The Lebanese schism? : understanding localities of microcredit, poverty, and politics
Name
670430313-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
8.37 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a1b2c1c17b0a010e20b5f8e7b1e79fec
Author(s)
Jawaid, Naveen Q. (Naveen Qamar)
Advisor(s)
Alice H. Amsden.
Alternative Title
Understanding localities of microcredit, poverty, and politics
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The widespread popularity of microfinance as a "win-win" solution to global poverty alleviation has significantly limited debate and dialogue around contesting viewpoints, program structures, and implementation norms. The present microcredit industry in Lebanon offers an authoritative space for practitioners to explore a differing microcredit model as implemented by a Hezbollah affiliated NGO, Al Qard Al Hassan Association. As one of the oldest and largest microcredit institutions in the Middle East, I argue that the perceived Lebanese schism allows us to explore the role in which organizational diversity has enabled a reinterpretation and an opportunity to revisit microcredit as a poverty alleviation tool in the context of the Southern Suburbs of Beirut. The country of Lebanon also offers a new locality in which development planners can explore how an NGO grassroots program, Al Majmoua, and how an institution, Hezbollah, that began as a grassroots political movement for the community and is now in many ways of the state, implement successful microcredit programs. Through the lens of Lebanese microcredit professionals and borrowers of the programs, this study explores how a hybrid narrative of microcredit has escaped industry isomorphism in Lebanon and how social capital has been created, managed, and reproduced.
Description
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-115).
Subjects
Urban Studies and Planning.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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