Microcredit movement escalates battle with poverty
By Hima Kiyani

ISLAMABAD—Microloans to the poor around the world soared to 133 million last year, up from 13 million just nine years ago, according to a report released by the Microcredit Summit Campaign - a project of the US-based “RESULTS Educational Fund” - a private civil society organization.
The dramatic progress was also evident in the Campaign’s focus on loans to the very poor, those living on less than a US $ 1 a day, which reached 93 million families in 2006, just shy of the Campaign’s goal of reaching 100 million poorest.
The Microcredit programmes offer a combination of services and resources to the poor including savings facilities, trainings, networking and peer support which allow families to work to end their own poverty.
The Microcredit Summit from around the globe brings together microcredit practitioners, advocates, donor agencies, heads of international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and others involved with microcredit to promote best practices in the field to stimulate the inter-changing of knowledge and to work towards reaching the goals of poverty alleviation in the world.
The core themes of the Microcredit Summit Campaign are reaching the poorest, empowering women, building financially self-sufficient institutions and ensuring a positive and measurable impact on the lives of the poor and their families.
Launched in 1997, the Microcredit Summit Campaign is committed to reaching 175 million of the world’s poorest families with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services, ensuring 100 million families rise above the US $1 a day threshold and lifting half a billion people out of extreme poverty by 2015.
Currently, around 1.2 billion people (roughly 240 million families) are living on less than US$1 a day.
Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) is the partner of Microcredit Summit Campaign in Pakistan.
Since 2000, PPAF has disbursed more than Rs. 30 billion for various interventions through 70 partner organizations working in 27,000 villages and more than 65,000 communities in over 112 districts across the country.
The PPAF’s cumulative operational activities entail over 1.7 million microcredit loans, over 14,000 infrastructure projects, 280,000 trained individuals, staff and communities, 91 health and education facilities as well as financing for more than 113,000 housing units in the quake-affected areas.
Currently, PPAF has the largest share in microfinance services to the poor and marginalized communities across Pakistan.
It has so far disbursed over Rs. 18 billion while maintaining a 100 per cent recovery rate on lending.