Australian Development Gateway

The Australian Development Gateway (ADG) strives to support members of the development community in their efforts to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region. The site has been created with participation from members of government, private, academia and non-government organisations. User feedback mechanisms have been incorporated to guide future directions of the site. The site is optimised for low bandwidth access to enable the widest participation throughout the Asia Pacific region.

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Best Practices and Case Studies

Microfinance, poor rural households and women (pdf 210kb)

This ADB article asks whether microfinance has reduced the poverty of poor rural households and if there is potential for microfinance to improve the socioeconomic status of women.

It provides a background into the ADB's microfinance development strategy and summarises the findings of the 2007 special evaluation study into the strategy.

The article also offers recommendations for further improvement of the strategy. These include:
- Adopt a more focused and deliberate approach in targeting
- Use internationally accepted guidelines and principles for the design of microfinance projects
- Build staff technical capacity in microfinance
- Include plans for rigorous impact evaluations during the formulation of selected microfinance projects

 

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