Publisher's Synopsis
The book is a collection of articles that have been written to raise awareness about financial inclusion and a few ways that can be embraced to realise it. The majority of the articles deals with financial cooperatives, or savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs), or credit unions as they may be called in different parts of the world. Cooperatives in general are non-profit, entrepreneurial and social organisations owned by their members, and have been acknowledged by governments around the world for their potential to advance financial inclusion in communities where they operate. Financial cooperatives lend money to its members from their collective savings at a lower interest rate compared to commercial banks, and with fewer conditions to meet. Borrowers may use the money to open small businesses or solve any family problem. The other part of the book talks about crowdfunding which is a way of raising funds through a public online media from different sources or individuals. It is argued that crowdfunding is an essential instrument for bringing people and communities together with the shared objective of combining private and public resources to promote the welfare of the general population to encourage financial inclusion, more specifically when it is used to finance social projects by social companies. It appears though, that the use of both these tools (financial cooperatives and crowdfunding) are not properly exploited in the way across different regions of the world, with mostly developing countries lagging behind.
