Oxfam micro-loans

[fivemack]

From some junk mail they've just sent me, it appears that Oxfam are going into the micro-credit business; they want me to help capitalise them so that they can make £25 loans to create small businesses in (initially) Sudan and the tsunami-struck bits of Sri Lanka.

I recall rezendi's fulminations about the aid industry in general; the bits of the third world I've been to are clearly not in as much a mess as Sudan or Sri Lanka, but the impression I had is that what they lacked was in fact capital, and this seems to me a reasonably sensible way to provide it.

But there are those reading who know more about aid than I; is there some nasty catch here? Less-than-entirely-ethical investments (Russian oil in particular) have been remarkably good to me over the last year, and to have Lukoil, Rio Tinto Limited, PetroChinaCo and Walmart-de-Mexico pay to capitalise roti-makers in Batticaloa Province seems somehow appropriate.

Comments

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

I don't know what Oxfam are doing different to Opportunity International (http://www.opportunity.org.uk/), but I know their work is pretty good. UK stuff is Oxford based, and I know some of their staff, but I don't know too many details.