Vinay attends a talk given by Nancy Barry, a pioneer in the field of creating private, market-based solutions to poverty alleviation for women across the globe. The gist: governments and NGOs can’t deal with poverty effectively:

MFIs must look beyond being simply mass-lenders, and instead should aggressively focus on providing a full range of financial products that enable poor women (and men) to build assets. Products like microinsurance, microsavings and so forth are integral to developing a holistic approach to poverty.

Microfinance and to a larger extent povety alleviaion is no place for ‘do-gooder NGOs’ or what she also termed ‘hobbyists.’ Wanting to do good is not enough, those involved must recognize and build the most efficient and scalable business models possible to actually have a significant impact.