Assessing the contribution of microfinance to SDGs: Evidence from emerging economies

This paper looked into microfinance penetration and its macro benefits in terms of achieving specific goals of sustainable development. Eight prominent microfinance practicing as well as emerging economies from three continents those who command more than 85% of the global clients and portfolio size are included for the study. Penetration ratios are used to understand the nuances of variations and random effect panel regression models are used to find the relationship of social performance of microfinance with macro development parameters representing some of the important SDGs. The findings suggest that microfinance has reached millions of clients by penetrating deep across countries, and contributed to macro development of their economy; particularly to the education of girl child captured through Gender Parity Index linked to SDG 5.