Thanks but I don’t see the words Dunham or Obama in that history? it would seem Ann Dunham did not develop micro finance since it originated in 1895.
Obama’s mother Ann looked over the Ford micro finance program she was developing...
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Your right. She had nothing to do with the origins of microfinance but she is known as a pioneer in microfinance applications.
From an interesting profile at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/index.php?id=4229&print=1
Dunham’s research and consulting work took her around the world. She became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up village credit programs, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta championing women’s issues, and later in 1986 she served in Pakistan as a consultant to the Asian Development Bank focusing on women’s welfare.
In 1988, she joined Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Indonesia’s oldest bank, and helped develop the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor, which enabled people from rural areas to engage in cottage industries and emerge from poverty.
As a pioneer in the field of microfinance, her anthropological research helped shape the policies set by the Bank. At present the Bank’s microfinance program is the world leader in terms of savers, with an average of 31 million members, according to MIX (Microfinance Information eXchange Inc.).
“Ann was a reformer,” noted Julia Suryakusuma, journalist and close friend of Dunham, during the EWC panel presentation. “Whether you agreed with her or not she always did things with the intent of changing and improving the situation.”
Exactly!