AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

102 BERNICE CAMPOS ROLDAN
grams that emphasized savings over loan provision’. Trustworthiness of
MFIs was a priority for both clusters, as ‘existing and potential clients do
not automatically consider MFIs trustworthy’.
There was fairly equal use of loan and savings withdrawals both for
consumption and business investments. A significant number took out
loans to repay old debts, a practice considered taboo by most MFIs.
There is a clear disconnect between the microfinance characteristics preferred
by the poor, particularly flexibility of financial services, and the
services and products offered by MFIs. As Hickson states, ‘The extent to
which poor households seek this flexibility is not often appreciated by
MFIs, or if it is, these demands are usually dismissed as unrealistic and
impracticable’.
SELF-HELP AND ‘NO-HELP’
In India, the typical form of credit provision is through self-help groups
(SHGs), defined as microcredit-based groups where women access and
repay loans as a collective. Supporters assert that the groups make credit
accessible and create inroads towards poverty alleviation and women’s
empowerment. These collectives, borne out of class-based struggles and
the autonomous women’s movement, evolved over recent decades based
on principles of solidarity and collective action. In the 1970s, pioneering
NGOs used SHGs as a means of organizing poor communities in the
southern states of India (Nirantar, 2007: 4-6).
Self-help, like microcredit, has its peculiarities. Promoting self-help
among the poor is encouraged as it ‘creates respect for poor people’s
capability and creativity, and modesty on the side of development “experts”’
(Berner and Phillips, 2005: 19). But community self-help is nothing
new. It is characterized as ‘the default strategy of the poor’, and the
attention given to self-help by international development agencies such
as the World Bank may be seen as ‘masking defense against calls for redistribution’.
The authors cite the case of the Bank, which ‘still dismisses
redistribution as usually “leading to political upheaval and violent conflict”,
ignoring the findings of consulted experts who had stated that
growth with some redistribution has the largest impact on poverty’
(World Bank, 2000: 56 f., in Berner and Phillips, 2005: 19, emphasis in
the original). Promoting self-help would be in the interest of those trying
to cover up a ‘no-help’ attitude.