By Morey Stettner
Investor's Business Daily
October 7, 2011
When Nancy Barry joined the board of Women's World Banking in 1981, she didn't expect to burst into tears at a meeting.
But she was fed up with her full-time job at the World Bank, and her emotions boiled over.
With WWB, a nonprofit that provides loans to entrepreneurial women through a global financial network, Barry sought to increase microcredit to the poor.
Suddenly at this meeting, she couldn't contain her frustration as a World Bank executive.
"I cried in front of 20 very accomplished women who were global leaders in their field," she told IBD. "I told them I felt like I had hit a glass ceiling at the World Bank. They responded with love and support. At that moment, I knew they had given me something special."
Uplifted, Barry persevered at the World Bank and expanded its small-business portfolio from zero to $3.3 billion in 10 years.
I'm curious why you find this article of interest. This is the same work that Obama's mother did in Indonesia when she was with the Ford Foundation working so closely with Tax Cheat Geithner's daddy. Perhaps my opinion of the issue is skewed, but I'm not sure I see this type of activity in a positive light.
ReplyDeleteMicrofnancing and Microcredit are basically just giving loans to people who cannot afford them - sound familiar...Fannie and Freddie? Often times these loans are financed by the elite rich who feel they should have a say in how the money is spent and invested and often at very very high interest rates. Microloans to women are very often exploitative, because she is merely the front person for the loan and a male family member receives the money while she is left to bear the brunt of the risk and repayment.
I'm all for helping the poor and especially the poor who want to become entrepreneurs, but I'm not sure Microfinancing is the way to go about it, especially given that there are few regulations with no oversight.
You may be right, or you may be wrong. It is an area I don't know a great deal about. Maybe you have personal experience in this area.
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