Publication: PADME, Benin : Scaling Up a Successful Pilot
Loading...
Published
2000-11
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
On the surface, PADME (Projet d'Appui au Developpement des Micro-Entreprises) is one of the most profitable African micro-finance institutions (MFIs) that report to the bulletin. Although this profitability is partly due to low cost funds and under-investment in management and operating systems, in the five years since its creation, PADME has built an efficient operation with solid growth in outreach. It serves predominantly women petty traders in two urban centers in Benin, with loans averaging US$400. PADME was created as a project in 1993 by the government of Benin, with funding from the World Bank. Initially, it was part of a broader initiative to offset the social effects of a structural adjustment package. The program's vision was to provide business credit to a broad base of clients, serving those who could not access traditional bank financing. PADME differs from many African institutions because it does not focus specifically on serving the very poor. In this respect, it more closely resembles many Latin American microfinance institutions.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“McDonald, Jennifer. 2000. PADME, Benin : Scaling Up a Successful Pilot. Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs; No. 170. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9830 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Banks and Microbanks(2009-10-01)Using two new datasets, the authors examine whether the presence of banks affects the profitability and outreach of microfinance institutions. They find evidence that competition matters. Greater bank penetration in the overall economy is associated with microbanks pushing toward poorer markets, as reflected in smaller average loans sizes and greater outreach to women. The evidence is particularly strong for microbanks relying on commercial funding and using traditional bilateral lending contracts (rather than the group lending methods favored by microfinance nongovernmental organizations). The analysis considers plausible alternative explanations for the correlations, including relationships that run through the nature of the regulatory environment and the structure of the banking environment; but it fails to find strong support for these alternative hypotheses.Publication Weather Risk Management Pilot Program : Tanzania(Washington, DC, 2012)A feasibility study to select the crop(s) and the area(s) to be covered in this pilot phase was completed by TechnoServe in August of 2006. The study identified maize as the most appropriate crop to pilot because it was identified as the most important food crop in Tanzania because it is grown mostly by smallholder farmers; it was highly susceptible to drought; and ample agronomic information was available on maize cultivation and the water requirements of the maize plant. Given the rapid timeline for implementation international experience already existed which could guide the design of the contract. Although coffee was also recommended for inclusion in a weather insurance pilot project as an important export crop, given the tight time line for the implementation of the pilot, it would have been very difficult to gather the necessary information for the development of an index that clearly demonstrated the correlation between rainfall and coffee production. The development of a coffee index would have required significant time spent on research and development which was not available, thus limiting the ability ofthe project team to include it in the pilot for the 2006/2007 growing season.Publication Philippines Financial Sector Assessment Program Update(Washington, DC, 2011-07)This technical note on access to finance addresses six questions: 1) what is the access to and use of financial services in the Philippines, how does it vary, and how does it compare to other countries? 2) What financial services are available to different market segments? 3) How do different categories of financial institutions contribute to outreach, and what is their potential to expand outreach? 4) How does the regulatory environment support access to finance? 5) What financial infrastructure is available to make credit decisions? 6) What are the results of government policies or programs to promote access to financial services? The note concludes with recommendations to improve access to finance. An estimated 30 percent of Filipinos use formal financial services. This is lower than the East Asia region average. Access to finance has improved since the 2002 Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP). The provision of financial services to low-income individuals has expanded. The Philippines has received international recognition for its favorable regulatory policies to promote pioneering use of mobile payments technology and its microfinance regulatory framework.Publication Microfinance and Moneylenders: Long-Run Effects of MFIs on Informal Credit Market in Bangladesh(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2013-09)Using two surveys from Bangladesh, this paper provides evidence on the effects of microfinance competition on village moneylender interest rates and households' dependence on informal credit. The views among practitioners diverge sharply: proponents claim that competition of microfinance institutions reduces both the moneylender interest rate and households' reliance on informal credit, while the critics argue the opposite. Taking advantage of recent econometric approaches that address selection on unobservables without imposing standard exclusion restrictions, this paper finds that microfinance competition does not reduce moneylender interest rates, thus partially repudiating the proponents. The effects are heterogeneous; there is no perceptible effect at low levels of coverage, but when microfinance coverage is high enough, the moneylender interest rate increases significantly. In contrast, households' dependence on informal credit tends to go down after they become a member of a microfinance institution, which contradicts part of the critic's argument. The evidence is consistent with a model where microfinance institutions draw away better borrowers from the moneylender, and fixed costs are important in informal lending.Publication How Does Competition Affect the Performance of MFIs? Evidence from Bangladesh(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2013-04)Over the past 20 years, Bangladesh has witnessed strong competition among microfinance institutions. Using program-level panel data from 2005-2010, this paper studies the microfinance institutions' recent competitive roles in their pricing of products, targeting strategies and portfolio shifts, as well as their ability to recover loans. The findings do not support the view that newer microfinance institutions are less risk-averse in their targeting, or that increased borrowing among households due to microfinance institution competition has lowered recovery rates. There is also a considerable urban-rural distinction; although newer microfinance institutions tend to attract riskier clients in urban areas, the opposite is true in rural areas. Loan recovery rates are also the highest among the newest microfinance institutions for women in rural areas, suggesting that microfinance institutions may offer distinct products in these areas to attract better-risk clients. The portfolio of newer microfinance institutions also has a greater share of lending for agriculture, and fewer savings products.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.