NGO-PROMOTED WOMENS CREDIT PROGRAM, IMMUNIZATION COVERAGE, AND CHILD-MORTALITY IN RURAL BANGLADESH

A growing number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are adopting the collateral-free credit programs by anchoring them with their soci al development programs aimed at improved program effectiveness and su stainability. Drawing upon a sample of 3,564 targeted poor households covered by five small NGOs in rural Bangladesh, this study finds that the NGO credit-members as well as those who reside in the NGO program area are higher adopters of child immunization than those in the non-p rogram area. Similarly the study found that infant and child mortality is lower among the NGO credit members than among the non-members and that under five-year deaths of children progressively decline with the increase in the doses of vaccines. Implications of these findings are discussed in the study.