Tim Worstall

What’s Wrong With the United Nations.

If you want to see what’s wrong with the United Nations and all who sail in her have a look at this Download ConceptPaper_English_final.doc
. (Note, long and  boring). This is the UN’s plan for the International Year of Microcredit (that’s this one, 2005).
Here’s what Muhammad Yunus, the inventor of the concept, states as the major problem:


        Most critical problem faced by NGOs today is finding money to lend out
        to the poor. Existing microcredit programmes are coming to virtual halt
        in their expansion programme, and finding it difficult to continue their
        present programme because of lack of funds.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. Nowhere in the UN report is there a section on  "How do we get more money to lenders?"
Lots of meetings, lots of coordination, no thoughts of talking to banks to see if they would like to lend some money.

In

One response

  1. GGO Editor Avatar
    GGO Editor

    The whole point of microcredit is that its supposed to be repaid otherwise its just a grant.
    A low interest rate is charged to cover the cost of running the scheme.
    So if these NGOs are running out of funds its because either they are spending money on meetings instead of creating seed capital for entrepreneurs or its because they are giving money to people who don’t pay it back. Micro-dole instead of micro-capitalism.
    See:
    http://www.global-growth.org/microcapitalism.htm
    Tim adds: I hear what you say but that wasn’t my point at all. People like Grameen wish to expand their services….lend to more people than they do currently. This requires new funds. Looking at Grameen’s accounts they could support paying market rates for such new funds. That’s what people should, to my mind, be organising.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from Tim Worstall

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading