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The problem, quite simply is that the concept of microcredit has been oversold dramatically, when it's broader access to financial services that is important.
Unfortunately, funnelling donor money into microloans is signficantly easier and sexier than doing the kind of work that really results in well-developed financial sectors:
regulation and regulator capacity
credit bureaus
infrastructure for clearing
markets for factoring loan portfolios
Ultimately, a microloan as traditionally designed is really only good for providing basic working capital for an urban vendor - someone with a booth in the village market reselling fruit or phone cards.
When cash flows are irregular or backloaded (like in agriculture - if I grow some maize, I have a sizable investment up front in seed and fertilizer that I hopefully recoup at harvest time when I sell it) a different type of loan structure is required.
In other cases, loans might not even be appropriate - perhaps savings, remittance services or insurance. Perhaps the person wants a loan for a house, or to send their child to university. All of these things at their core contribute to economic growth and help lift people out of poverty.
The successful microfinance players in 10 years will be those that work to become regulated full-service financial institutions and emphasize a range of products for poor consumers, not just narrowly defined microcredit. These successful institutions will also have lobbied for the development of insfrastructure like credit bureaus and well-developed regulation that helps the industry grow.
