Microcredit is a way of fighting poverty by providing small loans to people living in poverty so that they can build their small-scale business activities. Pioneered by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh under the direction of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Accion International in Latin America and others, the microcredit model emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Microcredit programs proved that people living in poverty could make good use of credit and other financial services which until then, they had rarely been able to access. As the concept of microcredit spread, organizations adapted it to fit the needs of other regions, economic climates, and populations -- urban and rural, literate and illiterate, male and female. Today microfinance activities include not just small loans, but also housing loans, savings programs and micro-insurance.