Microfinance at Mercy Corps

Offering financial services to people not served by traditional banks and lending institutions has been called "a weapon against poverty and hunger" by the United Nations and recognized as a strategy for peace by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Microcredit pioneer Mohammed Yunus and Bangladesh's Grameen Bank won the 2006 Peace Prize for successful efforts "to create economic and social development from below."

Mercy Corps realizes that secure, just, productive communities cannot be realized or sustained without plentiful economic opportunities. Extending credit, offering competitive-rate loans and providing other financial services are all ways to address the economic needs of the poor.

Mercy Corps-sponsored microfinance institutions, savings and credit cooperatives, loan guarantee programs, and meso-level institutions reach more than 1 million people in over a dozen countries by offering creative, tailored solutions to the needs of poor and marginalized people in some of the world's most challenging environments. These self-sustaining institutions can draw on large pools of investment capital, enabling them to grow and meet the needs of the large "unbanked" and "underbanked" populations.

Learn more in this Q&A with Pam Eser, Mercy Corps' director of microenterprise and economic development.

Mercy Corps Microfinance Network
(Microfinance Institutions, Organizations and Programs)
as of December 2007