Thomas Dichter has written a provocative and contraversial essay, Hype and Hope: The Worrisome State of the Microcredit Movement, in which he claims that microcredit is not nearly as good a tool as it's made out to be, and that what the world's poorest most need are good governance, clearer laws, less corruption and more development. I'm not enough of an expert in the field to judge the validity of his sources, but a bunch of smart people I respect are buzzing about it (often, but not always, disagreeing vehemently with it), so I'd say it's worth a read:
The truth is that microcredit changes poor people's lives marginally. It is a stretch to go from the modest microcredit impacts that emerge from the little serious research we do have to suggesting as the UN's International Year of Microcredit website does, that road side sellers of a few bananas, used clothes, a few tea bags, or even 50 kilos of rice, are budding entrepreneurs standing at the threshold of participation in the wider economy, and who play a key role in wealth creation. It’s just not so.
What would permanently help these poor people, and if not them, their children, are governments that get their acts together and provide structures, laws, and institutions under which people's evident interest in getting ahead in the world could be transformed into reality. Microcredit is not just a stopgap while we wait for that to happen. To the extent it is hyped as a genuine solution to poverty, it is a diversion.
Airport is a short film about a guy who goes on a plane journey, checks into a hotel and comes home -- but the wonderful gimmick is that the entire film consists of animated airport infographics of little ped-people interacting with each other and with ped-style illustrations of taxis, water-fountains and planes. It's utterly charming. 