The idea has a wonderfully simple and powerful appeal: Give a tiny loan to a poor person in a poor nation. Watch her start a small business – whether hawking tomatoes or fattening goats – that puts her and her family on the first rung of a ladder that will elevate them out of poverty and into the middle class. Repeat across the planet.

Milford Bateman has made a cogent case for community-based financial institutions that prioritise sustainable local solutions. Milford Bateman is perhaps best known for his strident attacks on microfinance as an anti-poverty strategy, including his sometimes acrimonious debates with David Roodman, another microfinance analyst. Bateman claims that, by diverting resources away from more productive investments and indebting poor people with no significant return, the microfinance "fad" has been anti-developmental, benefiting lenders most.

So-called “impact investors” -- providers of capital to businesses that solve social challenges while generating a profit -- are the current rage in economic development. US President Barack Obama’s Office for Social Innovation and Civic Participation recently convened more than 100 practitioners to discuss how impact investing could be unleashed in the United States and the developing world.

Grameen Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced that they are jointly providing a $1.5 million credit guarantee to the Peruvian savings and credit cooperative Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito (ABACO) to support approximately $3 million for local currency financing to two socially-focused Peruvian microfinance institutions (MFIs). Peru has an established microfinance sector, with mature institutions having relatively easy access to international capital markets. However, there continues to be a great need for local currency financing, especially among smaller microfinance institutions, which traditionally have not been eligible for loans from local banks.

“Do microloans work?” strikes Lilian Simbaqueba as an odd question. If they’re administered properly, they should. That’s what her company, LiSim, is in the businesses of doing. Started in 1996, LiSim is a risk-analysis company based in Bogota, Colombia that uses statistics and behavioral analysis to determine the inherent risk in granting credit to a given client. It offers outsourcing services to clients interested in developing credit scoring systems as well as selling software for a client to use in-house.

A lack of coherence among agricultural research bodies hinders the G20's goal of promoting farming in the developing world. Spreading good ideas and practices in farming sounds like a simple enough goal, but can be immensely complicated not just on a global level but also locally.

Microfinance has taken a beating lately for shifting far afield from its humanitarian origins, originally funding tiny businesses run by poor women in developing countries to feed their families. It's become a good idea gone bad, a charitable enterprise spoiled as profit surpassed people as the rationale for investment. It sickens the soul. But all is not lost. A new concept in which the interest charged on a microloan isn't a percentage, but rather an improvement to a community, has seen early success in Haiti. Although small in scale, this model might be just the thing to help microfinance rebound as an effective, credible and responsible method of funding small businesses lacking capital that don't qualify for loans from traditional banks. The concept comes from Zafèn, an online microfinance initiative approaching its first anniversary on April 1.

World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) is the leading international trade association and development agency for credit unions. WOCCU promotes the sustainable development of credit unions and other financial cooperatives around the world to empower people through access to high quality and affordable financial services. WOCCU advocates on behalf of the global credit union system before international organizations and works with national governments to improve legislation and regulation. Its technical assistance programs introduce new tools and technologies to strengthen credit unions' financial performance and increase their outreach.

Top emerging economies are forging research collaborations to help the less well-off. The idea that poorer countries should catch up economically with wealthier ones before spending heavily on R&D was challenged by a report released last week. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report contradicts theories widely held by development professionals and international organizations such as the World Bank.

The Global Alliance for Banking on Values, a network of the world's leading sustainable banks, announces four new members today from South America, North America, and Europe. The banks join nine founding banks committed to building a better financial future in challenging times.

The Environmental Economics Unit at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg is being granted SEK 73 million from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), to continue to support six environmental economics research centres in Africa, Central America and China for the period 2011-2014.

Probanx Information Systems specializes in development of software for the financial institutions, offering multi-currency and multi-lingual banking systems with a large variety of modules, based on the latest technologies. We install and support turn-key international Banking Software and Microfinance Software solutions for retail banks, commercial banks, Internet banks and microfinance banks.

After several years of very high profile attention on mobile money and other branchless banking schemes, we think it’s time to test the hype. Or more accurately, we’ve wanted to for awhile. But acquiring good data is really, really hard. We’ve been unable to say in anything but a fragmented, mostly anecdotal way whether the unbanked really use branchless banking, what they use it for, if it saves them any money, and what more they might want (but aren’t getting yet). Just because we are excited about branchless banking doesn’t mean it is living up to the promises we make on its behalf.

­A significant number of people using new technologies such as mobile phones to access financial services in developing countries are completely new clients for the financial services industry, according to new research by CGAP. The growing interest of so-called branchless banking in recent years has, until now, largely lacked data showing whether it delivers on potential to bring the poor into the formal economy.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) at Colorado State University provides innovative training in community-based development (online and face-to-face), consultation, evaluation, and project support services for individuals and governmental, international non-governmental, and community-based organizations around the world.

Village Earth's mission is to help reconnect communities to the resources that promote human well-being by enhancing social and political empowerment, community self-reliance and self-determination.

The asset growth of microfinance investment intermediaries (MIIs) fell to 21 per cent at estimated $8.2 billion in 2009 from 31 per cent growth in 2008, hurt by the global financial crisis. The growth is expected to slow down further to 15 per cent in 2010.

Mobile payment users worldwide are forecast to increase 2.1 percent to 109 million by the end of 2010, a US-based research firm said in a report.

The axiom "give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime" is widely accepted among the international development community, and for good reason. But taken on its own, this axiom leaves out very important principles.

World leaders put the finishing touches on plans to build a more stable global economy on Sunday but backed away from one-size-fits-all pledges as two years of crisis give way to an uneven recovery.

The G-20 is the premier forum for our international economic development that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability. By contributing to the strengthening of the international financial architecture and providing opportunities for dialogue on national policies, international co-operation, and international financial institutions, the G-20 helps to support growth and development across the globe.

Morgan Stanley on June 16 announced microfinance organization Pro Mujer as the winner of the second annual Morgan Stanley Social Enterprise Strategy Challenge. This initiative features teams of Morgan Stanley employees providing pro-bono strategic advice to non-profits and competing for the honor of the best pro-bono advisor. The team developing business strategy recommendations for Pro Mujer was selected as the winner for providing the highest-impact analysis and advice.

Sunny Mahant had been working as a product marketing manager for nine years at Cisco when he experienced an epiphany on a trip to India. On that trip, Mahant and his wife, photographer Geidre Nakutyte, witnessed firsthand the brutish conditions under which very young children work in India, and the extreme poverty suffered by their families. He came home determined to make a difference in the lives of young Indians.

The conditions for investment and growth in Peru prompted IBM to develop a center to provide microfinance services in this South American country. Jaime Garcia Echecopar, general director for IBM in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay, announced the launch of this project.

Once upon a time, Sumitra used to roam the streets of the Indian city of Ahmedabad, collecting discarded caps which could be recycled and sold back to manufacturers such as Coca-Cola.

Microenterprise is an escape valve for social tension at times of crisis, and microbusinesses do a better job of weathering the storm than bigger companies because they are used to overcoming difficulties – a positive effect that is further multiplied when it involves women.

A teacher by training, Lynne Randolph Patterson never expected to find herself at the helm of Pro Mujer, a multi-national financial services company.

ACCION's Maria Otero to Serve as One of Six Under Secretaries of State; Tapped to Lead U.S. Foreign Relations on Democracy, Human Rights, Labor, Population and More.

During The Aspen Environment Forum Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan presented the King Hussein Leadership Prize which recognizes outstanding leadership in promoting human rights, sustainability and world peace. And the winner was Bob Freling, Executive Director of an American non profit called SELF -- the Solar Electric Light Fund, which has been solar-powering villages around the world.

ACCION Wins Inter-American Development Bank's First "Juscelino Kubitschek Award". ACCION International, a pioneer and leader in microfinance, today announced that it has been awarded the Inter-American Development Bank's "Juscelino Kubitschek Award" for its contributions to economic and financial development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A hive of social activity: where French entrepreneurs benefit from collective intelligence. After graduating, Charlotte Hochman worked with several grassroots organisations in India and Brazil, one of which was Village Action. She then launched La Ruche, or ‘The Beehive’ in English, a NGO that is open to anyone proposing an innovative solution to a social or ecological challenge...

U.S. President Barack Obama announced a new partnership of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) for the purpose of launching a new Microfinance Growth Fund for the Western Hemisphere. The fund will provide stable medium and longer-term sources of finance to microfinance institutions and microfinance investment vehicles to help rebuild their capacity to lend during this difficult period and to increase the supply of finance for micro and small businesses as recovery takes hold.

What happens when you travel to Argentina to learn how to play Polo? You start a sustainable and socially conscious shoe company. Of course... Well, that is exactly what happened to Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS shoes.

MicroPlace (www.microplace.com), a website that enables everyday people to invest in the world's working poor, announced today the launch of the first microfinance investment opportunity that offers a 6 percent annual return for everyday investors.

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