BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

MICROCREDIT'S VISION OF A POVERTY FREE WORLD

Author: Khandakar Q. Elahi, M. Lutfar Rahman

DOI Link: DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2004v25n3a4

ABSTRACT

In the current development discourse, critical controversies exist about the poverty-alleviating ability of microcredit programmes. While the proponents claim that they can create a poverty-free world by economically and socially empowering the rural poor, particularly poor women the critics argue that these small loan programmes are unable to make a 'major dent' in the pervasive poverty situation prevailing in the third world countries. To inject some fresh inputs to this passionate debate, this paper reviewed historical development of the microcredit idea and policy, and conducted a conceptual analysis of its poverty-alleviating ability. The analysis agrees with the critics: Microcredit programmes, although unquestionably helping millions of rural women, are unable to achieve their vision of a poverty-free world, because poverty is fundamentally rooted in the social and political structures of a country.