Where we work

South Asia
• Bangladesh
• India
◦ ASA
    ◦ CASHPOR
    ◦ CCD
    ◦ ESAF
    ◦ Grameen Koota
    ◦ SHARE
    ◦ SKS
    ◦ Sonata
    ◦ D. Ellevva's story
    ◦ Pentamma's story
• Pakistan

East Asia

Latin America / Caribbean

Middle East / North Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

United States

Grameen Foundation : Where we work : South Asia : India

India

The Need in India

• India is said to be the home of one third of the world’s poor; official estimates range from 26 to 50 percent of the more than one billion population.
• About 87 percent of the poorest households do not have access to credit.
• The demand for microcredit has been estimated at up to $30 billion; the supply is less than $2.2 billion combined by all involved in the sector.

Due to the sheer size of the population living in poverty, India is strategically significant in the global efforts to alleviate poverty and to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the world’s poverty by 2015. Microfinance has been present in India in one form or another since the 1970s and is now widely accepted as an effective poverty alleviation strategy. Over the last five years, the microfinance industry has achieved significant growth in part due to the participation of commercial banks. Despite this growth, the poverty situation in India continues to be challenging.

Grameen Foundation has been working for over six years to support the microfinance sector in India. Generally, we enter into partnerships with MFIs that have strong business plans and outreach potential in order to help them become sustainable and achieve significant growth. Since 2000, we have entered into partnerships with five microfinance institutions and supported their growth from 49,000 to more than one million clients. We have also supported several MFIs in relief and recovery efforts related to the tsunami of December 2004.

MFIs will also be able to access Mifos, Grameen Foundation’s innovative, open-source platform for information management. Details of our technical assistance to MFIs can be found in our Toolbox.

Our partner microfinance institutions in India collectively serve well over a million poor clients:

• Activists for Social Alternatives (ASA)
• CASHPOR Financial and Technical Services (CFTS)
• Covenant Centre for Development (CCD)
• Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF)
• Grameen Koota
• SHARE Microfin Limited
• SKS Microfinance

India success stories: D. Ellevva and Pentamma

Grameen Foundation's India Advisory Council provides guidance for our work in India.

Grameen Foundation : Where we work : South Asia : India