Dopaje en Recolecta y Archivo Digital UPM (ruta Verde)

In sum, there is little comprehensive analysis of whether, to what extent, and under which conditions the social life of MFI clients has an effect on MFI outreach and sustainability. The introduction already outlined the main research questions. Having now reviewed the literature regarding these questions I now restate them here with more detail and elaborate how they are addressed. The first three questions that this thesis addresses are:

1. Is the fear of persecution/ stigma or sanctions from the communal actors/groups or individuals keeping potential MFI clients at bay from MFI membership?

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2. Do interventions from various local actors within the working areas of MFI affect

the MFIs’ operations?

3. Is the opposition to MFIs at domestic level from male guardian and family, a deterrent for women who want to opt for MFI membership?

This thesis answers these questions with reference to the preferences behind such interventions/ persecution or sanctions of the intervening party. The identification of the interveners or actors within the operational spheres of MFIs will be discussed at length in Chapter 2, which presents the theoretical framework. For the theoretical framework I will draw from the literature on the political economy of social institutions and rational choice approaches. I mostly rely on the bargaining framework presented by Knight and Ensminger (1998) to explain the emergence and change of social norms norms that have distributional consequences for the actors involved.

Questions 1-3 addressed in Chapters 4 and 5. Using household survey data and interviews with MFI staff and moneylenders in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the north of India and from four different districts of the north eastern Province of Punjab in Pakistan respectively, a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods are applied to investigate the households’ decisions for the uptake of an MFI loan. For the survey, 55 households in each of the two countries were selected and interviews with the help of detailed semi- structured questionnaires were conducted. For the data generation, there were several sources of informants as interviewees. The first two sets of interviews were conducted with women participants from among the clients of MFIs and also non-borrower households from the same neighbourhoods. In addition to each woman (client and non-client) who was interviewed, their male household guardian or head of household was also interviewed, making up for the third and fourth set of interviews. Furthermore, MFI staff and senior executive members of the MFIs were also interviewed, making up the fifth and sixth set of interviews. Lastly, local moneylenders made up the seventh and last set of interviewees for the survey. Chapter 3 on the methodological framework will deal with all issues of sampling, country selection, MFI partners within the countries and a detail of all questionnaires.

The analysis takes a more descriptive approach by taking into account factors such as the social affiliations, networks and perceptions of class, caste and gender relations and how important these are in the lives of the participants of the survey. Apart from adding knowledge on how social spheres affect MFI operations, the thesis also interrogates how decisions relate back to intra-household dynamics. The analysis takes into account the

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familial support and the cooperation of the male head of the household for a membership with a MFI.

In chapter 6, I compare the findings from both countries and analyse the following three questions:

4. How do women clients of the MFI in India differ from the women clients of the MFI in Pakistan?

5. Do MFI institutions and their clients face the same set of problems or difficulties from within the social and communal milieus in different set ups or countries? 6. Do MFI clients communal, social and domestic circles have the same (or different)

effect on their decision making process of opting for a microfinance loan or not?

The chapter will review the results of the surveys in both countries, with a focus on the similarities and differences of the social life of MFIs and the communities.

Chapter 7 will provide a summary and the most important conclusions for the dissertation.

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2

Theoretical framework and expectations

MFIs do not operate in isolation. With microfinance’s evolution from the informal sector into a more mainstream financial services sector, the wider operational environment of MFIs has become more important. MFIs move and operate within a socio-economic and political system, with various tiers and levels of collaborators and networks. Within this socio- economic and political framework of microfinance, a variety of actors at the international, national and local level of governing bodies and agents represent various interest groups. These (groups of) actors have a kaleidoscope of preferences that they pursue in their dealings and interactions with the MFIs. For my analysis, I will focus on the interactions of MFIs with actors within their local milieus. The analysis of the preferences and incentives of the actors therefore are on a micro level, and this analysis does not account for a macro level study of state or multilateral organisations and their representatives here.

In this chapter, I will provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of the incentives or preferences of the key stakeholder groups and actors that have an impact on the operations of MFIs within their political and socio-economic environments. The aim is to explore the determinants of success of MFIs in terms of outreach based on the external societal and political economic framework. No single unified body of thought or theoretical approach can encompass all the incentives or preferences of all the actors and groups that could possibly be in conflict with or affect the operations of MFIs. Rather, I draw on a number of theoretical strands, mainly from the institutional and rational choice literature, to inform my analysis of actors’ behaviour within the socio-economic and political frameworks of MFIs. The most important work that I draw on for inspiration, especially in section 2.2, is that of Knight and Ensminger (1998). Their paper on the bargaining framework for the emergence and change of social norms that have distributional consequences for the actors involved fits the line of argumentation and theoretical expectations for my work quite well.

Below, I categorise the individual actors and groups within communities, and discuss how their incentives and preferences can lead to them helping or hindering the operations of MFIs. First, however, I elaborate on some central theoretical concepts. I will construct a framework to help understand actors’ incentive structures and the patterns of interactions that can affect MFI outreach and sustainability.

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