Investing in Women: Myths and Realities of Micro-Credit Programs in Peru

251 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005.Even though the programs show high rates of repayment of loans, regularity and frequency of repayment does not automatically mean that women are getting out of poverty. Many women who are unable to repay their loans turn to local loan sharks in order to repay them, incurring in a vicious cycle of indebtedness. By the same token, female participation cannot be treated as a direct indicator of female empowerment, especially when women cannot control the use of loans. The pervasive presence of micro-finance institutions offers an alibi for donors as well as governments to withdraw from broader policies for poverty reduction. While micro-credit programs can help alleviate poverty among a very select group of women, who are not the poorest ones, significant poverty reduction is dependent on economic and social changes well beyond the reach of these projects.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD