Microfinance has ushered in a new understanding of the needs of the poor and the potential for financial services to enable the poor to escape from poverty. Current literature argues over the way how microfinance has enabled users to climb above the poverty line.

This report explores how microfinance could boost current efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The relationships between specific Goal and microfinance are explored, together with the potential for mutual benefits between both. Why this potential has not been a higher priority for the microfinance sector is also considered.

This report argues that substantial synergies are yet to be realized between microfinance and Goals, based on careful, well- targeted approaches that are not only pro-poor, but also focus on the unique situation of the chronic poor.

Security of Tenure is one of the cornerstones of Millennium Development Goal 7 on the improvement of the lives of slum dwellers, and is the main focus of the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure

In most countries, a range of land rights and tenure types exists, which forms a continuum (from informal to formal). Whether tenure is informal or formal, it is usually understood, recorded and/or registered in the name of men, leaving women’s secure tenure often dependent on their relations with their in-laws. As women’s access to land and housing is often through their husbands or fathers, they may lose such access after widowhood, divorce, desertion, or male migration. While collective forms of tenure also include women, the decision-making processes are often dominated by men, excluding women from the important decisions regarding the land and housing.