As we continued with our pro-poor initiatives, we realized that simply microfinance can't achieve our ultimate goal of poverty alleviation and women empowerment. We had to look beyond credit interventions. The need of the hour was to ensure holistic development of poor …and that was possible only through credit plus interventions. This led to our first attempt towards development initiatives in 2006.

Today, Bandhan has some major development initiatives to talk about – health, education, livelihoods and a program aimed exclusively for the poorest of the poor. In June 2009, Bandhan collaborated with HSBC Bank and Tally India Private Limited in the sphere of skill development initiatives for tackling the unemployment scenario of Indian youths. Our development initiatives reached out to 71,624 poor families in less than four years …….. but we have long miles to travel as we aim to reach out to 1 million poor families by March 2014.

There are lots to share, but I would like to emphasize on some key thoughts………… one of them primarily being sustainability. It’s interesting to share that a sustainable MFI can only ensure sustainable development services. Knowledge on sustainability (gathered from our microfinance arena) has helped us to evolve a sustainable development package for the poor. In this regard, we are happy to share with you all that Bandhan has been able to develop a sustainable, innovative and standardized development model. All thanks to my team who has been made it possible.