Microcredit
-
Then as farce, now as tragedy: The second coming of Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority
14 December 2025 - by Amali Wedagedara, Suneth Aruna Kumara, Renuka Gunawardena
The Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority Bill that was defeated by communities affected by microfinance, women victims and community credit providers in April 2024, has reincarnated. The one gazetted in October 2023, with zero community (…) -
FCEJ Calls for an End to the Microfinance Menace
17 October 2025 - by Feminist Collective for Economic Justice
The National People’s Party (NPP) marked the completion of its first year in government in September 2025. Sadly, the new government has already lost touch with the realities on the ground. Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the JVP - the main (…) -
Philippines: Exploitation of the Working Classes through Abusive Microcredit
18 June 2025 - by Eric Toussaint
Across the globe, a considerable portion of the working classes is compelled to borrow at exorbitant rates to cover basic expenses related to daily life and work. This phenomenon has worsened in recent years as neoliberal policies have led to a (…) -
Inclusive Growth or Entrapment? Unpacking the Microfinance Paradox in India
24 May 2025 - by Soumya Sahin
Abstract Microfinance in India emerged with a promise—to democratise credit and empower the poor. But behind the polished rhetoric of “financial inclusion” lies a more complicated truth. This article explores the rise of microfinance not just as (…) -
Glimpses of the CADTM South Asia meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 29 January to 2 February 2025
12 February 2025 - by Fernanda Gadea, CADTM South Asia
CADTM South Asia held its annual meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 30 January to 1 February 2025. The discussions were very intense and covered a wide range of topics: Sri Lanka’s current situation vis-à-vis its creditors, the new Sri Lankan (…) -
Rural indebtedness
12 February 2025 - by Julien-François Gerber
INTRODUCTION Rural indebtedness is an old-new question in critical agrarian studies. On one hand, the phenomenon has been discussed for more than a century by Marxist political economists. On the other hand, however, rural indebtedness has never (…) -
Microcredit as an instrument of the international financial system and alternatives
8 February 2025 - by Omar Aziki
At the CADTM South Asia workshop in Colombo, which took place from Thursday 30 January to Saturday 1 February, Omar Aziki delivered a critical analysis of microcredit. He showed how this tool is an instrument of capitalist and patriarchal (…) -
Bangladesh : Who is Muhammad Yunus, the new prime minister ?
11 August 2024 - by CADTM, Denise Comanne
The CADTM welcomes the departure of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as a victory for the courageous student movement, which has been in July-August 2024 the victim of a terrible repression that left over 400 people dead. Nevertheless, given the (…) -
The unfulfilled promises of microcredit: some new evidence
9 August 2024 - by CADTM, Stéphanie Jacquemont
The student movement in Bangladesh ousted Sheikh Hasina last Monday, August 5, 2024. A new interim government has been formed to restore order, end repression, and hold a fair election to facilitate a democratic transition of power. Nobel (…) -
CADTM South Asia annual meeting
In Sri Lanka women are the principal victims of the IMF and of microfinance
28 February 2024 - by Balasingham Skanthakumar, Amali Wedagedara, Nalini Ratnarajah, Maxime Perriot, CADTM South Asia
During the CADTM South Asia annual meeting, which was held in Katmandu (Nepal) on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 February 2024, Amali Wedagedara, Nalini Ratnarajah and Balasingham Skanthakumar analyzed Sri Lanka’s political, economic and social (…) -
In Nepal, CADTM delegates took part in the opening march of the World Social Forum and successfully completed their initial workshops
21 February 2024 - by CADTM International, Maxime Perriot
The World Social Forum, which took place this year in Kathmandu (Nepal), began on Thursday 15 February 2024. The CADTM International network was represented by delegates from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and the (…) -
Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority – A fatal flaw
24 November 2023 - by Amali Wedagedara
Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority mooted first in 2012 as the Microfinance Regulatory and Supervisory Authority (MRSA) has seen daylight. But could it be the solution it is purported to be, i.e., regulate money lending and microfinance (…) -
“Austerity driven economic reforms affect women more than men”
14 September 2023 - by Balasingham Skanthakumar, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Lakmali Hemachandra
Dr. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky was the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights between June 2014 and April 2020. He was previously a sovereign debt expert of the United Nations Conference on (…) -
Capacity-building seminar for Togolese women and civil society organisations on illegitimate debts, their impact on human rights and possible alternatives
Lomé Declaration
14 September 2023 - by CADTM Afrique, Attac-Togo, Womin, Foundation for a just society
The struggle against illegitimate, illegal, unsustainable and odious debts has been at the heart of the concerns of African and even Western civil society for more than two decades. With this in mind, the Committee for the Abolition of (…) -
Microfinance Institutions in West Bengal: A Death Trap?
13 April 2023 - by Madhu Sudan Chatterjee
The word ’Sir’ in some areas of West Bengal represents officers of microfinance institutions (MFIs) who come to collect money from low-income families. If these families cannot pay, they are allegedly met with continued threats. In some ways, (…) -
8th March
Debts are a tool of oppression! We will not pay!
7 March 2023 - by CADTM International
On the occasion of March 8, international day of struggle for women’s rights, we, activists of CADTM INTERNATIONAL, mobilize against the debt and its patriarchal and capitalist violence. Peasant women, students, workers, mothers, unemployed (…) -
Final declaration of the seventh national congress of ATTAC CADTM Morocco
22 December 2022 - by ATTAC/CADTM Morocco
ATTAC CADTM Morocco organized its seventh national congress in Rabat on December 16, 17 and 18, 2022 under the slogan: “Let’s continue our contribution to build resistances for freedom and for social and environmental justice”. In Morocco, (…) -
Public debt and Microfinance in Morocco : When the poor Finance the rich
9 December 2022 - by Jawad Moustakbal
Jawad Moustakbal (ATTAC CADTM Morocco) was one of the CADTM delegates at the 9th CADTM South Asia meeting, in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2-4 December 2022). He presented the damage caused by microcredit and public debt in Morocco for decades. Jawad (…) -
Private Debt in India : Current trends in the context of COVID-19 Pandemic
8 December 2022 - by Chinmayi Naik
Chinmayi Naik (Working Peoples’ Coalition in India) was one of the CADTM delegates at the 9th CADTM South Asia meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2nd - 4th december 2022) . She made a presentation about the state of private debt in the context of (…) -
Colombo Declaration
4 December 2022 - by CADTM, CADTM South Asia
We, the participants of the 9th CADTM South Asia meeting from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, as well as from Morocco, Belgium, Spain and France, assembled in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from December 2–4, 2022, reaffirm our fight against (…) -
Heavily indebted Humans Deserve Debt Relief (Just as Nations Do)
4 October 2022 - by Jami Hubbard Solli
From Argentina to Zambia, the global news is filled with stories of irresponsible, unsustainable lending to low-income governments which ultimately results in suffering for their own people. Suffering takes the form of austerity measures imposed (…) -
Averting the Looming Food Crisis
27 March 2022 - by Sandun Thududgala
A food crisis is inevitable. Food prices are soaring; shortages in essential food items are creating long queues, affecting people’s ability to work and get on with productive lives; the foreign reserve crisis has restricted the country’s ability (…) -
Government Mortgages Women on Behalf of the Microfinance Companies
8 March 2022 - by Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance
The statement was issued by the Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance, Sri Lanka to commemorate International Women’s Day. March 08, 2022 The government that came into power pledging to abolish all microfinance debt has failed to (…) -
Debt, development and the future
6 March 2022 - by Amali Wedagedara
The Satyagraha initiated by the Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance on 8 March 2021 in Hingurakgoda, Polonnaruwa, narrates a particular story of development in Sri Lanka – a dystopic one where the development aspirations of women have (…) -
Submission of the Collective of Women Affected by Microfinance to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery
8 December 2021 - by Collective
Debt is the most prevalent source of slavery. In contemporary Sri Lanka, unpayable debt accrued through microfinance loans has been driving exploitation, dispossession, and conditions resembling debt peonage. A chain of high-risk loans disbursed (…)
- Depression
- ICAN
- African Development Bank
- Agrarian Distress
- Agriculture and Food Sovereignty
- Antifascism
- Arbitration
- Asian Development Bank
- Audit
- Austerity/Structural Adjustment
- Bank of the South
- Banks
- Belt and Road
- Big Pharma
- BRICS
- Capitalism
- Colonial debt
- Colonialism
- Commercial agreements
- Commercialisation
- Corporate
- Corporate Debt
- Corruption / financial criminality
- Crisis
- De-dollarisation
- Debt campaign
- Debt crisis
- Debt in History
- Debt in Northern countries
- Development
- dollarisation
- ECB
- Ecology/Climate
- Energy
- External debt
- Extractivism
- Feminisms
- Films
- Financial crisis
- Free Trade/Trade Liberalisation
- G7 / G20
- Health
- Housing
- Human Rights
- Illegitimate debt
- ILO
- IMF
- Imperialism
- Inequality
- Inflation
CADTM
COMMITTEE FOR THE ABOLITION OF ILLEGITIMATE DEBT
8 rue Jonfosse
4000 - Liège- Belgique
+324 56 62 56 35
info@cadtm.org
