FINANCING THE RURAL POOR IN BANGLADESH: EXPERIENCES OF SOME GOVERNMENT AND NON- GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS

The article describes the findings of a study on the credit programmes designed for the small farmers and landless poor, by some government and non-government organizations. It was found that the programmes under consideration provided employment opportunity to the participants at least for the project period. Housewives also benefited from the programmes since they could utilize their leisure time productively by engaging themselves in income generating activities. However, it was found that many of the loanee-participants could not yet settle permanently with any particular occupation in spite of a number of years of involvement in the project. A good number of loanees still depend on selling labour. The amount of credit provided by most of the organizations was reported to be highly inadequate. Many participants also borrowed from other institutional and non-institutional sources. The main trust of these programmes was found to be augmenting monetary benefits rather than overall development of the participating families.