Microfinance Institutions Fostering Sustainable Development by Region

Access to microfinance as a resilience policy to address sustainable development goals: A content analysis

This research paper aims to address the problem of financial inclusion and resilience in the current sustainable development framework. The development agenda designs access to finance a human right and a prior strategy to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Microfinance can play a decisive role in smoothing the risk of adverse events It acts as resilience policy, tackling vulnerability and poverty, empowering people and vulnerable categories and improving and enlarging their capabilities. This work explores the existing connections between the development agenda and microfinance as a strategy to foster financial access. To this end, summative content analysis is performed on the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/69/315 – fulfilling a research gap. This inquiry handles 6 selected SDGs, ascribable to 3 dimensions, detecting 5 sub-dimensions and 16 domains. Analysing Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, the study also finds increased importance attributed to the topic, key issues and policy strengths and limitations. Importantly, the analysis shows that the environmental dimension is still neglected in the analysed corpus, not appearing in any of the examined SDGs. The findings suggest investing in these channels, drafting governance patterns and modelling resilience and development policy to vehiculate improved ecological and institutional results and concerns.

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Summative content analysis is performed on the UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/69/315.

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6 selected SDGs, 3 dimensions, 5 sub-dimensions and 16 domains are identified.

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SDGs attribute increased importance to microfinance as a resilience policy to promote financial access to the vulnerable.

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The environmental dimension is still neglected, not appearing in any of the related SDGs.

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Investments are needed to foster environmental and governance resilience.

Green Microfinance and Women’s Empowerment: Why Does Financial Literacy Matter?

This study investigated the role of financial literacy in the relationship between women’s empowerment and green microfinance. We set a conceptual model with green microfinance as an outcome variable, financial literacy as a mediating variable, and women’s empowerment as an exposure variable. Variance-based SEM was employed for analysis. The results show that the exposure and mediating variables have a significant direct and indirect impact on the outcome variable. The relationship between women’s empowerment and green microfinance is partially mediated by financial literacy. Local wisdom-based financial literacy is found to be an alternative for mainstreaming women’s empowerment in local development. In addition, gender-targeted programs need to consider pro-literacy policies for achieving green microfinance sustainability. By using financial literacy as a mediating variable, this study contributes to the current literature on the relationship between women’s empowerment and green microfinance.

Assessment of the Sustainability of a Real Estate Project Using Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Today, sustainability, sustainable development and clean environment come to the fore worldwide. Consequently, the concept of sustainability has been introduced in project management. Sustainability issues have gained particular attention in the real estate sector. However, despite the fact that this sector has a huge impact on the environment and society, real estate projects are most commonly chosen taking into account only their risk and return, and a very limited number of indices and methods are available to assess their sustainability. Moreover, all of the existing indices and models for assessing the sustainability of an investment project take into account only three dimensions of sustainability—environmental, social and economic. Therefore, the novelty of this work lies in constructing a real estate sustainability index (RESI) relying on an additional sustainability aspect—i.e., a technological dimension. The developed sustainability index could be useful in evaluating and comparing real estate projects. It would also promote technological progress and investments in new technologies within projects as sustainability is also considered in a new, technological dimension. A research study was carried out between September 2020 and December 2020. Following an analysis of the literature and different sustainability-related standards relevant for the real estate industry, sustainability criteria were chosen and then grouped into four (environmental, social, economic and technological) categories. The selection and ranking of the most relevant sustainability criteria were performed through a survey. The index was compiled by applying multi-criteria decision making methods.

Capital Structure, Financial Performance, and Sustainability of Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) in Bangladesh

Capital structure plays an important role in organizational performance. Sources of funds for micro-finance institutions (MFIs) and their performance and financial sustainability become an important topic for the MFIs and poverty alleviation initiatives to achieve sustainable development goals of the UN. We explored the following question: Does the financial structure in terms of financial leverage affect the financial performance: Financial sustainability, depth, and breadth of outreach of MFIs? Our research focuses on studying the relationship between capital structure and financial performance of micro-finance institutions as well as achieving the objectives of this program by reaching out to the deserving clients without collaterals. A dataset of 187 MFIs is used to establish the relationship between the capital structure and performance of MFIs. Panel data regression analysis has been used for this study using the Random effect and Fixed effect models. Return on Asset (ROA), and Net Income to Expenditure (NIER) have been used as measures of financial performance. The findings indicate that Equity to Asset Ratio (EAR), Debt to Loan Ratio (DTL), Risk, and Size are the factors that influence NIER. Furthermore, EAR, and DTL have a positive effect on ROA, and Risk has a negative effect. The findings of this study will enable MFIs to configure their capital structure by creating a portfolio of sources of their capital from market-based sources of funds that can maximize their financial performance and reach out to poor clients without collaterals.

Microcredits for Sustainable Development of Small Ukrainian Enterprises: Efficiency, Accessibility, and Government Contribution

The purpose of the study was to assess the efficiency and accessibility of microcredits for small Ukrainian enterprises and to justify the feasibility of strengthening government contributions in lending to ensure the sustainable development of small businesses. Indicators for evaluating the efficiency and accessibility of microcredits are systematized. Methodological approaches to assessing the efficiency of lending for the creation and development of microenterprises have been improved. A model for evaluating the efficiency of microcredits aimed at the survival of microenterprises in a deteriorating environment was developed. It has been revealed that the level of efficiency of microcredit creation for firms in some time intervals depends quadratically on the share of microcredits in the total amount of funds directed to the creation of firms. A linear relationship between the relative amount of credit received and the growth rate of firms’ assets has also been established. However, there is no significant impact of the microcredit’s amount on labor productivity. A method has been developed for evaluating the budgetary efficiency of microcredits when such a lending is carried out using funds from state or local budgets. It was found that improving these lending conditions through budget financing can significantly increase its attractiveness for microenterprises without significantly reducing the budgetary efficiency of microcredits. This article substantiates the need to strengthen state support for microcrediting of small Ukrainian enterprises in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.