Microfinance Videos - ViewChange.org

Investing in Africa from Your Lazy Chair

In the past, investing in African enterprises was too complicated a task for anyone except banks or large companies. But now, thanks to websites such as MYC4, just about anyone can use their capital to fund small businesses and individual entrepreneurs in developing nations -- all from the comfort of their own home.

Mali: Small Loans, Big Impact

For people living in the remote Malian town of Yebe, the village bank cooperative has opened up new opportunities. With a microfinance loan of only 30 euros, Mama Coulibaly was able to buy a sack of corn and turn a profit. Now, she runs a small shop and is the only person in her village with a television. Will microfinance prove to be the anchor that keeps young Africans at home, with a bright future?

Banking on Change

J.S Parthibhan is a bank manager with a difference: he's interested in people, not numbers. Through micro loans, he's helping villagers in rural areas develop a sense of entrepreneurship and self-respect.

ViewChange: Challenging Hunger

Chronic hunger affects one billion people around the world on a daily basis. How are aid groups, rural farmers, and other innovators working together to feed the planet? Find out in this special from Bread for the World and ViewChange.org.

Beyond a Dollar a Day

Pro Mujer, a development organization working with women in Latin America, started out focusing on training. But it discovered that education only goes so far, and began issuing microloans so that women could start their own businesses and improve not only their lives but also the lives of their families.

Why Women Count: Fiji - Determined Women

In the rural, cane-growing region of Fiji, a new enterprise is revolutionizing the lives of the local community by providing an income for women who previously relied on their husbands, helping them scale up production and save money, and financing the country's only senior citizens center.

Mini Moguls

In the middle of a global recession, Kenya's Equity Bank is booming. Microloans as small as $10 are helping the country's budding business people. Can Wall Street learn a lesson from these rural entrepreneurs?

Bamako Chic: Threads of Power, Color and Culture

In the 1960s, a small group of Malian women cloth dyers reinvigorated the craft of hand-dyed cloth using a fabric called bazin. Now, thanks to microcredit programs introduced in the mid-1980s, bazin production has flourished into a lucrative enterprise dominated by women. Their artistic creativity has become a force for alleviating poverty and affirming identity in West Africa.

Why Women Count: Latvia - Born to be in Business

Vija Ancane runs her own bakery, shop, and bread museum in the rural village of Aglona, south of Latvia's capital Riga. It's one of 300 small and medium sized businesses to benefit from a new loan scheme started by Latvia's Land and Mortgage Bank to encourage more women to go into business.

TED: Jacqueline Novogratz Invests in Africa's Own Solutions

Jacqueline Novogratz applauds the world's heightened interest in Africa and poverty, but argues persuasively for a new approach.

The Entrepreneurs

Florence, Esnart, Ng'andwe and Precious all come from backgrounds of extreme poverty in rural Zambia. They've embarked on five months of intensive training in leadership and enterprise. With courage and determination, these young women defy the odds and establish their own successful businesses, proving that anything is possible.

Why Women Count: Uganda - Enterprising Women

Grace Lwemamu is manager of the family business Mulya Maize in Uganda. Mary Kaddu runs her own supermarket business. But both felt their lack of management expertise was holding them back. Now they have taken part in a new national mentoring scheme, pairing experienced businesswomen with would-be entrepreneurs in Uganda, equipping them with new confidence and negotiating skills.

Bangladesh: The Poverty Busters

Bangladesh is one of the poorest nations on the planet: half of its population lives on less than a dollar a day. But in the tiny semi-rural village of Dholla, microfinance loans from the Grameen Bank are empowering locals to create thriving small businesses.

Liberia: Microfinance

Improving the economic situation of women is key to peace-building efforts in Liberia following a civil war that tore the country apart and left 75 percent of its people in extreme poverty. UNDP, with funds from Denmark, has set up revolving microloans that provide funds to women entrepreneurs, many of whom are heads of households.

Successful Female Entrepreneur in India

In India, small loans administered by local self-help groups are helping women pull themselves and their families out of poverty.

Colombian Microcredits

Small loans are enabling Colombians to own their own businesses.

On forgotten mountains in the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, people live in small shacks that they often build in days. Most of them unwittingly build on small plots of stolen land. Non-profit organization Un Techo Para Mi Pais (A Roof for My Country) offers microcredits to those with promising business ideas.