Lending to Agribusinesses in Zambia



projects, rural people often found themselves in a poverty trap, with the only option being
local money lenders who charge very high interest rates. The advent of microfinance has
seen a considerable shift in access to financial services by rural people in many
developing countries that some have called “local revolutions” (Madajewicz 2003).

The phenomenal developments in microfinance in the last two decades have
sparked interest in multilateral lending agencies, bilateral donor agencies, developing and
developed country governments, non-government organizations (NGOs) and a variety of
private banking institutions to support its development (Asian Development Bank 2000).
The 2006 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen
Bank in Bangladesh and a pioneer of microfinance, attests to the place microfinance has
reached in poverty alleviation and the economic development of developing nations. In
awarding the prize, the Nobel Foundation stated that the prize was being awarded for the
recipients’ “efforts to create economic and social development from below” (Nobel
Foundation 2006).

A wide range of studies have been conducted to understand the specific features
that have enabled microfinance institutions to lend profitably to the poor and record
usually very high loan recovery rates while fostering growth in the real net worth of the
borrowers. Morduch (1999) examines some important mechanisms used by microfinance
institutions by comparing institutions diverse in the type of models used and the target
groups. The study largely features the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, Bancosol of
Bolivia, Bank Rakyat of Indonesia, Kredit Desa of Indonesia and the FINCA village
banks throughout Indonesia and Latin America, thus drawing a diverse set of
microfinance institutions both geographically and operationally. Morduch identifies five



More intriguing information

1. The name is absent
2. Bargaining Power and Equilibrium Consumption
3. The name is absent
4. Behavioural Characteristics and Financial Distress
5. Urban Green Space Policies: Performance and Success Conditions in European Cities
6. ALTERNATIVE TRADE POLICIES
7. Dynamiques des Entreprises Agroalimentaires (EAA) du Languedoc-Roussillon : évolutions 1998-2003. Programme de recherche PSDR 2001-2006 financé par l'Inra et la Région Languedoc-Roussillon
8. The resources and strategies that 10-11 year old boys use to construct masculinities in the school setting
9. The name is absent
10. Economic Evaluation of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), CHERE Working Paper 2007/6
11. Consumption Behaviour in Zambia: The Link to Poverty Alleviation?
12. ‘I’m so much more myself now, coming back to work’ - working class mothers, paid work and childcare.
13. Bird’s Eye View to Indonesian Mass Conflict Revisiting the Fact of Self-Organized Criticality
14. The name is absent
15. Education Responses to Climate Change and Quality: Two Parts of the Same Agenda?
16. The name is absent
17. Infrastructure Investment in Network Industries: The Role of Incentive Regulation and Regulatory Independence
18. Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
19. Activation of s28-dependent transcription in Escherichia coli by the cyclic AMP receptor protein requires an unusual promoter organization
20. Developmental Robots - A New Paradigm