Writings

Books & chapters in books:

Full-length books:

Stuart Rutherford, The Poor and Their Money, Practical Action Publishing, UK, 2009. The first edition (2000) summed up Rutherford's ideas about money management by and for poor people. This new edition brings the story of the microfinance industry's interaction with the poor up to date.

Stuart Rutherford, The Pledge: ASA, Peasant Politics, and Microfinance in the Development of Bangladesh, Oxford University Press, New York, 2009. Tells the story of how ASA, an NGO, came to be one of the most effective microcredit providers

Portfolios of the Poor, with Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch and Orlanda Ruthven, Princton University Press, Princton NJ, 2009. About the financial diaries research done in Bangladesh, India and South Africa.

French and Spanish versions of The Poor and Their Money are available:

Comment les pauvres gerent leur argent,

Editions du Gret, Paris, 2002

ISBN 2-84586-241-5

Los Pobres y su Dinero, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, 2002

ISBN 968-859-459-8

Chapters in Books: date order newest first

Jim Roth and Stuart Rutherford, Long-term savings and insurance, in Craig Churchill, ed, Protecting the Poor, A microinsurance compendium, ILO 2006

ISBN 978-92-2-119254-1

Stuart Rutherford, Why Do the Poor Need Savings Services? in Madeline Hirschland, ed, Savings Services for the Poor, Kumarian, 2005. See the Kumarian website.

Thankom Arun, David Hulme, Imran Matin and Stuart Rutherford, Finance for the poor: the way forward? in Green, Kirkpatrick and Murinde, eds, Finance and Development, Surveys of Theory, Evidence and Policy, Cheltenham UK, 2005. Reports on findings from a major DFID contract as part of which the frist `financial diaries` were developed and completed

ISBN 1-84376-030-4

Stuart Rutherford, The Microfinance Market: Huge, Diverse, and Waiting for You, in Livelihood and Microfinance, ed Hotze Lont and Otto Hospes, Eburon, Delft, 2004. Can be ordered from the Eburon website.

Stuart Rutherford, Raising the Curtain on the 'microfinancial services era' in Microfinance: Evolution, Achievements and Challenges, ed Malcolm Harper, Practical Action (formerly ITDG) Publishing, Rugby, 2003

Reprinted from the Small Enterprise Development article (see below) see thePractical Action website

Stuart Rutherford, Malcolm Harper and John Grierson, Support for Livelihood Strategies, in Urban Livelihoods, A People-centred Approach to Reducing Poverty, Ed: Carole Rakodi with Tony Lloyd-Jones, Earthscan, London, 2002. See the Earthscan website

Charles Oberdorf, Ed, Microfinance: Conversations With the Experts, Accion International and Calmeadow, La Paz, 1999. Can be ordered from theAccion website.

Features interviews with Stuart Rutherford and eight other microfinance practitioners and writers

Stuart Rutherford, Informal Financial Services in Dhaka's Slums, in Who Needs Credit?, ed Geoffrey D Wood and Iffath A Sharif, University Press, Dhaka, 1997. Can be ordered from the Vedamswebsite.

Graham Wright, Mosharrof Hossain and Stuart Rutherford, Savings: Flexible Financial Services for the Poor, in Who Needs Credit?, ed Geoffrey D Wood and Iffath A Sharif, University Press, Dhaka, 1997. Can be ordered from theVedams website.

Stuart Rutherford, Executive Summary of Microfinance Capacity in Bangladesh, in Creating the Vision: Microfinancing the Poor in Asia-Pacific, ed I Getubig, J Remenyi and B Quinones, APDC, Kuala Lumpur, 1997. See the APDC website

Articles: date order newest first

This is a small selection of articles: email us for more titles on specific subjects

Stuart Rutherford, Money Talks: Conversations with Poor Households in Bangladesh about Managing Money, in Journal of Microfinance, Volume 5, Number 2, Winter 2003

reports on `financial diary` research in Bangladesh about the depth and variety of money management by poor households: available from EarthTrends here.

Imran Matin, David Hulme and Stuart Rutherford, Finance for the Poor: From Microcredit to Microfinancial Services, in Journal of International Development, Volume 14, Number 2, Wiley, Chichester UK, 2002: see the Wileywebsite.

Dr Imran Matin is a SafeSave Executive Board Member and Head of Research at BRAC, a large Bangladeshi NGO

Stuart Rutherford and Imran Matin, Exploring Client Preferences in Microfinance: Some Observations from SafeSave, CGAP Focus Note Number 18, October 2000, available at CGAP

describes the wide variety of ways in which SafeSave clients use the SafeSave services

Stuart Rutherford, Raising the Curtain on the 'microfinancial services era', CGAP Focus Note Number 15, May 2000, available at CGAP: a condensed version of the original article written for Small Enterprise Development (Small Enterprise Development, Volume 11, Number 1, IT [now Practical Action] Publications, London 2000). Discusses how to make microfinance more responsive to the needs and demands of its poor users.

Imran Matin, David Hulme and Stuart Rutherford, Financial Services for the Poor and Poorest: Deepening Understanding to Improve Provision, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, UK, Working Paper 9, 1999. Available on the IDPM website [full link yet to be created].

A critical appraisal of microfinance in Bangladesh at the end of the twentieth century

Stuart Rutherford, The Savings of the Poor, in Journal of International Development, Volume 10, Number 1, Wiley, Chichester UK, 1998. See the Wiley website.

An early article urging MFIs to get serious about savings at a time when most of them focused on microcredit.

Stuart Rutherford, A Critical Typology of Financial Services for the Poor, ActionAid, London, 1996, Working Paper 1. Available at CGAP.

Describes, through examples, the many ways in which poor people create or gain access to basic financial services. This early paper introduces material that was eventually used inThe Poor and Their Money.

ALSO:

Stuart Rutherford, SafeSave: managing the savings of the poor, in World Trend, Number 3 for 2004, Institute of Developing Economies, Chiba, Japan (in Japanese). See the IDE website. Explains the Poor and Their Money ideas to a Japanese audience

Research Reports: date order newest first

This is a small selection of such reports: email us for more titles on subjects such as: specific MFIs (BRAC, ASA, Grameen Bank, Proshika, CARE, BURO, Tangail and TRDEP in Bangladesh; Faulu in Kenya; SKIP in Cambodia, ActionAid in Vietnam, European Union in the Philippines, for example) and many covering general issues (donor views on microfinance in Bangladesh, SHGs in India, the role of savings in the money management of the poor, for example)

Stuart Rutherford with Maniruzzaman, S K Sinha and Acnabin and Co, Grameen II: The First Five Years, for MicroSave, 2006. Get the PDF file from the MicroSave website.

Reports on field-level research into the success of Grameen's new products (which have brought Grameen much closer toThe Poor and Their Money principles).

There is also a series of 2-page Briefing Notes on important aspects of the Grameen II research.

Jonathan Morduch and Stuart Rutherford, Microfinance: analytical issues for India, for World Bank, India, April 2003.

Discusses what lessons Asian microfinance might hold for India. Read it here as a PDF file [link yet to be created]

Stuart Rutherford and Mark Staehle, Innovative Approaches to Delivering MicroFinance Services: The case of VSSU, West Bengal, for MicroSave, July 2002. Read it here as a PDF file [link yet to be created]

a case study of a small but growing informal microfinance provider that is striking out in its own way

Stuart Rutherford with S K Sinha and Shyra Aktar, BURO, Tangail: Product Development Review, BURO, Tangail, Dhaka, 2001. Describes the products of this innovative Bangladesh MFI (of which the Finance Director, Mosharrof Hossain, is a SafeSave Executive Board Member). Enquire at BURO.

Stuart Rutherford (author) with Leonard Mutesasira, Henry Sempangi, Harry Mugwanga, John Kashangaki, Florence Maximambali, Christopher Lwoga, David Hulme, and Graham Wright, Savings and the Poor: the methods, use and impact of savings by the poor of East Africa, MicroSave, 1999. Available here in PDF format. An early MicroSave exploration of how poor people manage money in three East African countries

Stuart Rutherford and Sukhwinder Singh Arora, City Savers: How the poor, the DFID and its partners are promoting financial services in urban India, DFID India Urban Poverty Office, Delhi, 1997

Written with Sukhwinder Arora, who persuaded Rutherford to write The Poor and Their Money, this paper describes research in India's slums