Over the past two years, supporters in the industry have validated our belief that microfinance interest rates are confusing and complicated and that we, as an industry, must improve how we think about and communicate microfinance product prices. At MicroFinance Transparency, our first approach to help demystify microfinance interest rates has been to collect, standardize and disseminate information about prices in select microfinance markets.
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Posts Tagged ‘Education’
Transparency at the Consumer Level
Monday, March 15th, 2010I visited AlSol, a Mexican NGO MFI serving women in mainly rural and indigenous communities in the State of Chiapas, several months ago. Together with one of AlSol’s loan officers and two tsotsil-speaking trainers I visited a solidarity group of women entrepreneurs in the community of Zinacantán, near San Cristóbal de las Casas. AlSol’s training program is targeted at illiterate women entrepreneurs below and just above the poverty line. It was fascinating to be part of the participatory training and see how openly the group of women discussed topics such as debt management, business development, and preventive health practices with the trainers. Their secret of success? They work with the trainer’s guides developed by Freedom From Hunger and adapt the details of each training session to the Chiapas context.
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