Philippine Standard time

How Values Create Value: Social Capital in Microfinance - The Case of the Philippines


This paper examines the case of the Philippines to examine the probability of the successful replication of the Grameen approach. The paper discusses: * The importance of norms in microfinance; * Regulation and supervision as key interrelated issues; * The definition of social capital as the shared normative system of an organization; * Measurement of the value of social capital in microfinance; * Three assessment criteria for the value of social capital in microfinance institutions (MFIs) viability, sustainability and outreach; * The transition from financial repression as negative social capital deregulation and the mobilization of positive social capital in the Philippines; * The pitfalls of deregulation; * Prudential regulation and supervision in the Philippines. It then examines: * The success of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and its self-regulated normative framework; * The possibility of effective replication of the Grameen model in other countries; * Grameen replicators in the Philippines, their struggle for donor funds and viability; * Two case studies of successful Grameen replicators in the Philippines. The paper concludes that Grameen replicators are not always sustainable and do not reach the poor in sufficient numbers; however, successful replicators follow certain sound practices that are the hard core social capital of the original Grameen approach.

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