Conference on microfinance

Last Wednesday we attended a conference hosted by the student organization Develop and the Centre for Business and Development Studies at CBS. The conference was called "Is microfinance a solution to end poverty?".

When Kenneth and I took the course ITI, the course where we met our supervisor, we actually wrote an assignment on microfinance. Therefore we actually felt that we had a good understanding on the subject, and would be able to engage in the discussion, with questions and comments.

We ended up not engaging in the discussion, not because we didn't think we had anything to offer, but because the discourse for the conference was narrowed to only the economic aspect. Because of our background we would have broadened the discourse and looked at other things such as a successful application of ICT to facilitate microfinance, but also on how the microcredit could or should be spend, e.g. the use of indigenous knowledge. Instead the conference took these things for granted or made a reduction and simply discussed the optimal company size that should be granted loans, in order to actually create new jobs and not only improving one persons life.

I guess this post can be seen as a reminder of how one’s own background encapsulates and determines the things you see and find interesting. At least the attendance made Kenneth and I discussed why we didn't use more economic theory in our own framework.