Grameen Banking in Metro Manila, Philippines: Religion and other factors in borrower and program performance

This dissertation examines the confluence of two social phenomena among the urban poor people in Metro Manila, Philippines. Grameen Banking, an effective strategy of poverty alleviation in Bangladesh, is now being used by over 30 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines to reach more than 20,000 people. Many of these NGOs are church-related and a number of them are evangelical Protestant. Evangelical Protestants are growing at a very rapid rate in the country. In 1991 there were over 19,000 evangelical Protestant churches and their numbers were increasing over nine percent per year. An effective response made by the Philippine Roman Catholic Church has been the acceptance of a very rapidly growing indigenous Catholic Charismatic movement called El Shaddai.;Within the context of Grameen Banking and the current religious change in the country, this research examines three main questions. (1) Does religion make a difference in the success of Grameen Banking? (2) If it does, how does it determine the performance of the borrowers and the NGOs conducting the programs? (3) What other factors help explain borrower and NGO performance?;The study compares three NGOs doing Grameen Banking in Metro Manila, one Roman Catholic, one evangelical Protestant, and one secular. Over a time period of 18 months from 1992 until 1994, approximately 30 borrowers in each program were interviewed and their weekly Grameen Bank meetings were observed. Extensive data were also gathered from NGO staff and records.;The results indicate that borrower performance was most strongly related to how well the NGOs implemented the program and membership in paluwagans, the Philippine version of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) found throughout the world. Religion, as measured by religious identification and a multi-dimensional religiosity scale, does not make a statistically significant difference in any indicator of borrower performance during the time frame of the study. However, religion does influence NGO performance in both positive and negative ways.;For the NGOs, learning and management capacities, stimulating competent local leadership, and a manageable rate of growth were important. No NGO was financially self-sustaining and their commitment to sustainability varied.