http://www.ruralfinance.orgRSS filefrMon, 01 Dec 2008 07:02:46 GMTCopyright (C) Rural Finance, http://www.ruralfinance.orghttp://www.ruralfinance.org/img/xml.gifhttp://www.ruralfinance.orgEn préparationhttp://www.ruralfinance.org/id/59207This qualitative research was conducted in the four North Eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Tripura. The objective of the research is to understand the existing saving practices of people in these states, the challenges the people face, and the opportunities for formal sector institutions to provide savings services. Based on the client responses, four savings products were identified whose attributes are expected to meet the diverse savings needs of the low-income people of the region. <p/>http://www.ruralfinance.org/id/59204This volume presents the papers submitted at the international conference on “Financial Services and Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean,” held at IDB Headquarters in September 2004. <p/> This book, like the conference, is separated into two sections. The first presents an algorithm for policy-based research and research-based policy and three applications using data for countries in Latin America. The second provides a policy-oriented analysis of theory and empirical evidence for four topics: insurance, savings, deposit insurance, and credit.<p/>http://www.ruralfinance.org/id/59189This study was prepared for the Financial Services and Poverty Reduction research project and was presented at the conference with the same name held at Bank headquarters in September of 2004. It first establishes the considerable welfare cost borne by the region’s poor when facing uncovered risks (which, in principle, are insurable), and offers empirical evidence that shows the clear disadvantages of the informal risk management instruments typically used by the poor. Next, the paper proposes ways to increase access to insurance for the poor in the region. Particularly relevant, among the proposed solutions, is the implementation of the partner-agent model in which formal insurance institutions are coupled with existing microfinance institutions for the delivery of their products, making the most of the comparative advantages of each sector. <p/> While the use of microinsurance should not be looked upon as a “silver bullet” solution to all types of risks management problems, it is clear that access to this type of instrument can improve the welfare of the poor by providing access to a wider pool of potential investments and is also a cost effective instruments for coping with negative shocks. <p/>http://www.ruralfinance.org/id/59193Food insecurity and income poverty are rampant in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thirty-one percent of children under the age of five are malnourished and some 72 percent of the population lives on less than US$2 day. Forty-one percent lives on less than US$1 day. The impoverished and hungry are concentrated disproportionately in rural areas and rely mainly on the consumption and sale of agricultural produce for their food and income. Africa has experienced increasing dependency on food imports that its countries cannot afford. <p/> Yet an estimated 700,000 hectares of arable land in Africa remains uncultivated. It is land that could become productive through small-scale irrigation using basic technology to draw on small-water resources, such as tube wells, and dambos. The technologies can be applied to cultivate smallholder plots of up to five hectares. Employing them will enable up to 4 million low-income households to intensify agricultural production and increase productivity. <p/> Small-scale irrigation can increase agricultural productivity and production, thus contributing to economic growth in rural areas and increased well-being among small holder farmers. Its potential to increase and stabilize food supply is especially important in light of the ongoing food crisis, and especially in Africa. Expanding the use of small-scale irrigation requires farmers to have access to financial services. The many constraints and obstacles that rural financial institutions in Africa confront must be purposefully navigated if financial services are to fulfil this role. Effectively tailoring financial services and products to support irrigation in different settings and among different client groups will be essential to success. Carefully targeting grant funding to the very poorest subsistence farmers and clearly separating it from lending will be likewise be critical to the sustainability of these financial services.<p/>http://www.ruralfinance.org/id/59160