loans in one pilot program for ultrapoor women. BRAC gives them goats or cows t
26、o raise, coupled with training and health care, rather than burdening them with debts they cannot repay.None of the poverty-stricken women who sat under a palm tree in Mochahata village on a recent morning had ever dared to apply for a microloan. One womans pierced nose hole was empty because she ha
27、d already been forced to sell her gold stud for money. Anothers 9-year-old son pedaled a rickshaw for 50 cents a day to keep the family fed.But they eagerly joined BRACs new program and were pleased to see their fast-breeding goats multiply. They were still so poor that their bodies seemed little mo
28、re than collections of bones beneath worn saris, but their new assets offered hope.I had nothing, nobody, said Mina, who worked as a maid for payment in rice after her husband abandoned her. I was scared to become a member of BRAC. I was too poor to repay a loan. But now that Im getting goats free, Im interested.For years, BRAC has offered some poor women free wheat and training along with micro loans.
