Foreign Aid and Microfinance: A new policy proposal for financing development

• Autores: Maricruz Lacalle Calderón, Javier Alfonso Gil, Silvia Rico Garrido
• Localización: Revista Iberoamericana de Estudios de Desarrollo= Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies, ISSN-e 2254-2035, Vol. 4, Nº. 2, 2015, págs. 106-129
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.26754/ojs_ried/ijds.145
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    En este artículo analizamos y comparamos las limitaciones y el potencial de la ayuda externa y las microfinanzas como enfoques arriba-abajo y abajo-arriba para la financiación del desarrollo de los países pobres. No sólo sostenemos que el sistema de ayuda internacional debe ser revisa- do, sino también que las microfinanzas son un instrumento complementario, sostenible y que crea mejores incentivos para el desarrollo. Después de calcular los efectos potenciales de la industria microfinanciera sobre el empleo y el PIB, a través de un simple ejercicio empírico, proponemos como recomendación política la redirección de un pequeña parte de los recursos de la Ayuda Oficial al De- sarrollo (AOD) a las microfinanzas con el objetivo de proporcionar otras opciones a las poblaciones más desfavorecidas

  • English

    In this paper, we review and compare the potential and limitations of foreign aid and microfi- nance as a top-down and bottom-up approaches to financing the development process in poor coun- tries. We not only sustain that reviewing foreign aid is a must for the future of the least-developed countries but also posit that microfinance is a complementary and financially sustainable approach that creates better incentives for development. After calculating the potential effects of microfinance over employment and GDP through a simple empirical exercise, we propose a policy recommenda- tion of redirecting a very small share of official development aid (ODA) resources to microfinance in order to provide options for the most underprivileged populations.

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