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In developing and promoting new approaches,some considerations and innovations outlinedbelow could be considered. 104Market-based institutions for the poorThe capacity of informal businesses to operate onmore equal terms in the market place dependsgreatly on their capacity for collective action.The weakness of the poor in the market placeoriginates in their isolation. Here, investmentsin institutions, whether sponsored by NGOs orrepresenting collective action by the poor in theform of marketing cooperatives, or corporate bodiesof the poor, remain crucial interventions. Theissue therefore remains, posed as a challenge: toinvest the poor and informal businesses with capacityto develop the financial and organisationalstrength to sell products and services, at a timeand in a market that offers them the best terms,or to simply watch as they continue to sell theirgoods out of distress or just the need to subsist.Taking up the challenge positively demandsinterventions in the macro-credit market to underwritesuch marketing ventures, the designingof institutions which aggregate the market powerof the poor, and the deployment of professionalswith management skills and especially trained toassist the poor in up-scaling their participation inthe market economy.Adding value and supply chain to the labour of thepoor and informal businessesMany NGOs around the world provide marketingservices to the poor, for particular commodities,in particular markets. The best service that canbe provided is to help the poor and informal businessesadd value to their labours by moving upmarketthrough either agro-processing or providinginputs to the corporate sector. The pioneeringrole of Amul Dairy in India and, more recently,BRAC, are instructive model examples. They enablesmall dairy farmers, or just poor householdsthat own a cow bought through a micro-creditloan, to become part of a milk processing chain,thus enabling the poor to share in the profits fromselling pasteurised milk or cheese in the metropolitanmarket. Such initiatives may be taken onestep further by financially empowering the vastbody of small farmers servicing the private agroprocessingsector, as well as handloom weavers,to become equity stakeholders in the upstreamenterprises that could add value to their produceor abour.Taking micro-credit out of theghetto 105Nowhere is there a greater need for developing amacro-perspective for poverty eradication than inthe area of monetary policy. The instruments ofmonetary policy appear to be exclusively targetedtowards ensuring macroeconomic stability, moderatinginflation and meeting the credit needs ofthe corporate sector. The financial needs of thepoor, once left to the informal sector, have nowbeen segregated in the micro-credit market. Thisapartheid within the monetary system remains amajor anomaly.Indeed, it can however be argued that by its verynature, micro-credit can never aspire to eradicatepoverty since it only addresses one componentof the various markets that condition the lives ofthe rural poor. It is arguable that by locking thepoor into the micro-credit system, based on thefiduciary responsibility of the household, theyhave been excluded from participating in themacro economy, isolated from collective action,and condemned to live on the fringes of the povertyline. It is, therefore, not surprising that thosecountries with the most substantive exposure tomicro-credit, remain mired in poverty. However, it259