Launch text of the Alliance Solidarity Finance workshop: Solidarity finance and Social Ties – 15th January 2001

Reflection on the concept of « social capital » and « social tie » allow us to understand the distinction between minimalist and hard-line approaches of micro-finance and to observe how solidarity finance can be a means to fight poverty and to promote human development.

In 2000, INASIA, a network of Asian institutions, launched a vast program of capitalisation of experiences which gives us an outline of the first results in term of impact on existing social capital and the emergence of new capital emergence. With the emergence of numerous economic initiatives, it is becoming more and more necessary to define criteria of solidarity finance in order to establish a « quality-label ».