Contenu du sommaire : La microfinance latino-américaine : entre commercialisation et nouvelles gauches

Microfinance and “New Left” in Latin America: An action research agenda This article aims to reflect the debates sparked by Latin America's New Left's criticisms of microfinance, which experienced a dramatic boom during the last decades of neoliberal policies. It reports on an international conference held in November 2012 in Antwerp, where about fifty participants shared their different national experiences as well as divergent analyses and views. The challenge of the conference was to get researchers and people involved in microfinance to talk with various “representatives” of Latin America's New Left. The conference, as well as this article, focused on papers analysing the financial inclusion strategies endorsed by these movements and aimed to determine microfinance prospects in this new political context. In conclusion, questions raised during the conference make it possible to outline the axes of a future research program on the issue.

Legitimacy in microfinance: An attempt to apply the field theory to the Latin-American situation While microfinance has sometimes been excessively praised, it is now sometimes overly criticized, particularly for being too commercial. It is thus time to question its legitimacy, and this article aims to contribute to this debate. For this purpose, the authors first present a framework of analysis inspired by the work by sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Luc Boltanski. They then explain the different trends in Latin-American microfinance, they confront recent statistics on the industry with these trends and finally confront the collected data with the proposed theoretical framework.

Microfinance in Latin America: Are there standard regulatory frameworks? Latin-American microfinance markets have been evolving in different ways for the last forty years. Some of them have been established in the most strategic regions of the world in terms of microfinance environment and regulation, while in other countries, the regulation of the industry is not even considered as a priority. These observations, among many others, bring up a number of questions: how has microfinance been regulated in Latin America? What differentiates the legal frameworks of each country? Have some standard regulatory frameworks been defined in the region? To answer those questions, the authors will analyse how 17 Latin-American countries have regulated their microfinance markets, and they will identify four contrasted frameworks that define the legal frameworks of the surveyed countries.

Paradoxical outcomes of the social movement opposing “neoliberal” microfinance in Nicaragua: A political analysis
In “progressive circles”, microfinance is often denounced as a neoliberal project against the poor's interests. The recent crises and rebellions led by the customers are seen in a positive light and would announce the end of the “microfinance paradigm”. This study of the Nicaraguan crisis emphasizes the variegated nature of microfinance and exposes the paradoxical outcomes of the crisis: reconcentration on petty commercial microcredit and increased power of agribusiness elites. It illustrates the need for more careful political analysis and innovative alliances for rural change.

Child labour in cocoa growing communities in Côte d'Ivoire. For a reconciliation between local norms and international norms around the machete, the "bic" and the broom
Despite years of mobilization to address the issue of child labour in cocoa growing communities, few progress have been made, particularly in Côte d'Ivoire. Inside communities, sensitized or not, children are still going to the cocoa farms with their parents and relatives. This study demonstrates that child labour is linked with social norms in rural societies. These social norms seem to be in contradiction with the international norms on childhood, labour and social protection. While learning through labour is a central aspect of the child socialization in Ivoirian communities, it also expresses education and training, with the permanent use of the tools of economic (machete), social ("Bic", i.e pen) and cultural (broom) knowledge. Participation to the plantation work, domestic chores, and formal school attendance are adding up to an indivisible whole which allows child to help his family and to insure himself a future. Thus, the international norms and standards appear to be hardly adapted and would need to be contextualized before being implemented at community level.

The lures of “education for all children” in Karnataka. The case of child labor policies in India
Policies of elimination of child labor are criticized for their incapacities to improve the livelihoods of child laborers. From a case study of policies based on bridge schools programs in Karnataka, we identify two more negative side effects. Firstly, they are unsuitable for macroeconomic development. Secondly, they bring news mechanisms of social discrimination against child laborers.

The difficulties of regional economic integration in the Maghreb countries
Regional economic integration is based on two pillars: Economic, with the intensification of trade flows in the context of regionalisation of trade. Political, with the establishment of inter-state relations under an institutional regionalism. Thus, for the case of Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia). We consider a twofold paradox: the first one concerns the political regionalism without the regionalization of Intra-Maghreb trade. The second one is about the regionalization without Euro-Maghreb regionalism. After having recalled the difference between regionalism and regionalization, we emphasize a weak form of regionalization of the economic Maghreb area which is associated to several attempts of political regionalism. Therefore, we analyze the new European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which is developed in the wake of the Arab Spring. In other words, a new strategy wavers between the regional integration of the Maghreb bloc against a differentiation of each of the Maghreb countries.

The lack of a precise definition of the concept of developing countries to the WTO: a handicap for its functioning
In this paper, we study the consequences of the absence of a precise definition of the notion of developing countries in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Negotiations engaged since 2001 in the Doha round cannot, in our opinion, find a way other than taking into account the heterogeneity of this group, which requires a reinforced and progressive differentiation between developing countries. This assumes to define a new special and differential treatment so that from low and diluted, it becomes an asset by its increased efficiency and legitimacy in the service of the countries which need it most.

Tourism after the end of cheap oil: from personal preference to most likely scenario. An exploratory study
Given that oil resources are becoming increasingly depleted, this study seeks to explore different models for « tourism after the end of the oil era ». After a series of discussions with experts in the tourist industry – in the French speaking world and overseas –, we drew up what we believe to be 5 possible scenarios for the post-oil tourism. Then we conducted a survey amongst 271 individuals in order to gauge their personal preference (n = 141) and then also to assess which scenario they believed would be the most probable in reality (n = 130). The results of this survey reveal a distinct preference for what we have chosen to call virtuous mass-tourism, as opposed to virtual tourism or immobilization. The results demonstrate a distinct correlation between the opinion of experts in the trade and “tomorrow's tourists”.