Week of March 2, 2011

Here’s our shortlist of links (in no particular order) that we thought were interesting or relevant to the microfinance sector. This is by no means a complete list, so if we missed something important, please feel free to add it in the comments. And if you’re looking for a media round-up of the Yunus-Bangladeshi government dispute, check out Financial Access Initiative in the News.
 

• CGAP is doing a very interesting blog series on over-indebtedness. Here are a few of the contributors we thought were interesting:       
  • Insights from Stuart Rutherford on over lending in Bangladesh.  
  • Shameran Abed from BRAC provides a practitioner's perspective on over-indebtedness.  
  • Rochus Mommartz from responsAbility discusses what can one do about over-indebtedness when 'it's as old as lending itself'.
     
• Esther Duflo’s & Abhijit Banerjee's new book, Poor Economics, has launched with a great companion site. 
   
• Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel also have a new book out, More than Good Intentions. Check out this great review at Miller McCune. 
   
• Interesting report on -- Does Credit Improve the Food Consumption Vulnerability of the Extreme Poor?
   
• FAI-NYU Visiting Scholar Michael Clemens explains what is rigorous impact evaluation in under 6minutes!  
   
• More food for thought whether you agree or not -- Five reasons why microfinance is in crisis - and why it matters. 
   
• The new MIX Market analysis on social performance and financial data for microfinance in West Africa.