As the recession-hit economy counts the cost of this week’s snow we should turn our attention to a successful part of the financial industry: microfinance.

This initiative involves giving tiny loans to poor people, which are used to fund microbusinesses such as food stalls and tailoring enterprises.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign announced last week that over 100 million of the world’s poorest families have now received a loan through microfinance schemes, helping them on the way to lifting themselves out of poverty.

In Cambodia I visited a small recycling business run by a disabled man, Sambath, from his home in a squatters’ village near Siem Reap.

Start-up for the business was received as a small loan from a local NGO. Two years later Sambath was on his third loan, which he used to buy bicycles for three young men who were now working for him.

Microfinance really can help people to work their way out of poverty, while assisting the whole community.

While the news from the Microcredit Summit Campaign is an achievement to be proud of, it is estimated that only one in eight of the people who could benefit from microfinance currently has access to it.

As we seek to restrain some of the excesses that have led us to the current financial crisis, it is more important than ever that we continue to invest in this tried and tested method.

We can’t allow our financial woes to cause the hopes of the world’s poorest people to dry up.

JULIA MODERN, Boathouse Mandingo, Mount Place, Oxford