Foreign Policy In Focus asked the Microcredit Summit Campaign’s Sam Daley-Harris to respond to the question of whether microcredit is the solution to global poverty or whether its benefits have been oversold. Robert Pollin, who also provided this FPIF analysis of microcredit’s plusses and minuses, responds to Daley-Harris below. Finally, Felicia Montgomery also of the Microcredit Summit Campaign responds to Pollin.

Making credit accessible to poor people is a laudable aim. But as a tool for fighting global poverty, microcredit should be judged by its effectiveness, not good intentions.