microlending

Sometimes, small gestures can make huge differences in people's lives and livelihoods. That's the premise -- and the power -- of microlending. For proof, one need look no further than the stories of Marcia and Karen, two entrepreneurs in Costa Rica.

Microloans for small businesses have taken off in Peru, where informal employment is high and access to credit is low. The nation now ranks No. 1 in the annual Economist Intelligence Unit survey of world's best business environments for microlending.

I used to be a big fan of the microlending nonprofit Kiva.org, thinking my $25 and $50 loans were really going via Kiva to that goat farmer in Kenya smiling on its Web site, and the single mother in Guatemala running a clothing shop to support her kids. Then I read how Kiva doesn't really make...

With all the Nobel Prizes being awarded this week, I am reminded that Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding Grameen Bank, a micro-lender to the very poor. Yunus's idea was to use finance to help needy people in Bangladesh dig themselves out of poverty. But micro-lenders in...