Exploring the Success of BRAC Tanzania’s Microcredit Programme

This paper examines BRAC’s microcredit program in Tanzania. It explores the conundrum BRAC faces with the exceptional, but possibly uneven, growth of the program in the country. The paper seeks to enquire into two aspects of the organization: how robust was BRAC during the time of the study and how well was it performing as an organization in meeting its own declared goals of sustaining a healthy microfinance program. The research for the paper is based on quantitative data from April 2011 to April 2013. It also draws inferences from observations of clients and staff interviews conducted between 2011 and 2013. The paper covers the following sections in detail:

• Discussion on research origins, questions, and methods;
• Introduction to BRAC’s work in microfinance;
• BRAC’s growth in Tanzania with a focus on branch performance over time, clients view about BRAC, and the views of BRAC’s staff;
• Concluding remarks regarding the performance of BRAC’s microcredit program in Tanzania.