A recent paper co-authored by King’s academics argues that microfinance, often projected as a means of coping with climate risk, in fact contributes to farmers in Cambodia being in greater debt and more vulnerable to climate change.
Dr. Nithya Natarajan (Department of International Development) and Professor Katherine Brickell (Department of Geography) are co-authors on the open access paper “Depleted by Debt: “Green’ Microfinance, Over-Indebtedness, and Social Reproduction in Climate-Vulnerable Cambodia” published in Antipode.
The paper examines the impact of microfinance in Cambodia, a country that is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and dependent on farming for livelihood. The study notes that overall temperatures in the region have increased by 0.9°C since 1960, particularly affecting agricultural occupations.
In full: https://phys.org/news/2023-09-microfinance-exacerbating-climate-precarity-cambodia.html
