8/19 Roundup

The Roundup is short today, as I want to highlight just one article.

Selvan Kumar at indiadevelopmentblog.com posted the best analysis of the Yunus/Compartamos debate that I’ve read. Here’s my soundbite summary:

Yunus: Microcredit was created to fight the money lender, not to become the money lender.

Compartamos’ rebuttal: Taking high-interest loans may well be the first step small entrepreneurs need to take to accumulate enough capital to operate at an optimal scale.

Kumar’s conclusion: MFIs should be judged in terms of overall impact on client outcomes rather than hazy notions of intent.

There is an active comment thread running after the post, so feel free to join the discussion.