State of The Campaign Report

The State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report highlights the latest data on the progress towards reaching more than 175 million of the poorest families with microfinance and ensuring that 100 million of those families rise out of poverty. This report is the largest and most comprehensive annual survey on the outreach of microfinance to the poor and very poor.

According to the report, over the last 13 years, the number of very poor families with a microloan has grown more than 18-fold from 7.6 million in 1997 to 137.5 million in 2010. Assuming an average of five persons per family, these 137.5 million microloans affected more than 687 million family members, which is greater than the combined populations of the European Union and Russia.

The Report also highlights the number of poorest women reached. Not only have these women been the most excluded from traditional banking, but they are also the ones most likely to ensure that the increased income is used to improve the lives of their children. From 1999 to 2010, the number of poorest women reached has increased from 10.3 million to 113.1 million.

The latest data comes from more than 3,600 institutions worldwide, with more than 94 percent of the information having been collected within the last 18 months.

In addition to the data, the report exposes some of the most contentious debates that are raging in microfinance, going into detail about the Andhra Pradesh, India crisis in particular. Microfinance investors from Citi and Deutsche Bank weigh in on the impact of the crisis to the sector, and leaders from international microfinance networks ACCION, FINCA, Women’s World Banking, Opportunity International, and Vision Fund discuss how this has been a major turning point for their organizations. In the pursuit of recovering the soul of microfinance, the report outlines a seven-step framework for addressing this and other controversies and for getting microfinance back on track. As the seventh and final step, “Recognizing Excellence”, the report presents the progress on the Seal of Excellence for Outreach and Transformation in Microfinance.

Note – now that microcredit summit has shifted towards focusing on payday loan relief and debt consolidation in addition to microfinance, we no longer keep old versions of the state of the campaign report public. Please reach out to us directly if you need one.

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