A Proposed Islamic Microfinance Impact Assessment Methodology

Impact assessment of microfinance programs have been remained the foremost concern of microfinance stakeholders for optimal policy measures. The existing literature regarding the impact assessment varies from parametric to experimental methods to evaluate the performance of microfinance programs across the world however; the literature is lacking a single measure to reveal maximum possible changes in socioeconomic variables resulting from microfinance institutions’ intervention. This study aims to develop a composite index for evaluating the performance of microfinance programs in multi-dimensional contexts. The study exposes a set of eight “diverse indicators” to evaluate the performance of a microfinance program on a wider socioeconomic scale. The dimensions of the index are consist of economic (Income, saving) and socioeconomic (poverty, access to basic facilities, family empowerment) indicators. The changes in deprivations of household, based on the selected indicators, reveal the intensity of success of a microfinance program towards their goals. Finally, we have developed an index by the interaction of incidence and intensity of socioeconomic deprivations. The index is named as “Multidimensional Microfinance Deprivation Index”. This is an index developed in the same line as multidimensional poverty index. The implications of this study are three folds; firstly, it will open up a new dimension of literature in the field of microfinance including Islamic microfinance by instigating an important area. Secondly, it may provide a better alternative to microfinance’s stakeholders to investigate the impact assessment of microfinance programs on a wider socioeconomic scale rather than a few economic. Last but not the least, the study integrates diverse socioeconomic indicators, after assigning weights and adjustment to portray an overall picture of the performance of microfinance in terms of uplifting the socioeconomic conditions of the poor and financially marginalized people.

Molecular Characterization of Local Human Extraintestinal Escherichia Coli Isolates

Extraintestinal pathogenic E.coli are major pathogens responsible for causing urinary tract infections. These are associated with multiple drug resistance (MDR) and high virulence. A triplex PCR was employed to segregate each isolate into different phylogenetic groups. Among fifty nine uropathogenic E.coli isolates majority belonged to phylogenetic group B2 (50%) where as 19% each belonged to groups A and B1, and 12% to group D. Phylogenetic group D isolates were found to be less frequent but harbored multiple drug resistance and virulence related genes to a greater extent. Drug resistance was evaluated by disc diffusion method and relevant drug resistance gene detection. It was found that most effective drugs were gentamicin and amikacin among aminoglycosides; aztreonam, ceftriaxone, cefoperazone and cefixime among β lactams, and ciprofloxacin among quinolones. Streptomycin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, tetracycline and nalidixic acid were relatively ineffective. Chloramphenicol was found to be very effective for urinary tract infections. Highly prevalent drug resistance gene was mutated gyrA (83%) followed by tem (46%), bltTEM (41%), tetB (34%), catP (31%), and tem β lactamase (15%); blaSHV and tetA were not detected. Among virulence related genes most prevalent was hlyA (37%) followed by sfaDE (27%), papC (24%), cnf1 (20%), eae A (19%) and afaBC3 (14%). Some of isolates were highly hemolytic to human erythrocytes and some were highly cytotoxic to Vero cells. Highly hemolytic isolates mainly belonged to group D, where as highly verotoxic isolates belonged to group B2 followed by group D. It was also noted that in cnf1 negative isolates cytotoxicity was related to papC, sfaDE, afaBC3, eae A and hlyA genes.