Resource guide on Microfinance

Microfinance is the provision of financial services to the poor on a sustainable basis. Financial services that the working poor need and demand include different types of credit, savings, guarantees, insurance, transfer payments, remittances and other transactions. Microfinance is addressed to the poor and those excluded from market transactions. It seeks to broaden and deepen the market by emphasizing that ultimately microfinance institutions have to be sustainable, i.e. self-financing.

Microfinance that is oriented towards decent work is “social” finance. This emphasizes the finality and unique angle of the ILO’s interest and involvement. Social finance is the ILO’s accepted and recognized brand in this field, signalling its distinctive position and identity, andcommunicating to donors and the outside world in general the ultimate purpose of the ILO’s conceptual and policy work on microfinance.

ILO policy statement : microfinance for decent work, ILO Governing Body, 294th session, 2005

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List of ILO Conventions and Recommendations dealing with microfinance.

Conventions

• C29 Forced Labour Convention, 1930
• C97 Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949
• C117 Social Policy (Basic Aims and Standards) Convention, 1962
• C168 Employment Promotion and Protection against Unemployment Convention, 1988
• C169 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989

Recommendations

• R48 Seamen's Welfare in Ports Recommendation, 1936
• R86 Migration for Employment Recommendation (Revised), 1949
• R99 Vocational Rehabilitation (Disabled) Recommendation, 1955
• R100 Protection of Migrant Workers (Underdeveloped Countries) Recommendation, 1955
• R104 Indigenous and Tribal Populations Recommendation, 1957
• R110 Plantations Recommendation, 1958
• R115 Workers' Housing Recommendation, 1961
• R122 Employment Policy Recommendation, 1964
• R127 Co-operatives (Developing Countries) Recommendation, 1966
• R132 Tenants and Share-croppers Recommendation, 1968
• R136 Special Youth Schemes Recommendation, 1970
• R137 Vocational Training (Seafarers) Recommendation, 1970
• R149 Rural Workers' Organisations Recommendation, 1975
• R150 Human Resources Development Recommendation, 1975
• R168 Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) Recommendation, 1983
• R169 Employment Policy (Supplementary Provisions) Recommendation, 1984
• R173 Seafarers' Welfare Recommendation, 1987
• R176 Employment Promotion and Protection against Unemployment Recommendation, 1988
• R184 Home Work Recommendation, 1996
• R189 Job Creation in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Recommendation, 1998
• R193 Promotion of Cooperatives Recommendation, 2002

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