Microfi nance in the bilateral relations between India
and Argentina
The Government of India, through its Ministry of External
Aff airs, off ers to more than 160 countries in the world, its
ITEC scholarships programme, that includes in some cases
the microfi nances theme; however, they are underutilized
by Latin-American countries (BID, 2017). In 2017, the
author decided to apply to a four-week course off ered by the
programme, titled “Rural credit for poverty reduction”, in
Hyderabad (Telangana state). The cause of this choice was
the coincidence between the contents of her thesis in Master
of International Relations and the course mentioned. The
programme was conducted during the month of March, in
the prestigious National Institute of Rural Development and
Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR).
During the fi rst three weeks, the lectures were conducted
in the campus, where the following issues were discussed by
twenty delegates from fi fteen diff erent countries: structure of
rural credit and banking system in India; fi nancial inclusion
for rural development; banking services in India; small and
medium enterprises in poverty reduction; geoinformatics;
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; SHGs;
integrated agriculture and sustainable livelihood; small and
marginal farmers; national disasters and vulnerable groups;
climate resilience and agroforest; technology and rural
development; social entrepreneurship for rural development;
producers organizations; digital literacy; value chains for
rural development; self-employment opportunities; social
audit and accountability; gender issues; rural credit; crop
insurance; food processing and participative planning for
poverty reduction. Most of the professors were PhD. holders
in their diverse disciplines and had working experience in
the issues discussed. It is relevant to say that sessions were
approached from a neutral and objective point of view.
SHG federation in charge of running fi shing activities in Vishakhapatnam
area (March 2018)
After those sessions, the course participants headed to
Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, to pursue a five-day
fi eld visit. This involved visits to tribal communities and
interactions with women from diff erent SHGs, personnel at
bank branches, ONG’s volunteers and government agencies
offi cers. The main objective of this fi eld visit was to verify
the contents discussed during the sessions. In this experience,
participants were allowed to observe and note the eff orts
displayed by India to eradicate poverty and, besides, empower
rural women through microfi nance schemes.
Secondly, it is worth mentioning the EKHOS initiative
(Argentina), whose aim is to promote links. They foment
exchanges in diverse areas: scholar knowledge, experiences
in social business, solutions for Latin America countries,
identifi cations of impact investment opportunities, cultural
aspects, advice and project incubation and public policies
design inside those environments.
To achieve this goal, EKHOS plans immersion trips to
India to enhance a joint work and interpersonal relations.
The association organizes training and academic sessions,
networking with different actors, international forums
attendance and field visits. In fact, in November 2018,
EKHOS will be making the second immersion trip to India.
Likewise, as a very interesting activity to mention, EKHOS
contributed to the possibility of four women from the Province
of Jujuy, Argentina, participating in a six-month training
at Barefoot College in India on renewable energy. The
knowledge acquired in that experience will be displayed by
those women in their communities in the Puna region (north
Argentina), enhancing their abilities and empowerment.
Finally, the issue of microfi nance in India is contributing
to generating activities co-organized by diff erent social
agents interested in the subject, within the framework of the
bilateral relationship between both countries. That is the case
of a recent activity held in Buenos Aires, in which Financial
Inclusion Partners (FIP), Addkeen, EKHOS, the Working
Group on India and South Asia, Asian Aff airs Committee, of
17
2017; Sharma, 2017). Groups are extremely important for
poverty reduction, social transformation and empowerment.
Namely, microfi nance allows farmers in poverty to deal with
their conditions and develop a sustainable livelihood (Patil
y Kokate, 2017).
In the last years, microfi nance sector in India led an
exponential growth. Microfi nance schemes are divided into
two categories: for one hand, the SHG-BLP and, in the other,
the microfi nance institutions (Abraham y Kalamkar, 2016;
Patil y Kokate, 2017; NABARD, 2017). The fi rst one is a
programme conducted by the government and supervised
by NABARD, whose main objective is to provide funding
resources, led to poverty reduction (Abraham y Kalamkar,
2016). Commercial banks, thanks to its network throughout
the country, assumed the SHG-BLP leadership (NABARD,
2017). Meanwhile, microfinance institutions dedicated
almost exclusively to this activity, unlike what happened with
commercial banks- provide loans to JLG (Ambrish, 2014).
It must be noted that while rural credit programmes during
the 1950-1980 period showed repayment rates lower than
50 percent, currently they are above 95 percent, sometimes
reaching the 100 percent (Augsburg y Fouillet, 2013). These
circumstances evidence the success of the above mentioned
programme and its dynamics.