Published by BRAC at Oct 27 2010 On Monday night, The Asia Society in partnership with The Schwab Foundation and WAM-NY, hosted a debate between SKS Chairperson and Founder, Vikram Akula and Grameen Foundation President and CEO, Alex Counts. The debate, which was moderated by Niki Armacost, Co-Founder of Arc Finance, focused on whether the for-profit approach in microfinance is the best way to take microlending to scale. Ms. Armacost put forth the claim that "for-profit microfinance is the ideal model for alleviating poverty globally" and invited Mr. Akula and Mr. Counts to debate it. In addition, Ms. Armacost pointed out scalability and affordability of loans as critical considerations in the debate.
