Download or read book Micro-finance in Rural Communities in Southern Africa written by Human Sciences Research Council and published by HSRC Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) is a core initiative in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Africa portfolio of programmes, which aims to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of rural communities. A component of this programme is to help capitalise locally based enterprise development initiatives by stimulating the provision of and access to micro-finance in rural areas. Three sites have been selected to pilot the introduction of this and other IRDP activities. These are: Chimanimani (Zimbabwe), Chimoio (Mozambique) and Nyandeni (South Africa). As part of this initiative , the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) based in Pretoria has conducted an evaluation in three key sites of the IRDP to evaluate the implications of implementing a mico-finance scheme in these areas.