Microfinance and Disability: A review of the literature and recommendations for practitioners and policy makers

Persons with disabilities living in low- and middle-income countries often struggle to obtain a job. Most of them turn to self-employment, so access to capital is thus a necessary ingredient for success. Nevertheless, it is generally observed that persons with disabilities have low access to microfinance services. The purpose of this chapter is to focus on how the use of microfinance schemes by persons with disabilities relates to, and possibly improves, employment rates and economic activities. The chapter aims at describing existing knowledge, lessons learned, limitations, challenges, and future potential. The authors combine the presented research with subjective judgment based on several years of experience from both academic microfinance research and practical microfinance work in the field to suggest future applications of microfinance to increasing equity at work for persons with disabilities.