The shoemaker in Turkey, the potato seller in Vietnam, and the weaver in Bolivia are among the billions of low-income entrepreneurs who make the world go round. They are also the type of people who can benefit significantly from microfinance. Every year, the Consultative Group To Assist The Poor (or CGAP) hosts a photo contest asking entrants to submit photos based around the idea of microfinance.The purpose of the contest is to give amateur and professional photographers a chance to show the different ways that poor households manage their financial lives and make their lives better through financial inclusion. Photo: South Asia Regional Winner – “Bricks Worker”, Bangladesh. A private enterprise worker is working at a brick field. These small businesses are creating new job opportunities for many poor people. (Photo by Moksumul Haque)

A woman dressed in traditional Oromo costume attends a swearing ceremony of the newly named 72nd Borana Pastoralist chief, “Aba Gada” Guyo Wariyo in Arero, Ethiopia on March 9, 2025. (Photo by Tiksa Negeri/Reuters)

A person watches the sunrise from the Edge observation deck at Hudson Yards on the first day of spring on March 20, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

In this Thursday, February 9, 2017 photo, a Bangladeshi boy pulls a rickshaw loaded with strips of leather at the highly polluted Hazaribagh tannery area in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hazardous, heavily polluting tanneries with workers as young as 14 supplied leather to companies that make shoes and handbags for Western brands, a nonprofit group that investigates supply chains says. (Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP Photo)

Women sells vegetables at Kaporo market in Conakry, Guinea Monday, September 13, 2021. (Photo by Sunday Alamba/AP Photo)

People line up to pay inside a Makro supermarket in Caracas, January 9, 2015. Venezuela's socialist government decreed an “economic emergency” on Friday that will expand its powers and published the first data in a year that shows the depth of a recession fueled by low oil prices and a sputtering state-led model. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

The Tribute in Light is seen behind the Empire State Building on September 10, 2011 in New York City. The Tribute in Light is an art installation honoring those who perished in the 9/11 attacks. New York City and the nation are preparing for the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on lower Manhattan which resulted in the deaths of 2,753 people at the World Trade Center. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)