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Conflicting views about the effectiveness of credit in addressing the needs and priorities of the poor are exemplified in the conflicting conclusions drawn by a number of recent evaluations into the effectiveness of these programmes in addressing the goal of women's empowerment in developing countries. The first part of this paper explores a sample of these conflicting evaluations from the Bangladesh context and points out that this conflict is not primarily empirical. A much more significant explanation lies in the fact that the evaluations are based on very differing models of power in the context of gender relations. None of the evaluations have sought out the perspectives of those who are the intended beneficiaries of these programmes: poor, rural women. Accordingly, the second half of the paper reports on a participatory evaluation of the empowerment impact of a rather different credit programme intended for …