The extreme focus on credit delivery has a strong negative effect on the ways of
measuring empowerment. As Hashemi et. al. (1996: 635) point out, the rapid
expansion of credit programs resulted in a growing emphasis on high repayment
rates, and financial efficiency and sustainability. Goetz and Sen Gupta (1996: 47)
state that credit program evaluations focus mostly on quantifiable results, and restrict
themselves simply to analyzing the financial costs to the programs and monetary
benefits to the borrowers. Therefore, women's high demand for loans, and their
regular repayment rates are taken as proxy indicators of empowerment (ibid.). As a
result, high numbers of women reached by credit programs, women's high repayment
rates, cost efficiency of credit programs, etc. are celebrated as success stories of
empowerment. Unfortunately, as Goetz and Sen Gupta (ibid.: 62) put it, "the concern