Roundup for May 20, 2009

When we first set up our site last summer, we experimented with a number of formats for posts, including the occasional roundup of news items and articles about microfinance. Having spent the last few days on an unexpected trip, I feel like a roundup would be a good way to catch up on the best of what’s come through my inbox and feedreaders over the last few days:

• The BBC profiles Lynn Randolph Patterson, the co-founder of Pro Mujer, who describes the challenges of starting one of the most highly respected microfinance institutions in Latin America. (link)
• Ending Extreme Poverty posted a short and sweet note about using microcredit to finance the purchase of bicycles. (link)
• Melinda Gates makes the case for expanding microfinance beyond microloans and into microsavings and other financial services for the poor in a column for Newsweek. (link)
• The Los Angeles Microfinance Network announced a conference at UC Irvine on June 1st. (link)
• The debate over the commercialization of microfinance continues unabated at the microfinancepractice@yahoogroups.com list.
• And Kristi Heim, a journalist at the Seattle Times who writes the “Business of Giving” blog, posted about NetHope, a nonprofit consortium of organizations interested in using IT to facilitate poverty alleviation. (link)

Happy Wednesday!