There are four basic views on the link between micro-finance and women s empowerment: there are those who stress the positive evidence and are essentially optimistic about the possibility of sustainable micro-finance programmes world-wide empowering women; another school of thought recognizes the limitations to empowerment, but explains those with poor programme design; others recognize the limitations of micro-finance for promoting empowerment, but see it as a key ingredient as important in themselves within a strategy to alleviate poverty; empowerment in this view needs to be addressed by other means; then there are those who see micro-finance programmes as a waste of resources.
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