D&G Frontiers: Bridging Local Wisdom and Finance for Development

Jeffrey Ashe

Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia University, Director Grassroots Finance Action

Jeff Ashe is a microfinance pioneer. While serving as Acción International’s Senior Associate Director, he directed the first worldwide study of microfinance and designed, led and evaluated microfinance projects in thirty-five countries. This work included designing and leading Working Capital, honored by President Clinton at the White House for its microlending work in the United States.

In 2000, he abandoned credit and embraced savings. As Oxfam America’s Director of Community Finance, he led the Saving for Change (SfC) Initiative that grew to include 703,000 village women organized into 35,000 savings groups in five developing countries. (See: “In their Own Hands: How Savings Groups have Revolutionized Development.”)

More recently, he turned his attention to the informal savings circles that have enabled poor communities to survive and immigrant communities to thrive profiled in “Backyard Bankers” to be published in January 2025.

His most recent posts include:

- https://www.findevgateway.org/blog/2022/09/path-financial-inclusion-must- include-saving-small-groups

- https://nextbillion.net/yunus-was-wrong-savings-human-right-financial-inclusion-shift-focus/