This might give some ideas....Chapter TOWARDS COMMUNITY-OWNED AND CONTROLLED FINANCE FOR LOCAL ECO...

I believe that nanofinance could be an option. Nanofinance encompasses different types of grassroot -community-based and community-owned- financial associations, as e.g. savings groups and self-help groups. What do you think about the role of these type of nanofinance associations for the SDGs, Prof. Milford Bateman ? (I fully agree with you Prof. Milford Bateman , about the problems of microfinance, so that is why I am interested about your insights about nanofinance)

@Mohammad Shahjahan Chowdhury please see:

Article Which social program supports sustainable grass-root finance...

Nanofinance offers interest free loans to the poorest, but it still does not resolve the issue of how to get them out of poverty or why they are poor in the first place. Even if run by community-owned and controlled financial institutions, its not a way of addressing poverty, more a way of diverting attention away from the real causes.

Prof. Milford Bateman , thanks for your answer. If I may ask: what about nanofinance(+) then? Nanofinance(+) combines the savings/loans schemes of nanofinance with "plus" development programs of women-empowerment, income-generating activities, health, climate-change adaptation, WASH, business and entrepreneurship training, to name a few. As these plus activities are strongly linked to the SDGs and are aimed to multidimensional poverty reduction, can be considered a viable option -compared to microfinance- to reduce extreme poverty (if not poverty)?

I agree that NF and NF(+) programs are not aimed to identify the causes of poverty, maybe this is what is missing in nanofinance?

I think you are referring to such as BRACs graduation programs? They might address grinding poverty, but then so does any intervention where you give the poor assets. The reasoning is tautological. But to get the poor out of poverty fully, then you need much bigger and gradner interventions which neoliberal economics does nto permit. That is why there is so much tinkering around the margins to pretend that the poor do not need to demand fundamental radical economic and social change, but just BRACs graduation program. Its like in the beggining with microcredit which originated in Latin America and was designed to tempt the poor away from radical solutions (peasnt movements, liberation theology) that would undermine US-style capitalism and simply confine their demands to small crexit in order for a few to advance a tiny bit.

Prof. Milford Bateman , no, I was not referring to BRACs. Yes, you are right, I believe I understand the tautology (0 + 2 = 2, and 2 assets is better than zero, just by definition right?); I was not properly appreciating the ideological/political side behind those interventions until now - but I get it (I am an anarchist myself). Thanks for your answers; I was asking about your perspectives because I am interested in writing an article where I argue that nanofinance and microfinance are two different phenomena, instead of the first one being a subset of the last one.

Thanks again for your time.

Thank you so much Professor Milford Bateman and Dr. Rolando Gonzales Martinez for insightful comments on microfinance and nanofinance. I have read the article you have suggested. What I have understand in reading this essay that cooperative based financial systems have contributed sustainable development in some part of Italy, China, and Vietnam. While these locally owned financial initiatives have promising impact on the respective countries, the context of countries like Bangladesh is somewhat difference. For example, in Bangladesh, before and after the independence Comilla Model, a cooperative based model, was established in Bangladesh. The evaluation of the model showed that rural elites took away all the benefits of cooperative. The rural elites are owner of most land and they have strong connection with government service providers. Consequently, they got the benefits of subsidies agricultural inputs, and loan, and poor as well as small farmers were neglected. So, in the developing countries perspective, I think the fundamental problem of developing a sustainable development model for poverty alleviation lies with the socio-economic and administrative structure, where poor are being denied from access to resources and opportunities.

The Comilla model did show an important thing; that elites will always try to block or abuse genuine pro-poor institutions and interventions. I've seen it a lot in my career when potentially successful cooperatives have been destroyed by a tiny few insiders determined to make money for themselves by privatising the assets somehow. Indeed, the whole history of the UK coop movement - once the world's most advanced - is of insiders and outsiders collaborating to steal the asset base created by past generations. However, I question your contention that the poor are in in poverty because they are ''being denied resources and opportunities'. First, they have the financial resources in the form of microcredit in abundance, which is why so many countries are seeing mass overindebtedness. So there appears to be plenty of finance around. The problem is the second issue: (market) opportunities. And here we find that poor communities simply do not have the demand (purchasing power) that is required to support lots more microbusinesses into operation.That was the absolutely fundamental error committed by Muhammad Yunus (and many others since) when he advocated that everyone could easily become self-employed in their own community. Today advocating that the poor can escape their poverty by starting a microbusiness is a cruel deception, akin to saying the poor only to have buy a lottery ticket and they will escape their poverty.

Mohammad Shahjahan Chowdhury , I agree with you that the context in Bangladesh is different (as it is in any country), and I understand how cooperative models as Comilla failed to deliver development promises. But I argue that where microfinance and cooperative models fail, nanofinance(+) can success - see for example the article below about a nanofinance programme in Bangladesh:

Article Learning and savings groups in Bangladesh: an alternative mo...

See also:

Article No access to formal banking? How nano-finance is unlocking t...

In the context of Indonesia, microfinance is still one of the solutions in poverty reduction, in some areas microfinance-based programs have been able to reduce poverty, microfinance programs that adopt local values and culture will have a more positive impact on the success of the program.

Dian Herdiana , is there any scientific evidence that microfinance has been able to reduce poverty in Indonesia that you can share? (What I have seen in my experience is not rigorous scientific studies but rather "technical reports of NGOs", i.e. nice bedtime stories made by NGOs to get more money from back donors)

some of the research examining microfinance, but in bahasa Indonesia

Article Pengembangan Keuangan Mikro untuk Pengentasan Kemiskinan

Conference Paper PENGENTASAN KEMISKINAN MELALUI LEMBAGA KEUANGAN MIKRO SYARIAH

I have read the paper on nano-finance and its look promising. However, like microfinance it may not overcome the problem of financial inclusion. That is why microfinance in Bangladesh is shifting toward SME loan. Because micro is so micro it could not serve a recipient's purpose. It may face same problem in terms of amount. Second thing is poor are not well organized to form such groups and save money. My field experience shows that people form group just to receive loan, they or the staffs do not have time to discuss other thing - main aim is ensure repayment. Thirdly, entrepreneurships develop may be the cost of other entrepreneurs as Bateman analysis of the Grameen telephone ladies. Therefore, the antipoverty program should be design considering the capability, opportunity and existing structure of a society, not a one-size-fit model.

Mohammad Shahjahan Chowdhury it depends on your definition of 'financial inclusion'. Nanofinance groups are formed by people who was not able to have access to formal (micro) financial institutions, so they create a group by themselves with their savings to provide (themselves) with loans: so in the presence of exclusion from the formal financial system, nanofinance generates grassroot non-institutional (but informal) financial inclusion, precisely for the excluded population.

I disagree also about group dynamics in nanofinance: these groups are fromed by people with strong social networks and encouraged by NGOs who care little about repayment and more focused in providing the groups with sustainable development services as women empowerment, income generating activities, climate change training, education, health and WASH, to name a few, all of which are inherently related to the SDGs and focus on lifting the people from multidimensional poverty. Whether these programs -and nanofinance programs in general- are successful or not, is a different story; but the provision of multidimensional antipoverty programs and bottom-up financial inclusion is clearly there.