December Global Health Grand Rounds: 'Poverty, the Un-banked, and Microfinance'

Ms. Ritu Chattree, M.B.A., an international finance and development executive with diverse for-profit and non-profit experience, delivered December’s Global Health Grand Rounds talk on “Poverty, the Unbanked, and Microfinance”.  Her lecture centered on poverty alleviation, paying particular attention to microcredit loans as a means of providing expanding opportunity for women and their families. She drew on her experience working with Muhammad Yunus at Grameen America to explain how microcredit loans can fill an important gap for "un-banked" and "under-banked" people in the United States as well as in developing countries. Ms. Chattree noted that although poverty may appear different in high-income countries compared to low- and middle-income countries, the limited opportunities in education, economic development, and healthcare are strikingly similar. Ms. Chattree concluded that microfinance, particularly targeted towards women, is an important way to improve health and education outcomes through poverty alleviation. 

Ritu Chattree (right) with Dr. Madelon Finkel (Director of the Office of Global Health Education at WCMC)

January’s Global Health Grand Rounds will be a panel discussion about South Sudan, featuring Satchit Balsari, M.D., M.P.H. (Director of the Global Emergency Medicine Program at WCMC), and Michael Vortmann, M.D. (Attending Physician at NYP Hospital). You can find out more about the Global Health Grand Rounds schedule here.