The Reality: Global Poverty

Nearly three billion people – half the world’s population – live on less than $2 per day. These people struggle to meet basic needs – feeding their families, sending children to school and accessing health care. Children living in poverty are often trapped in a cycle that continues across generations. This kind of poverty crushes the human spirit and undermines our common humanity.

Microcredit: A Proven Solution

Microcredit – small loans starting as low as $35 to underserved entrepreneurs – allow borrowers to start their own businesses and provide for their families. Over time, loan sizes increase as businesses grow and entrepreneurs require more capital. Microcredit has proven to be extraordinarily successful. Leading microfinance institutions (MFIs) report that more than 98 percent of loans are repaid and more than 100 million borrowers are served around the world. The majority of borrowers are women, who constitute 70 percent of the world’s poor. Microcredit is an especially powerful poverty-fighting tool in the hands of women, who use income from microenterprises to care for families, educate children and improve communities.

The Challenge: Expanding Opportunity

Microcredit has had a tremendous positive impact, but it can do much more. While 133 million borrowers are being served, an estimated 540 million people would benefit from access to microcredit.

Access to microcredit is provided by microfinance institutions (MFIs). There are an estimated 10,000 MFIs around the world. Most are small and unsustainable. Some are well-managed, with the capacity to grow significantly and become poverty-focused, commercially viable institutions that provide financial services to people living in poverty. Our challenge is to capitalize and support the growth of these MFIs so that microcredit can be made available to millions of new borrowers. At Global Partnerships, we partner with and invest in the most promising MFIs throughout Latin America to expand opportunity for people living in poverty.