Event details

Department of Politics Lecture

Micro-finance and then financial inclusion have become buzzwords in international development. Such initiatives have mobilised and generated  large amounts of development funding, despite substantial amount of critique. Such critiques call for a more impartial assessment of the effectiveness of financial inclusion on the grounds that funds for microfinance, they argue, displaced development spendings on healthcare, education or infrastructure. Critiques of this ‘way of doing development’ are often sidelined and labelled as ‘extreme’, ‘sloppy’ or ideology-driven rather than evidence-based. We believe that there is a need for contemporary development scholars from all disciplines to engage in those debates. This Roundtable Discussion scrutinizes the possibilities and limitations of microfinance as a tool for development. It features a range of experts from different disciplines, including the editors of the recently released book The Rise and Fall of Global Microcredit: Development, Debt and Disillusion.

There will be a drinks reception open to the public following the lecture.