Asian Journal of Research in Business Economics and Management
Year : 2012, Volume : 2, Issue : 6
First page : ( 180) Last page : ( 193)
Online ISSN : 2249-7307.

Social Impact Assessment on Micro Finance Institutions: A Review of Existing Literature

Das Sanjay Kanti, Assistant Professor

Department of Commerce, Lumding College, Lumding, Nagaon, Assam

Online published on 2 June, 2012.

Abstract

Microfinance has received a lot of attention, both from policy-makers as well as in academic circles. The main objective of this paper is to articulate & analyze the different social impact assessment studies conducted so far in the country and abroad and also to highlight the findings of the different studies. In this paper only poverty, outreach and women empowerment, these three broad aspects are sincerely considered to cover up the whole literature of social impact assessment of micro financing. Another significant part of this paper is to access the different impact assessment tools so far developed and duly used to different stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of micro financing institutions. It is observed that most of the social impact assessment studies are being conducted in international context. Empirical studies on the role of micro finance in Indian context are not sufficient. Moreover, evaluation studies on Indian microfinance programmes have been mostly conducted by the microfinance institutions (MFIs) themselves. In-house assessment tools which are adopted by financial institutions and Micro financing institutions are not covered in this article. Hoping this article will help in turn the attention of finance researchers to the important issues of micro finance.

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Keywords

Impact Assessment Tools, Micro Finance Institutions, Social Impact Assessment, SHG Bank Linkage, Review of literature.

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