The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

2004  Large

Micro-Finance in Rural Communities in Southern Africa was a report prepared by the HSRC for the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) of the WK Kellogg Foundation, southern Africa. The IRDP is a core initiative in Foundations Africa portfolio of programmes, which aims to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of rural communities.

A component of this programme is to help capitalise locally-based enterprise development initiatives by stimulating the provision of and access to micro-finance in rural areas. Three sites were selected to pilot the introduction of this and other IRDP activities. These are: Chimanimani (Zimbabwe), Chimoio (Mozambique) and Nyandeni (South Africa). As part of this initiative, the HSRC conducted an evaluation in the three key sites of the IRDP, to evaluate the implications of implementing a micro-finance scheme in these areas.

While micro-finance in its various forms has helped to make loan capital more accessible to low-income rural communities, much remains to be done to increase its outreach, impact and sustainability. The essential objective of this study is to make well-researched recommendations for IRDP policy and strategy to enable the micro-finance agents that it will shortly be appointing to maximise improvements in these key indicators in the three pilot sites.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 210mm x 296mm
Pages : 180
ISBN 10 : 0-7969-2000-1
ISBN 13 : 978-07969-2000-3
Publish Year : 2002

Executive summary

1. Introduction

2. Determinants of demand for financial services in three pilot studies

3. Access to financial services

4. Micro-finance in rural communities

5. Policy issues and recommendations

References

Appendix

Compiled by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) for the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) of the WK Kellogg Foundation, southern Africa.

Share this

You might also consider these related books

Opening Sa Economy

Opening the Economy
Barriers to Entry and Competition

What does it take for entrepreneurs to be effective competitors? What are the factors affecting entry and participation in sectors where there are historically strong incumbent firms? Opening the South African Economy brings to light the challenges of concentration, inequality and exclusion in different sectors of the South African economy.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 240mm x 168mm (Soft Cover)
Pages : 272
ISBN 13 : 978-0-7969-2589-3
Publish Year : March 2020
Rights : World Rights
Price R R250.00
Creative Cities

Creative Cities in Africa: Critical Architecture and Urbanism
Critical Architecture and Urbanism

The contemporary notion of the ‘creative city’, connected to present-day regimes of digital urban creative (or smart) cities in neoliberal, city branding, place marketing, digital marketing nomads, is a dominant trope of international progress and development, and there has been a surprisingly positive, yet often uncritical uptake of the discourses of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Buzz words abound in city studies such as resilience, sustainability, innovation, and inequality, yet these are all too often framed within scientific, technical and political economy debates. As editors, we are interested in how these issues seldom appear as carefully considered questions integrated with scholarship around the social and especially the aesthetic.

Product information

Format : 168mm x 240mm
Pages : 214
ISBN 13 : 978-0-7969-2648-7
Publish Year : February 2024
Rights : World Rights
Price R R250(TBC)
Skills For The Future

Skills for the future
New research perspectives

How do actors in the educational field respond to the changing skills demands of the future? Research teams from the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership (LMIP) undertook a set of experimental and innovative case studies to improve our understanding of how current research intersects with a rapidly changing future.

Open Access

Product information

Format : 240mm x 168mm (Soft Cover)
Pages : 192
ISBN 13 : 978-0-7969-2436-0
Publish Year : March 2019
Rights : World Rights
Price R 195.00
2101  Large

Employment and Skills in South African Exports

This is the first in a planned series of papers to explore the respective role of traded an domestically oriented sectors in generating the employment needed to rapidly expand employment opportunities in South Africa

Open Access

Product information

Format : 210mm x 297mm
Pages : 36
ISBN 10 : 0-7969-2106-7
ISBN 13 : 978-07969-2106-2
Publish Year : 2006
Price R 98.00