Assessing Credit Needs of the Rural Poor in Lao PDR : Microcredit, Microfinance, Poverty

The scope of this study is focused on the formal institutions such as VIP Project under ADP Program delivering microcredits over last 5 years. The research has been conducted with 50 sampled credit member households, who are involved in agriculture activities. Two villages are selected in order to have adequate number of samples or households who have availed credit. Main finding of this research is that rural households require more credit for investment in agriculture production due to limited credit for each of activities from the credit institutions or microcredit projects. In addition, rural poor need credit not only for agriculture and non-agriculture purposes but also for consumption, for daily needs, to compensate for lack of knowledge and skills that affect productivity, and for solving problems due to natural disasters. The research concludes that, limited credits are the major problems faced by the credit sources (VIP under ADP programs) as evidenced from the credit members.