Global Financial Partnerships in microfinance: India, Peru and Tanzania

Abstract

The paper studies the ‘wholesale’ market through which microfinance institutions operating in three contexts (Peru, Tanzania and the state of Tamil Nadu in India) obtain loans from a variety of domestic and international funding bodies. The nature and characteristics of the relationships between them are captured through network analysis and visualization tools, with a dataset comprising inter-organisational lending relationships and organisations’ attributes over the years 2006-8. Focus is on the extent to which patterns in wholesale lending relationships relate to the legal status and characteristics of microfinance institutions; to the regulatory, business and social environment in which they operate; and to shifts in the balance between social and commercial interests of diverse types of lenders.The analysis brings to light considerable cross-country variation in the structure and features of wholesale lending relationships, and relates it primarily to differences in governance and regulation. On this basis, it makes the case that building a more enabling regulatory environment for funding partnerships may improve the capacity of microfinance to achieve its dual goals of poverty alleviation and financial sustainability.CITE AS:Marr, A., Tubaro, P. (2012). Global Financial Partnerships in microfinance: India, Peru and Tanzania. Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies, 1 (1): 28-57