I just learned on Twitter  that today is Interdependence Day, the idea being that what one person does has an effect on the entire world.

I guess we really learned that lesson during the subprime crisis  and its aftermath, which is still wreaking havoc.

It is not surprising that, with the international banking community still traumatised, microcredit  is experiencing a revival.

Given its high repayment rates and social character, the microfinance industry is attracting a new influx of private capital with institutional investors transforming microcredit institutions, previously run like NGOs, into more formalised entities.

Good news for the poor and in particular for women?

Not so sure.

Women’s World Banking (WWB) has been studying this phenomenon and is warning the microfinance world against the dangers of the “mission drift” this transformation is causing.

WWB has discovered that the percentage of women clients served by formalised microfinance institutions tends to decline after their transformation.

In the fourth year after transformation, the average percentage of women borrowers usually drops from 77 to 60 per cent. This is due to lenders migrating from their original mission to serve low-income clients towards generating profits for their new shareholders and maintaining high-interest rates.

Women in the developing world, who are often illiterate and own no collateral, are the most vulnerable client group.

Microfinance  works. It provides communities with viable structures. The challenge of the coming years will be to make sure that it remains true to its roots. For multinationals operating in the developing world this challenge represents a unique opportunity to become involved in new type of initiative with the potential of ending poverty.

This is what Corporate Social Responsibility in the era of global interdependence is all about.

We communicators often end up upsetting somebody.

Whom  do you upset?

In my current job, I upset those people who think that using Web 2.0 to talk with employees and journalists is the equivalent of turning the comms function into the online version of Animal House (…. I would still like the Toga Party though).

In a job I had years ago, it happened when I was trying to convince management of the importance of treating CSR  as a core component of their message and not like a pet project.

Hearing Seth Godin speak at TED about the importance of challenging the status quo was immensely refreshing.

I know it is fashionable to hate banks.

I believe it was always fashionable to hate banks, even well before the subprime circus.

The reason being that banks are notoriously bad at bonding with the public.

In the post-Madoff era, you would think that they would go out of their way to shed off the stiff language of the past and try something new.

This is why watching Standard Chartered’s video “Building a Sustainable Business” made my heart sink.

Actually, my heart went out to the communicator who had to put the video together. Convincing senior management of the need to switch communications style can feel like a Sisyphean task in a financial institution. Believe me, I have been there.

It is time to go beyond worn-out lines like “reshaping the banking industry” and making “a contribution to broader challenges”.

People are too wary of banks these days. This kind of language does very little to comfort them.

So what is the answer?

Listening to the public.

In her latest book “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth”, Margaret Atwood writes about the collapse of a narrative according to which people for many years understood their lives. People’s trust in a society that encouraged them to incur debt has been destroyed.

How do you recover from that? The wounds are too deep. Banks will have to heal them first before thinking of rebuilding trust.

I did not know that women use 20,000 words every day, while men use only 7,000.

But I did know that half a billion women worldwide are still illiterate and 41 million girls are shut out of school gates because of poverty and prejudices.

I have blogged before about Queen Rania’s YouTube channel. I am a great fan.

This video makes a strong point about the advantages of female education in the developing world.

Educating girls is important and makes a lot of sense in both economic and geopolitical terms. Is the solution to the problem of female illiteracy going to come from governments? Or is social entrepreneurship going to provide the answer?

This week, I will be following the live video streaming of the Skoll World Forum on Social Enterpreneurship broadcasted from Oxford and I’ll be looking for ideas.

There was a time when talking about communications for NGOs would elicit big yawns.

Not any longer.

Check out this YouTube video produced by Avaaz.org, a global campaigning organisation. It features a talking fridge “sent back from the future”. “Coldy” talks about the importance of supporting green technology.

EU regulators in Brussels are expected to decide tomorrow about new efficiency standards for fridges, TVs and other household appliances.

Avaaz.org feels that the strong rules needed to cut Europe’s pollution are running the risk of being weakened by industrial lobbyists.

It is using the video to collect signatures for a petition. It was able to reach its target of 50,000 in one day.

There is something powerful about a YouTube video. It is perfect for bringing the cause of a NGO to life.

Times have changed. Social media have pumped new energy into NGO communications.

Last night, I attended a talk by Professor Malcom Harper organised by City Women’ s Network on the topic of microfinance.

Microfinance was pioneered by Professor Muhammad Yunus during the 1974 famine in Bangladesh. Prof. Yunus started by lending $27 to a woman who made bamboo furniture. He then went on to establish Grameen Bank, which continued lending small sums of money to the poor and unemployed. In 2006, Yunus and Grameen won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since the 1970s, Grameen has lent more than $5 billion to five million borrowers (more than 95% women).

Professor Harper, co-editor of the book “What is wrong with microfinance?”, is a staunch critic of a model that, he believes, drives poor people into debt. The problem, he says, is that microfinance starts from the debt end instead of educating people to save first and then take a loan. Prof. Harper compared microfinance institutions with the Raiffeisen Banken, which started off as cooperatives in rural parts of Germany and Austria, collecting money from the farmers and turning it into loans.

The problem is that you cannot compare the poverty of Bangladesh with that of the German or Austrian countryside in the 19th century. Bavarian farmers might not have been wealthy but they certainly had property (a cow, land, a farmhouse, seeds, etc.) that could be used as collateral for the loans they received from their Raiffeisen Bank. Poor people in Bangladesh don’t have this luxury; most of the times all they own are the clothes they have on their body.

Another criticism moved by Professor Harper  is that women are forced by the microfinance model into peer groups, which oblige them to cross-guarantee each other and to share the most intimate details of their financial situation. This shows how little Prof. Harper understands the dynamics of women’s groups. Women have a need for a sense of belonging. Even in industrialised countries, women get together in support groups to share intimate details of different aspects of their lives (career, child education, aging parents, etc.) and to receive support. In developing countries, organisations like Grameen Bank given women a support structure that strengthens their self-esteem and gives them the opportunity to make a living.

I guess there is a need out there for critics of microfinance like Prof. Harper to highlight the weaknesses of the model. However, the problem starts when critics resort to impossible comparisons and forget the circumstances under which microfinance organisations have to operate.

In my previous job, I had the enormous fortune to work with Prof. Yunus. I found his faith in humankind’s potential and the ability of poor people to work their way out of poverty highly inspiring. I remember how he told me that poor people have no memories of success and this is why they do not believe that their lives can change. Grameen has faith in people who have been taught for generations not to have faith in themselves.It is a pity that the importance of this message is lost on microfinance ‘insiders’ like Prof. Harper.