Opsparingsordninger og små lån til fattige i Den 3. Verden anses af nogle i “bistandsbranchen” som en nem genvej til et bedre liv og fremstilles af andre nærmest som en slags mirakelkur, der kan sende mennesker i dyb armod ud af fattigdommens onde cirkel i katapultfart.
Modtagerne af de såkaldte mikrokreditter – langt de fleste kvinder – får nemlig muligheder, de ellers ikke havde, og formentlig aldrig ville få.
Muligheder for at gå i gang som små entreprenører med alle tænkelige slags aktiviteter, som skaffer penge til huse og mad på bordet, siger fortalerne for denne bistandsform.
Sådan er det bare ikke. Slet ikke. Faktisk er der overhovedet ikke belæg for at tro særlig meget på de positive virkninger af mikrokreditter – eller mikrofinans, som fællesbegrebet nu er omdøbt til.
Det er i hvert fald konklusionen i en opsigtsvækkende rapport på 189 sider fra britiske forskere, som netop er sendt på gaden betalt af Danidas britiske modstykke, DfID.
Den har titlen “Systematic Review: What is the evidence of the impact of micro-finance on the well-being of poor people?” og rapporten svarer: Der er ingen klare beviser for de påståede positive virkninger; hverken i den forskning, der er foretaget på området til dato, eller i de som oftest mangelfulde evalueringer.
I sammendraget (Executive summary) og andre steder i rapporten står der direkte:
“Despite the apparent success and popularity of microfinance, no clear evidence yet exists that microfinance programmes have positive impacts…”
Furthermore “there is no robust evidence of positive impacts on women’s status, or girl’s enrolments (skolegang)”.
“There have been four major reviews examining impacts of microfinance… These reviews concluded that, while anecdotes and other inspiring stories purported to show that microfinance can make a real difference in the lives of those served, rigorous quantitative evidence on the nature, magnitude and balance of microfinance impact is still scarce and inconclusive”.
“Our report shows that almost all impact evaluations of microfinance suffer from weak methodologies and inadequate data, thus the reliability of impact estimates are adversely affected”.
“This can lead to misconceptions about the actual effects of a microfinance programme, thereby diverting attention from the search for perhaps more pro-poor interventions”.
Klare ord. Rapporten anbefaler derfor følgende:
“Because of the growth of the microfinance industry and the attention the sector has received from policy makers, donors and private investors in recent years, existing microfinance impact evaluations need to be re-investigated; the robustness of claims that microfinance successfully alleviates poverty and empowers women must be scrutinised more carefully”.
“Therefore, it is of interest to the development community to engage with evaluation techniques and to understand their limitations, so that more reliable evidence of impact can be provided in order to lead to better outcomes for the poor”.
Med andre ord: Det er en ommer. Der er ingen entydige positive facts på bordet, som landet ligger nu. Og formentlig bedre veje til at ophjælpe de fattigste end lige mikrolån og miniopsparing.
Rapporten skildrer nemlig også undersøgelser af de negative virkninger af lånene, eksempelvis kvinder, der er havnet i bundløs gæld.
Rapportskriverne vil gerne have, at der fremover graves (meget) dybere:
“…this review revisits the evidence of microfinance evaluations focusing on the technical challenges of conducting rigorous microfinance impact evaluations”.
“The robustness of claims that microfinance successfully alleviates poverty and empowers women must be scrutinised more carefully.”
Om mikrokreditternes historie står der i øvrigt:
“The concept of microcredit was first introduced in Bangladesh by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Professor Yunus started Grameen Bank more than 30 years ago with the aim of reducing poverty by providing small loans to the South Asian country’s rural poor.
Microcredit has evolved over the years and does not only provide credit to the poor, but also now spans a myriad of other services including savings, insurance, remittances and non-financial services such as financial literacy training and skills development programmes (microcredit is now referred to as microfinance).
A key feature of microfinance has been the targeting of women on the grounds that, compared to men, they perform better as clients of microfinance institutions and that their participation has more desirable development outcomes”.
Man kan læse hele den bemærkelsesværdige rapport på
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/PDF/Outputs/SystematicReviews/Microfinance2011Duvendackreport.pdf
Se også denne rapport
http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=wFHaalzQ8Lk%3d&tabid=53&mid=2009&language=en-US
..og denne, der beskæftiger sig med mikrofinans i Afrika syd for Sahara
http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=2965&language=en-US
