The Failure of Development Assistance

John Paul reviews Despite Good Intentions a critique of developmental assistance "...in the rush to scale up microfinance offerings, many newcomers to the field might actually be doing more harm than good. He points out a number of flaws with the current approach to microfinance, cautioning that there is little historical evidence for the developmental role of credit to the poor; that there has been little rigorous evaluation of the overall benefits of microfinance to a person’s quality of life; and that the poorest of the poor are by definition the ones who "need" credit the most, but can do the least with it..."
via NextBillion