A microcredit alternative in South Asia : Akhuwat's experiment
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A microcredit alternative in South Asia : Akhuwat's experiment
(Routledge studies in the growth economies of Asia)
Routledge, 2018
- : hbk
Available at 10 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Microcredit took the development world by storm as a tool for poverty alleviation in the 1980s. After being hailed as a panacea, a few decades on it started being forcefully criticised based on its practice.
This book explores Akhuwat (literally brotherhood), a rapidly growing Pakistani NGO formed in 2001, which addresses the shortcomings of conventional microfinance. Its vision is of a society built on empathy and social solidarity and its mission is that of creating self-sufficiency among the entrepreneurial poor. This book examines whether Akhuwat fulfils its promises of not pushing loans or encouraging clients to get on a debt treadmill and helping them to avoid high debt burdens by charging no interest and easing repayment terms. Conventional microcredit organizations are criticised for losing sight of the original mission of poverty alleviation by engaging in empire building and Akhuwat's goal is to avoid this by embracing an alternative strategy of scaling up. Finally, this book also analyses Akhuwat's approach as being gender sensitive and embracing all religions, castes and ethnicities.
Based on fieldwork designed to assess if Akhuwat is the microcredit alternative it claims to be, this book will be of interest to scholars of poverty and development studies in general and microcredit in particular.
Table of Contents
Part I: Conceptual and institutional issues 1. Introduction 2. Altruism and faith inspired giving 3. Altruism in Pakistan and Akhuwat's altruistic initiatives 4. Critiques of conventional microcredit 5. The Akhuwat interest free microcredit model Part II: Empirical assessment 6. Akhuwat's microcredit alternative 7: Promoting self-sufficiency via enterprise 8: Policy issues Part III: Summary and conclusion
by "Nielsen BookData"