The Microfinance Mirage: The Politics of Poverty, Social Capital and Women's Empowerment in Ethiopia

Microfinance has long been considered a development strategy that can correct the failure of the global credit market and address the financial needs of the poor enabling them to create and run profitable business enterprises. The Microfinance Mirage argues that this neo-liberal oriented analysis overemphasises the economic argument whilst ignoring the cultural roots of inequality and subordination. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among rural credit clients in the Northern region...