On Wednesday, October 1st, the IED Program hosted Damian von Stauffenberg, Founder and Chairman of the Board at Microrate, to discuss microcredit and its role in development. As the world's first rating agency dedicated to evaluating the performance and risk in microfinance institutions and microfinance investment vehicles, Microrate’s primary goal is to promote growth in the microfinance industry by facilitating the efficient flow of money from capital markets to MFIs through independent evaluation and increased transparency. Mr. von Stauffenberg drew on his 25 years of experience at the World Bank and its private sector affiliate, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to provide a background of the microcredit industry. He specifically discussed how microcredit has been leveraged and limited in promoting development, and identified the potential of people as the source of success, stating that when you tap into those thousands of people in developing countries – “creative human capital” – and combine that with finances, extraordinary things happen.