What contribution has micro finance done to most west african countries?
This is very difficult to measure, let us examin the reasons: – microfinance is by nature supporting microentrepreneurs that are active overall in the informal sectors so their contribution is not correctly reflected in the macro indicators of the countries – microfinance supports people by filling a gap: offering financial services to those who traditionnally didn’t have access. So politically it makes things quieter than without any access to finance at all. The economic effect will happen at different level of people benefiting directly or indirectly, again that is difficult to know where the money goes – West Africa, microfinance is still largely underdeveloped, MF institutions are only starting to reach a large number of clients, say 5-10% of what is possible, in Bolivia’s for instance there is a real competition between MFIs, which is not the case in any countries of West Africa. See link below, HOWEVER, there is a general agreement that the effect is positive both on social and
