标题：Financial Sustainability of Non-Governmental Microfinance Institutions (MFIs): A Cost-Efficiency Analysis of BRAC, ASA, and PROSHIKA from Bangladesh
摘要：Microcredit for poverty alleviation program got huge success in many parts of the world in reducing income-poverty and human-poverty. The progress on human poverty reduction was faster than the income-poverty. There are insignificant researches of financial efficiency of microcredit delivery programs undertaken by the Microfinance Institutions (MFI). The objective of this paper is to measure the cost-efficiency of three leading micro-finance providers: BRAC, ASA, and PROSHIKA from Bangladesh. The paper intends to achieve five years X-efficiency scores for the above-mentioned micro-finance providers. In the light of this main objective, the specific two objectives of this study are: (i) To find efficiency score of these three NGOs for the study years to identify the best and poor practices; and, (ii) To analyse the potential improvement. We investigate financial efficiency of the group-based lending institutions by using data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is a frontier approach. The study finds that the credit program of BRAC-1998, BRAC-2000, and PROSHIKA-1998 were 100% efficient in output maximization and PROSHIKA1998, BRAC 1998, and PROSHIKA-2000 were 100% efficient in input minimization. However, the micro credit program of BRAC, ASA, and PROSHIKA were not efficient for the year 1999. The other study period for the three micro-finance providers were less than 100% efficient in both input minimisation and output maximization problem. Our findings imply that the improvement of micro-finance programs in poverty alleviation requires changes both at program & providers levels as well as at the policy level of donors and/or other organizations who provide funds to these microfinance providers.
