The Pledge: ASA, Peasant Politics, and Microfinance in the Development of Bangladesh

by Stuart Rutherford

The Association for Social Advancement (ASA) of Bangladesh recently topped Forbes magazine's first-ever list of the world's best microfinance banks. This is an extraordinary achievement for an organization that started life as a revolutionary movement aiming to bring a peasant-led government to the newly created and desperately poor South Asian nation of Bangladesh. This book tells the story of how ASA's determined but practical-minded founder and leader, Shafiqual Haque Choudhury, steered his organization through the maze of competing ideas about how best to develop poor countries. The book sets Choudhury's accomplishments in the context of Bangladesh's chaotic but inspiring postcolonial history and is rich in its understanding and descriptions of how ordinary village and slum dwellers deal with the complicated web of politics, international donations, and development expertise. The author's long and intimate knowledge of ASA and of Bangladeshi microfinance makes this one of the
best case studies of a development organization available to the general public.

Genres: Business

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

An independent researcher and consultant in financial services for the poor, especially in south and south-east Asia, Stuart Rutherford has lived in Bangladesh since late 1984. He concentrates on imagining and field-testing innovative financial services schemes for the very poor in the countryside and in the towns. He also writes, helps local NGOs to develop financial services schemes, and provides consultancy services to a wide range of clients.

As a practitioner: Stuart Rutherford is the founder and Chairman of SafeSave, a financial services Co-operative which pioneers ultra-flexible savings and loans services for urban and rural poor in Bangladesh. He helped a Co-operative Bank replicate an earlier version of the SafeSave model and that scheme now has over 30,000 accounts. He is also a Board Member of ASA, a Bangladeshi NGO which is the world’s fastest growing and most cost-effective microfinance institution for the poor. He runs Binimoy, a not-for-profit venture which promotes innovation in financial services for the poor and develops products.

As a writer: In late 1995 Stuart Rutherford published the first full-length book which examines NGO involvement in micro-finance in Bangladesh from an historical and critical perspective. He has also published two medium-length works on user-owned financial services, (commissioned and published by DFID [official British aid] and ActionAid) and has contributed articles to academic journals. He is a Visiting Research Fellow of the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester, UK.

As a consultant: Stuart Rutherford has carried out field-work commissions, including research studies, product design, and programme evaluations, for many clients including DFID, ADB, EU and many NGOs including Oxfam, CARE, Save the Children, ASA, Proshika, and ActionAid. He first came to Bangladesh as Country Director (1984-1990) of ActionAid's development programme in Bangladesh, where he devised and executed a system of offering savings and credit facilities to over 20,000 landless families in a remote southern District of the country, and set up the first-ever urban replication of the Grameen system. The programme was supported by funds from several major donors. He is also working as Advisor to ActionAid's Vietnam programme, where he has developed a savings and loan bank for poor communities of indigenous people in the northern mountain areas.

Stuart Rutherford has a first class degree from Cambridge University (1966), and is also a qualified architect. He speaks good Bengali, and is in good health.