Figure 2 comes from Kiva, the San Francisco-based microfinance institution, and is not a common image when analyzing the large amount of material and practice of microcredit and microfinance, which focuses almost exclusively on women. As of May 2008, the most popular form of microcredit, Grameen Bank had 1.5 million borrowers, 97% of whom were women (Ahmed 2008:128). Harper suggests that women's case is based on the fact that women tend to have less access to anything, find it difficult to resist repayment pressures, are more likely to accept standardized loan and repayment terms, and are seen as more predictable in terms of reimbursement. terms of customer behavior (Harper 2011:55). Perhaps this illustrates an overly simplistic view of gendered models of microfinance, but it does not speak to the barriers men face when trying to access MFIs, which are predominantly aimed at women. The borrower is a Yemeni man in his thirties who is seeking a loan to purchase building materials to renovate the family home. The lending business itself is probably not a cheap venture, but it is an important one nonetheless. Kiva attempts to do microlending a little differently, allowing borrowers access to capital for a multitude of reasons and then categorizing assets based on topics like Adnan, the topic in Figure 2. Kiva also heavily emphasizes the “factor of human connection,” being able to see and get to know borrowers through customizable profiles. Nonetheless, Kiva appears to operate generally like any other MFI, with broad coverage on location, borrower terms, and rate of return. Now, since Adnan's lending business is not inherently cheap, questions about repayments... middle of paper... Hope: Essays on the Reality of Scientific Studies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Rist, Gilbert. 2002. “Some Reflections on What Needs to Be Done.” Pp 238-248 in The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith. London, England: Zed Books.Rostow, WW 1960. “The Five Stages of Growth.” Pp 4-16 in The Phases of Economic Growth, a Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press. Seibel, Hans Dieter and Fabrizio Felloni. 2005. “Integrating Banking with the Poor in the Philippines.” Internationales Asienform 36(3/4): 361-375.Taylor, Marcus. 2011. “Freedom from Poverty Is Not Free: Rural Development and the Microfinance Crisis in Andhra Pradesh, India.” Journal of Agrarian Change 11(4): 484-504. United Nations Microfinance and Capital Development. 2014. “Who we are”. “What We Do” Retrieved April 7, 2014 (http://www.uncdf.org