Social Performance Indicators Blog

Grameen Foundation Announces First Fully Certified PPI™ User: PRISMA Microfinance in Peru

Posted by: Mike Krell

In the latest PPI news, Grameen Foundation's Progress out of Poverty Index™ (PPI™) Certification Program has announced its first fully certified PPI user. Last week, PRISMA Microfinance of Peru became the first MFI to be validated in all three categories of certification: basic, advanced, and tracking over time. I’ve already written elsewhere about why the certification process itself is such a welcome development, but I’d like to tease out some implications of the PRISMA case.

Experienced PPI™ User Discusses Challenges

Posted by: Mike Krell

Muhammed Awais, the Regional Microfinance Programme Specialist for Plan International in Asia and a source for one of my past entries, has recently written a blog post for Grameen Foundation in which he describes the “Top Ten PPI Challenges.” Based in Bangkok, Awais has experience implementing the PPI at both the practitioner and network levels, and his list focuses mainly on MFI resistance to adopting the PPI. He addresses various criticisms leveled at the tool, such as that its basis is older socio-economic surveys or that it is too simple to be effective, while also highlighting a problem with the way the tool has been marketed (i.e. from a purely social performance perspective). It provides invaluable advice for individuals and institutions contemplating PPI implementation.

Taking the Initiative: PPI™ Peer Learning Networks

Posted by: Mike Krell

Muhammad Awais’ recent blog post about creating national PPI™ peer learning networks fits nicely with my previous post about the new PPI Certification Program. Awais, the Regional Microfinance Advisor for Plan International in Asia, talks about the challenges he and others faced in setting up a peer learning network to support MFIs wishing to implement the PPI in Cambodia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In essence, his post looks at the the flip side of what I addressed in my recent post (and he’s also more directly involved in the whole process than I am). While I examine what might be considered a top-down approach to helping MFIs implement the PPI tool properly and efficiently—and view the benefits from a decidedly macro perspective—Awais reflects upon his own experiences with an approach aimed at the same goal from the bottom-up: the creation of MFI-led networks to facilitate PPI implementation.

Grameen Foundation Unveils Its New PPI™ Certification Program

 

Posted by: Mike Krell

A perennial problem here at MIX is that of self-reported data. While it’s true that the financials we display come by and large from independent auditors, social performance data—as well as institutional, outreach, and product information—is all self-reported and, for the most part, not externally audited. This fact brings with it an assortment of headaches, the majority of which stem from a simple question: how do we know whether such data is reliable?

Announcement: New Review of the PPI and PAT

Posted by: Mike Krell

How can MFIs collect better quality poverty data?

We at MIX are often asked this question, especially amid current concerns over whether microfinance has drifted from its original goal of poverty alleviation, and there is no easy response. A new report by CGAP together with the Ford Foundation, the European Commission, and the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) investigates the problem by reviewing two commonly used poverty outreach tools: the Progress out of Poverty Index and the IRIS Poverty Assessment Tool. Their review gives an in-depth overview of how these tools were developed, discusses issues such as accuracy and implementation, and addresses areas in which more work needs to be done. It also collects user feedback from seven different MFIs.

Announcement: CERISE Releases New Analysis of Social and Financial Performance Trends

Posted by: Mike Krell

With the development of social audits, social ratings and reporting standards, social performance assessment has dramatically evolved during the past few years. CERISE has gathered a database that contains the results of 287 SPI audits from 223 institutions in 53 countries and that presents a huge potential for taking stock of the social dimension of microfinance practices worldwide.

Job Announcement: Social Performance Analyst

Posted by: Micol Pistelli

 Location: Hyderabad, India

About the Organization: The MIX (Microfinance Information eXchange) is a global information service for the microfinance industry. Its main mission is to help build microfinance market infrastructure. The MIX intends to address one of the key challenges of the microfinance industry: the lack of reliable, comparable and publicly available information on the financial strength and performance of MFIs, which underpins the development of the market for microfinance services.

About the Job: MIX is looking for a Social Performance Analyst to work from its office in Hyderabad, India. S/he will provide assistance on training, analysis and deployment of social performance standard indicators.

Announcement: MIX Provides New Resources for Social Performance Management and Reporting

Posted by: Cara Forster, Program Manager, Network Development Services, SEEP, and Mike Krell

The SPTF and MIX sent out a social performance communication today. This email includes a modified Social Performance Standards (SPS) Report with an expanded Reporting Framework section containing helpful links directly related to each social indicator. It also includes a document describing each of the Companion Resources referenced in the new Reporting Framework section. The Companion Resources aim both to make the reporting process easier and to give MFIs quick access to references that will (1) allow them to learn more about each of the topics covered in the Reporting Framework, (2) help them find tools that can assist them answer the indicator questions and (3) connect them to articles that describe how other institutions have addressed similar challenges. It is the hope of the SPTF and MIX that these new Companion Resources will stimulate even more MFIs to report on social performance and, in doing so, to reflect on their mission and current progress, to the benefit of both the MFIs themselves and the industry as a whole.

Announcement: Grameen Foundation Develops Standards to Strengthen Use of the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI)

 

 

 

Posted by: Mike Krell

Grameen Foundation today announced the release of a set of standards for using its poverty assessment tool, the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI). The standards are a pre-cursor to a formal certification program the foundation will roll out this fall. PPI users can apply the standards to assess their use of PPI data and identify areas for improvement. Technical assistance providers supporting the use of the PPI can use the standards to target interventions more effectively.

New Research Results on Trade-offs and Synergies between Social and Financial Performance

Posted by: Adrian Gonzalez

A few months ago we presented a MIX Research Agenda to explore relationships between social and financial performance. Now we are ready to discuss the main results from this research, based on the social performance data collected for 2008. When reviewing the findings, the reader should keep in mind that they are based on regression analysis that controls for other factors known to impact financial performance (such as age, loan size and lending methodology) in order to isolate the specific set of relationships being investigated.

The research investigates whether social and financial performance interact to lead to important trade-offs or synergies in terms of MFIs' achievement of their double bottom line. For those who like to visualize data, Figure 1 summarizes the expected relationships between financial performance (FP, down the first column) and social performance (SP, across the top row) goals, with green indicating synergies, and red indicating trade-offs, as discussed in the original posting laying out the research agenda.

Figure 1: SP and FP Expected linkages

  

+:   Expected relationship is positive, meaning that an increase in the respective SP is associated with an increase in the respective FP, and a decrease in the respective SP is associated with a decrease in the respective FP.  In other words, the variables move in the same direction. 
-:   Expected relationship is negative, meaning that an increase (decrease) in the respective SP is associated with a decrease (increase) in the respective SP. In other words, the variables move in the opposite direction. 
++, --: These are the areas where strong relationships between SP and FP are expected. 
0:   No relationship (effect) expected at all. 
?   Expected sign of relationship cannot be determined.