391472

Assessing the Trade-off between Outreach and Financial Sustainability of the Microfinance Industry in the MENA Region

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Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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إدارة الأعمال

Abstract

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the reduction of poverty remains one of the most critical Sustainable Development Goals yet to be achieved. The region has experienced several shocks over the last decade. This has led to high unemployment particularly among young people and females, and this has affected both poverty levels and human well-being. Access to financial services plays a vital role in eliminating poverty in the region. One of the main tools to improve financial inclusion in the region is Microfinance (MF). However, for microfinance intuitions (MFIs) to meet the demands of the market, they need to focus on achieving ‘The Microfinance Dual mission'; outreach to the poor, and financial sustainability. The complementary role of social outreach and financial sustainability is highly promising for both welfarists who strive to employ MFIs to alleviate poverty and institutionalists who advocate for attaining financial sustainability. This study assesses whether there is a trade-off between financial sustainability and outreach to the poor in MFIs in the MENA region. In assessing the simultaneous relationships that exist between outreach and financial sustainability, the GMM estimator was used with balanced panel data consisting of sample of 20 MFIs from 10 countries in the MENA region; a total of 300 observations over the period between 2004 and 2018. The study examines the simultaneous relationships that exist between two endogeneity variables: Sustainability variable measured by (ROA and OSS), and outreach variable measured by average loan balance per borrower/ GNI per capita, number of active borrowers, and proportion of women borrowers. The findings show that; a) Increases in sustainability are positively associated with greater breadth of outreach, b) increases in sustainability result in a decrease in average loan balance per borrower; implying a better depth of outreach. The study finds no evidence of a trade-off. The thesis advances a better understanding of the Microfinance dual mission and contributes to addressing an existing gap in knowledge by building a more comprehensive model that could guide policymakers in the microfinance sector regarding attaining better social outreach and financial inclusion.  

DOI

10.21608/jces.2024.391472

Keywords

Financial Sustainability, Outreach, trade-off, MENA region, GMM, Simultaneous Equation Model

Authors

First Name

Lamiaa

Last Name

Farouk El.Azzazy

MiddleName

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Affiliation

College of Management, Finance Department, Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport, Cairo, Egypt

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Orcid

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First Name

Peng

Last Name

Zhou

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Affiliation

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Email

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Orcid

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First Name

Claire

Last Name

Haven-Tang

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

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Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Ashraf

Last Name

Labib

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

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Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Marwa

Last Name

Tarek

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

-

Email

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Orcid

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Volume

15

Article Issue

3

Related Issue

48574

Issue Date

2024-07-01

Receive Date

2024-07-01

Publish Date

2024-09-30

Page Start

1,234

Page End

1,280

Print ISSN

2090-3782

Link

https://jces.journals.ekb.eg/article_391472.html

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https://jces.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=391472

Order

73

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

986

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

المجلة العلمية للدراسات التجارية والبيئية

Publication Link

https://jces.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Assessing the Trade-off between Outreach and Financial Sustainability of the Microfinance Industry in the MENA Region

Details

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Article

Created At

24 Dec 2024