Delivering the "Fashionable" [Inclusive Microfinance] With an "Unfashionable" [Poverty] Focus: Experiences of BRAC

Publication Date: 15 Mar 2005
Published by: Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Document Type: Presentation

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Facts from Bangladesh that highlight the poverty focus

This paper discusses the delivery of inclusive microfinance with a poverty focus. It talks about:

• Getting the analysis correct and the search for strategic entry points.
• Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee’s (BRAC’s) experience from just feeding the vulnerable and forgetting about it, to investing in building sustainable livelihoods.

The paper:

• Introduces Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR/TUP), a new experimental program that uses the basic idea of using transfers and microfinance cleverly to kick start a new beginning for the extreme poor.
• States how CFPR/TUP is challenging BRAC to understand and appreciate better the different priorities that the ‘graduated’ extreme poor may have with respect to microfinancial services.

The paper concludes that:

• Delivering microfinance with a poverty focus is a scalable, cost effective proposition;
• Microfinance should not eschew the agenda of including the poorest simply because they require ‘subsidized poverty programs’, or wait for them to become ‘microcredit worthy’ or ‘viable’;
• Experiences strongly suggest that microfinance has, and can play, a powerful and critical role in building opportunity ladders for the extreme poor;
• Including the extreme poor creates an organizational culture and challenge that re-envisions the social purpose of microfinance.