The establishment of sustainable Microfinance Institutions (MFI) that reach a large number of rural and urban poor who are not served by the conventional financial institutions, such as the commercial banks, has been a prime component of the new development strategy of Ethiopia. Healthy financial and operating performance of microfinance institutions is very important for their well functioning and to serve their clients properly. The motivating philosophy of this paper is that unless MFIs become viable and sustainable financial institutions, they can never fully realize their objective of...