University of Pittsburgh Women’s Studies Program, Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies, Department of Political Science, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and Humanities Center
Microcredit (small loans to start small enterprises in the informal sector) has been praised in many quarters as a panacea for the poverty and patriarchy that poor women in Third World countries confront. Securing poor women access to credit, for enterprises in the small-scale agricultural sector and the urban informal sector is at the center of a significant chunk of “women and development” agendas today.