11 Microcredit Organizations

Microcredit organizations are easy to understand. It's a simple model that holds weight perhaps because of that simplicity and the gendered model that allows women predominantly to borrow money. A small loan promotes business. In 2006, microcredit won a Nobel Peace Prize, well, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank did.

"Such florid hyperbole, as clearly intended, began to attract the attention of the world," writes Milford Bateman in a Le Monde Diplomatique article called "The rise and fall of microcredit in post-apartheid South Africa." "In particular, the main Washington DC-based international development agencies and some US-based right-wing foundations began to seek out Yunus in order to support his efforts." Those foundations that Bateman is referring to are the Ford Foundation and the Bangladesh government while also calling into question the commercialization of microcredit.