Despite the global credit crunch, social entrepreneurs are continuing to invest in hope. Oikocredit – one of the leading financiers of microfinance – has decided to pay a dividend of 2% to its members for the 15th year in a row.

Everyone is talking about the 'credit crunch'. Patrick Hynes, from Oikocredit, reflects on how access to fair finance continues to be a problem for people who are poor, and proposes a simple solution.

Harnessing the power of the market to help solve the problems of global poverty, hunger and inequality is both possible and necessary, a Nobel Peace Prize winner told an invited audience of specialists in London on Thursday night.

The UK wing of the global social investment initiative Oikocredit has teamed up with the Livesimply campaign to promote a shared vision for social justice. Oikocredit provides vital loans to creative but impoverished communities.

Oikocredit, a global member-based social investment co-operative which makes small loans to hundreds of vital development projects, has expressed hope that it will "really take off" in the UK after receiving its first major contribution.