Enterprise and Microcredit

Opportunities for enterprise and access to credit are enabling factors for poverty alleviation, especially for communities trapped in cycles of vulnerability. Life in the Asian context being very much a rural one, finding solutions for far flung communities is a major challenge for countries in our region. Moreover, whether rural or urban access to micro credit and viable markets have proven to be effective poverty alleviation mechanisms for underserved communities, poor women and youth.

While large scale programs provide medium and long term development pathways, promotion of small enterprise and micro credit are opportunities for short term poverty solutions, and conflict transformation in the context of communities emerging from civil strife or natural disasters.

RDC consultants are familiar with the above outlined contexts and are versed with the enterprise and micro credit promotion experience and tools used in association with large-scale State sponsored poverty alleviation programs in Sri Lanka, namely the Janasaviya, the Samurdhi program, the National Development Trust Fund (NDTF), and the Gamidiriya community development and livelihood improvement project. Through numerous integrated rural development initiatives at the district level, the promotion of these methodologies through international and bilateral donor funding has been widely practiced.