African Indigenous Financial Institutions

This book examines engagements with financial services in contexts of conflict. Using Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as case studies, it explores informal financial and business strategies and how these shift during conflict. Through a combination of regression analyses and panel data modeling with fixed effects, the project research indicates that conflict has a stronger effect on the nature of demand for credit and savings services than it has on the actual performance of financial institutions. In examining these patterns, the importance of networks and family becomes increasingly importantnot just in the ways they are important to us as individuals, but as important determinants of post-war outcomes.

The research indicates thorough demand for financial services in African countries Sheds a light on the missing question of post-conflict microfinance efficiency Illuminates some of the problems faced by microfinance users in insecure environments

Autorentext
Julia Smith-Omomo is an independent researcher in Washington DC, USA. Previously, she was Field Operations Director for Mavuno, an agricultural development NGO in the DRC. She has also been a subcontractor for the United States Department of Agriculture, a visiting student researcher at Princeton University, and a program officer with the International Organization for Migration's Mission in Iraq.

Inhalt

1. Chapter 1 Introduction.- 2. Chapter 2 Certainty Premiums and Cognitive Loads.- 3. Chapter 3 Monrovia Burning. 4. Chapter 4 Shadows are Weaker.- 5. Chapter 5 What's War got to Do with this?.- 6. Chapter 6 Is Microfinance by Itself Transformative in Post-Conflict Contexts?.- 7. Chapter 7 Social behavioural Changes.- 8. Chapter 8 Stress Limits and Sparse Networks.- 9. Chapter 9 No Easy Answers.