Application
Solidarity lending is widespread in microfinance today, particularly in Asia. In addition to Grameen Bank, major practitioners include SEWA, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Accion International, FINCA, BRAC and SANASA. The Calmeadow Foundation was another important pioneer.
The Microbanking Bulletin tracks solidarity lending as a separate microfinance methodology. Of 446 microfinance institutions worldwide that it was tracking at the end of 2005, 39 lent only through this method, while another 205 used a mix of solidarity and individual lending. The average loan balance outstanding at solidarity lenders was $109 (19% of local gross national income), compared to $1,024 (61% of local gross national income) among individual lenders. This shows not only that solidarity lenders are meeting the needs of a significantly poorer market segment, but also that they are doing it in significantly poorer countries.
In Costa Rica, many companies enable their employees to organize Asociaciones Solidaristas (Solidarism Associations), which enables them to create saving funds, loans, and financial activities (for example managing the company's coffee shop) with financial support from the company.Movimiento Solidarista Costarricense's website
Read more about this topic: Solidarity Lending
Famous quotes containing the word application:
“It would be disingenuous, however, not to point out that some things are considered as morally certain, that is, as having sufficient certainty for application to ordinary life, even though they may be uncertain in relation to the absolute power of God.”
—René Descartes (1596–1650)
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“We will not be imposed upon by this vast application of forces. We believe that most things will have to be accomplished still by the application called Industry. We are rather pleased, after all, to consider the small private, but both constant and accumulated, force which stands behind every spade in the field. This it is that makes the valleys shine, and the deserts really bloom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)