Literature Review

This page is intended to feature quick reviews of important MFI post crisis management literature. Please keep reviews short and to provide references for your college degree online.

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Conflict and Post-Conflict Environments:Ten Short Lessons To Make Microfinance Work

Expert opinion once stated that microfinance is appropriate only in politically and economically stable environments. Events in the world since the early 1990s have brought about stunning and sudden changes in the political and economic systems of entire regions. In some regions, conflict appears to be endemic, with periods of stability punctuated by violence. In others, stability is altogether elusive. For more than a decade, practitioners have started or maintained microfinance operations during or after a conflict.
Complete File: Conflict and Post-Conflict Environments:Ten Short Lessons To Make Microfinance Work

Minimum Standards for Economic Recovery After Crisis

The Sphere Project is based on two beliefs. First, all possible steps should be taken to alleviate human suffering that arises from calamity and conflict. Second, all individuals have a right to life with dignity. The opportunity to earn an income via employment or operation of a business is fundamental to the dignity of individuals and to assisting them to recover from crises. A vocation and the ability to practice it profitably empower affected individuals and communities to regain charge of their lives by meeting their own needs as they best see fit.
Complete File: Minimum Standards for Economic Recovery after Crisis

The Stepped Approach for Improving Livelihoods (SAIL)

This manual was conceived as a starting point for Country Directors, Program Coordinators and other management staff to design and implement all or some components of the Stepped Approach for Improving Livelihoods (SAIL) for refugees in camps and other conflict-affected environments. It has been written as a technical guide, but is intended to be accessible to ARC staff or other practitioners with a variety of backgrounds and experience.
Complete File: The Stepped Approach for Improving Livelihoods (SAIL)

Microfinance in the Wake of Natural Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities

Natural disasters occur in two forms: slow-onset disasters, such as droughts and famines, and rapid-onset disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Rapidonset disasters are severe and difficult to predict well in advance but usually are temporary. Slow-onset disasters develop slowly, can be predicted, and last longer than rapid-onset events. Regardless of type of disaster, the effects on the stricken populations are devastating.
Complete File: Microfinance in the Wake of Natural Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities

Microfinance and Social Impact in Post-Conflict Environments

Microfinance can help poor entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and lift themselves out of poverty. Its supporters also tout a range of social benefits, from social capital construction to women’s empowerment. But can microfinance rebuild community and achieve social goals in post-conflict environments where social ties have eroded? My research shows that it can, but a multitude of factors and considerations affect this outcome.
Complete File: Microfinance and Social Impact in Post-Conflict

Microfinance Institutions and Disaster Relief

In any natural disaster those most affected are the poor, many of whom are active or potential clients of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The emergency and relief stages that follow a natural disaster require various agents to provide or coordinate logistics and resources to support affected people. It has been observed that where an MFI was already operating in a disaster-affected area, it was invariably called upon as first responder until relief agencies and government organisations entered the scene.
Complete File: Microfinance Institutions and Disaster Relief

Surviving Disasters and Supporting Recovery: A Guidebook for Microfinance Institutions

Global experience demonstrates that Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) can profitably serve poor and vulnerable populations, enabling them to reach large numbers of clients. The majority of MFIs however remain challenged to develop the institutional capacity, client-responsive products, and business models to offer services sustainably. Rarely is this goal more threatened than in times of upheaval such as natural disasters.
Complete File: Surviving Disasters and Supporting Recovery: A Guidebook for Microfinance Institutions

Can Microfinance Meet the Poor’s Financial Needs in Times of Natural Disaster?

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are close to the poor—they strive to serve those who are excluded from the formal banking sector, and bring them into the market for financial services. USAID’s Microenterprise Best Practices (MBP) Project has focused on the ability of MFIs to serve poor communities affected by crisis, and to reduce poor communities’ vulnerability to crisis.
Complete File: Can MFI Meet the Poor’s Financial Needs in Times of Natural Disaster

Microcredit in Post-Conflict, Conflict, Natural Disaster, and Other Difficult Settings

The H.E.L.P. mini-case described above illustrates some of the challenges microcredit NGOs face when turbulence surrounds them. In this paper I attempt to draw on my personal action research experience, observations in the field of other NGOs doing microcredit, as well as report on the experience of other authors, analysts and policymakers.
Complete File: Microcredit in Post-Conflict, Conflict, Natural Disaster, and Other Difficult Settings

Loan Rescheduling after a Natural Disaster

Loan rescheduling in the wake of natural disasters has become a common practice among microfinance institutions (MFIs). MFIs are aware that clients hit by disasters are unable to repay loans according to a pre-disaster schedule. If the MFI insists on on-time repayment, the result for many otherwise outstanding clients may be default.
Complete File: Loan Rescheduling after a Natural Disaster

Le Microfinance Sur Les Traces Des Désastres Naturels: Les Défis Et Les Opportunités

Plusieurs organisations de microfinance (OMF) qui travaillent dans des pays exposés à la catastrophe ont été pris par des désastres naturels et ont joué un rôle clé à la suite de ces catastrophes. Ce document reflète les expériences et les expérimentations des OMF qui se sont trouvé devant des désastres naturels. L’auteur résume les leçons que l’on peut apprendre de telles situations et fait des recommendations aux bailleurs de fonds, aux décideurs de politique, et aux OMF.
Dossier Complet: Le Microfinance Sur Les Traces Des Désastres Naturels: Les Défis Et Les Opportunités

Comments from Leslie Yorke on Fonkoze's response to the earthquake as reported on the Microfinance List Services Friday 5 Feb.

1 - Facilitating the transfer of money into Haiti - Fonkoze is a major payer of remittances-money sent by family and friends abroad, including Fonkoze USA Development Partners and countless other organizations-to those in Haiti. These transfers are now essential to helping Haitians rebuild and adjust to their new lives, especially in Haiti's provinces where large numbers have migrated. buy online Fonkoze has the widest reaching well-developed network of branches in rural Haiti.

2 - Helping Haitians recover from loss and rebuild their micro-businesses - Fonkoze is evaluating three different essay strategies to help its clients get back on the "staircase out of poverty":

a) Recapitalization of the most affected clients. New reduced or no-interest loans would be provided. These loans would combine existing balances with new capital to restart businesses.

b) Benefits similar to a catastrophic insurance policy. Fonkoze was about to launch catastrophic insurance for all of its clients in March 2010. Affected client's loans would be forgiven, a new loan issued, and an indemnity of 5,000 Haitian gourdes would be provided.

c) Housing grants, vouchers, or prefabricated dwellings. Fonkoze believes that more clients have lost their homes than have lost their business assets. Housing loans are difficult for clients to pay back, however, because the houses do not support a revenue generating activity. Fonkoze is considering the issuance of some form of housing grant or the grant of prefab houses designed to withstand natural disasters and be expanded by the client.

3 - Payroll services for "cash-for-work" programs - Fonkoze has years of experience disbursing money in remote and/or high-risk zones. Many development organizations are organizing "cash-for-work" programs that establish short-term jobs on recovery and redevelopment projects. Fonkoze's expertise will aid the safe, transparent, and effective disbursal of cash payroll for these workers.

4 - Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM) and TiKredi - These programs are designed to lift the very poorest in Haiti to the point where they too can participate in the economy. Combining with grants, loans, skills training and case management, these programs build confidence and skills to start micro enterprises and grow rural Haiti's economy.

5 - Linking the most promising Haitian enterprises with donors and investors in the Haitian Diaspora - Fonkoze is a major partner in Zafen, a major forthcoming initiative that will link the most promising investment opportunities in Haiti with the Haitian Diaspora and other friends of Haiti. online essays

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