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poor new opportunities for entrepreneurship. It also aims to promote empowerment
(especially among women) while enhancing social capital in poor communities. Our
findings, however, reflect a different picture. We found microfinance led to
increasing levels of indebtedness among already impoverished communities and
exacerbated economic, social and environmental vulnerabilities. Our findings
contribute to the emerging literature on the role of social capital in
developing entrepreneurial capabilities in poor communities by highlighting
processes whereby social capital can be undermined by market-based measures like
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