Rural Micro Credit and Poverty Alleviation: The Case of the PKSF in Bangladesh

This case study evaluates the impact of the Rural Micro Credit (RMC) program of the Palli-Karma Shahayak Foundation (PKSF) on poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. The program was introduced as a public-private partnership initiative and is still in its experimental stage. The study is based on a survey of 68 households from five districts that participated in the program. It finds that participation had an insignificant impact on improvements in income levels and over half of the participants in the program did not receive any income generating activities skill training, although it was part of the program. It also finds that most participants in the program thought that the rates of interest were very high. The study notes that participation improved food intake, school enrollments, health consciousness, access to safe drinking water, and hygienic sanitation. It covers the following sections in detail:

• Scope and objective of the study;
• Review of literature discussing microfinance, poverty alleviation, and development;
• Overview of the PKSF and the RMC with a focus on the partnership structures, management and implementation, and expected outcomes;
• Methodology and data collection method;
• Results with a focus on the impact of microcredit on income, food security, loans, human, and human development.