Additionally, the poor learn new skills when setting up a micro credit program. Financial skills and accountability in particular, provide the basis for successfull small revolving loan funds. The monies accessed by the poor are turned back into the community through micro enterprise businesses. Farmers have access to agricultural inputs that allow them to provide food and income for their families, as well as food for the community.

Small local banks protect the interests of the poor when it is the poor themselves who own the interests of the bank. Along with Justin Lin’s recommendations, I would like to add that governments should look at ways to strengthen the work of NGOs in developing countries, who are helping the poor to establish micro finance cooperatives.