Whole Story

@Grace: Thank you for your question. In order to assure the right partners with an appropriate methodology are selected, Whole Planet Foundation has a team of development professionals that live and travel throughout the developing world to conduct onsite due diligence and monitoring of our partners’ performance. This team conducts a site visit in order to select the microfinance partner and returns in person at least once during the grant period to monitor and evaluate, as well as conducting regular remote reviews. Whole Planet Foundation partners with Professor Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Trust in the state of Kerala which is not affected by the issues in Andhra Pradesh, India. The criticisms, like collection methods and interest rates of the Andhra Pradesh State Government are key factors that the Whole Planet Foundation programs team has looked at with all of our partners. The recent suicides in India are very unfortunate circumstances. Indeed these are not Whole Planet Foundation-supported borrowers as we partner only with global MFIs that share our philosophy and allow us absolute transparency into their practices and accounting for us to independently evaluate and monitor to guarantee that our borrowers are treated fairly and with respect. Suicide among the poor is rarely studied, but generally believed it is quite common and more prevalent than with the wealthier population. Being desperately poor is hard; life at that level surrounded by disease, malnutrition, daily backbreaking work for little pay, bleak outlook for change and death especially with the children are just some of the reasons depression leads to suicides. So, it is not surprising that some over-extended borrowers on top of everything else they have to deal with will chose suicide. A well run MFI takes great pain to make sure borrowers are not borrowing from multiple sources and that their credit load is manageable. However, as one can imagine, where money is involved, the unscrupulous abound. Our advice would be to ignore the sensationalist press reports always looking for the provocative. Thank you for supporting microcredit and for your thoughtful query.