SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY OUTREACH IN MICROFINANCE: THE SRI LANKAN EXPERIENCE

About the Book

The fulfillment of the role of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in providing affordable financial services to the poor is associated with invariable challenges to MFIs, particularly in maintaining MFIs’ sustainability. The research work undertaken in this context to prepare author’s doctoral thesis has finally culminated in a book, which has comprehensively dealt with the subject of sustainability versus poverty outreach in microfinance. Overall, the results of panel data analysis confirm that there is no trade-off between sustainability and poverty outreach of MFIs. Thus, MFIs are in a position to achieve operational self-sufficiency while expanding services to the poor. Further, it is evident from logit analysis that group lending as against individual lending is strategically important for MFIs to achieve sustainability, successfully warding off the problems of asymmetric information prevailing in the rural credit markets. The book carries a detailed description on Sri Lanka’s financial sector and poverty aspects with special emphasis on microfinance sector which comprises of more than 15000 service providers under a variety of institutions with different mandates and business models. Policy discussion along with the findings of econometric analyses provides the reader with new insights especially in the absence of any other macro-level studies carried out to cover microfinance sector in Sri Lanka.

About the Author

Dr. Amarathunga, who has been with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) over 30 years, currently holds the position of director of the bank’s Regional Office Management Department. Apart from attending his main job, he has functioned as a member of the committees tasked with the preparation of policy and strategy documents on SMEs and venture capital firms in Sri Lanka, as a trustee of dedicated economic centers and as a board member of country’s premier institute for agrarian research and training. Dr. Amarathunga was also a member of presidential task force for the recovery of state assets during 2015-17, chairman of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) sub group on countering the financing of terrorism in 2015, and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) during 2016-17. Before joining the CBSL, Dr. Amarathunga worked as an Assistant Lecturer of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, from where he received his B.Com. (special) degree and later, while serving in the CBSL, he completed MSc in Economic and Social Policy Analysis from the University of York, MSc in Management and Information Technology from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and PhD in Microfinance from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has published research papers in reputed journals. He is also a resource person for many local and international training programs conducted on Regional Development, Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.