CONTENTS List of Figures III List of Tables III List of Boxes IV Acronyms V Executive Summary 1 1. Introduction 9 1.1. Introduction and Relevance of study 9 1.2. Research Question, Aim and Objective 12 1.3. Methodology 12 1.4. Scope and Limitations 13 2. Microfinance and Poverty: An Understanding 17 Section A-Microfinance 17 2.1. Financial Service providers 17 2.2. Microcredit and Beyond 20 2.3. Overview and Growth of Microfinance in India 22 2.4. Microfinance and Existing Group Models 24 2.5. Issues in urban microfinance provision 26 Section B-Who Do we call POOR? 28 2.6. Poverty and its Measurement 28 2.7. Poverty in India 29 2.8. Urban Poverty 30 Section C-Poor and their Financial Needs 32 2.9. Why do poor need financial services? 33 2.10. How poor are the clients? 35 Section D- Impact of Microfinance on Poor: What do we know so far? 37 2.11. Microfinance and Living Conditions 37 2.12. Microfinance and Economic Conditions 41 3. Program context: Ahmedabad and SEWA Bank 47 Section A: Ahmedabad city and urban poor 47 3.1. Slums in Ahmedabad 48 3.2. Programs and Policies related to Poverty alleviation 49 Section B-SEWA in Ahmedabad 51 3.3. Microfinance Institutions in Ahmedabad 51 3.4. SEWA and its Products 52 4. Research Design, Method and Sample selection 60 4.1. Preliminary studies 60 4.2. Case studies 60 4.3. The Postulates 61 4.4. Questionnaire formulation 63 4.5. Sample design 64 5. Measuring the Impact of Microfinance 70 5.1. Sample Introduction 70 5.2. Analysis of Client group and Control group 72 5.2.1. Socio-Economic analysis 73 5.2.2. Assets: Housing and Non-Housing 81 5.2.3. Income and Expenditure 83 5.2.4. Savings and Investments 86 5.2.5. Loans and other Borrowings 88 5.2.6. Vulnerability Measure 91 5.2.7. Preparedness for future 95 5.2.8. Impact of Recession 95 6. Summary of findings, Conclusion and Recommendations 98 Appendices 106 Appendix 1: SEWA Bank's Summary of finance for savings and Credit 106 Appendix 2: Products of SEWA Bank 108 Appendix 3: Household survey Questionnaire 110 Glossary 115 Bibliography 119