A deeply referenced piece of journalism exploring the promises and risks of global microfinance, told through the eyes of those working in small lending and the women borrowers in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

In the mid-1970s, Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist raised in America, met a poor woman making stools who needed money to expand her business. In an act marking the beginning of microfinance, Yunus lent $27 to 42 women, hoping that the small credit would help them escape poverty. Soon, Grameen Bank was born, and the very small, but often high-interest-rate loans to poor people grew. In 2006, Yunus and Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in fighting poverty through lending.

However, there is a problem with this story. There are growing concerns that these small loans are just as likely to bury poor people in debt as they are to lift them out of poverty, with borrowers facing consequences like imprisonment and forced sales of land. Many have reported committing suicide.

What happened? Did microfinance take a wrong turn, or was microfinance flawed from the start?

We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky is a story about unintended consequences, blind optimism, and the decades-long impacts of seemingly small policy choices, rooted in the stories of women borrowers in Sierra Leone. Kardas-Nelson asks: What happens when a single, finance-focused solution to global inequality ignores the real drivers of poverty? Who stands to gain and, more importantly, who gets left behind?

Pages: 400, Dimensions: 15.3x15.3cm