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: 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.

Non-Financial Services: The Experience of Initiative Development Ghana

Posted by: Katherine Oglietti and Mike Krell

An ID-Ghana client and her wares

Interview with:
Godknows Kporha, Social Mission Manager, Initiative Development Ghana

In response to the rapidly growing population in Ghana’s capital city, fed by a large influx of migrants from rural villages, Initiative Development Ghana (ID-Ghana) caters its financial and non-financial services to deprived areas in Accra. Its approach is to target the poorest urban neighborhoods to build a more inclusive economy. It offers a combination of not only credit but also savings, insurance, and trainings to its "partners" (i.e., clients) with the contention that microcredit is a relevant but incomplete method to effectively respond to the global problem of poverty.

MIX: In ID-Ghana’s Social Performance Report, you report offering adult education training among other non-financial services. Which learning areas do these training sessions cover? How many of your clients participate in these trainings? Have you conducted any assessment as to whether clients have incorporated the skills they learned into their daily lives?

Mr. Kporha: Our trainings fall under two main headings:  business and social.  In our business trainings, we cover topics such as costing and pricing, customer care, business opportunity identification, record keeping, and credit management. Social topics include personal hygiene, national health insurance, domestic violence, and malaria prevention and management. These trainings have been integrated into the methodology for our new group loan product, Onipa Nua, and are compulsory for partners.

We closely monitor training attendance. In March 2010, 3,249 people received training from ID-Ghana, out of a total of 3,991 active borrowers. And while we have not yet performed an impact assessment of this new training regime, anecdotal evidence suggests that these trainings are having a positive outcome on our partners. We feel that these trainings have equipped partners with much-needed skills and knowledge regarding the effective management of loans, among other things, and that this is reflected in greatly increased loan repayment rates.

Incorporating Poverty Assessment Data into MFIs' MIS

Posted by: Taea Calcut

The Social Performance Indicators Blog speaks frequently about the need for microfinance institutions (MFIs) to collect information on the populations they serve to determine if their activities are aligned with their social missions. However, data collection is only a first step. Following its collection, data must be properly stored, organized, and analyzed to ensure its use by MFI staff in decision-making processes.

Last week, Grameen Foundation released a working document, Basic PPI MIS System Requirements, to address the question of how MFIs can incorporate poverty assessment data captured by its Progress out of Poverty Index^TM (PPI^TM) into their management information systems (MIS). The document is meant to serve as a guide for MFIs' IT staff and consultants and Grameen Foundation welcomes comments from MFIs on their experiences to further refine it. 

For more information on the working document, please visit Grameen Foundation’s Progress out of Poverty Blog. For discussions on how MFIs have put the PPI^TM to use in their social performance measurement and management activities, please visit our blog posts on PRISMA in Peru, Fonkoze in Haiti, or our poverty measurement archives.

Announcement: PPI™ Initiative in Africa

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The Grameen Foundation made an announcement today that it will begin an initiative with three MFIs in Sub-Saharan Africa to use the PPI™ (Progress out of Poverty Index™) to assess client poverty levels, better target poor clients, and track how they are moving out of poverty. The initiative, the first of its kind in Africa, is being facilitated by the PPI™ Users Collaborative in Africa (PUCA), a new, multi-stakeholder group that unites five charter partners—Oikocredit, Catholic Relief Services, Terrafina Microfinance, Planet Rating and Grameen Foundation—with the national microfinance networks APIM/Mali and  APSFD Senegal. As Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world, it is particularly important for MFIs of that region to measure whether and how MFIs are able to contribute to poverty alleviation, improving their strategies accordingly.

More information on this initiative is available on the Progress out of Poverty Blog and the Grameen Foundation webpage.

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PPI Shows Fonkoze that Clients Are Moving Out of Poverty

Posted by Preeti Wali, Communications Associate, Grameen Foundation

A few weeks ago, we introduced the Progress out of Poverty Index™ as a way for microfinance institutions to monitor whether they are helping their clients move out of poverty. We conducted an interview with Grameen Foundation and Prisma Peru, who discussed how they are implementing the PPI™. Here, Preeti Wali describes how they are using the PPI™ in Fonkoze in Haiti and adjusting strategies to better serve the poor.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For Fonkoze, the largest microfinance institution (MFI) in Haiti, the mission was clear: target the poor and ultra-poor, mainly women in rural areas, and provide services to meet their special needs. In 2006, Fonkoze—working with Grameen Foundation--introduced the Progress out of Poverty Index™ (PPI™) assessment tool to measure the poverty level of its clients and to track their progress.

“When Grameen Foundation approached me about forming a partnership, the prospect of developing a PPI for Haiti was one of the most exciting elements,” says Fonkoze Director Anne Hastings.  “We want numbers behind the promises we make to the poor.”

Just two years later, the results are positive: data collected in 2008 showed that Fonkoze was meeting its goal to target the poorest, and that its programs were showing results.  Clients who had been with Fonkoze for at least two years saw movement out of poverty; seven percent moved above the $1 a day poverty line from 2006 to 2008, and nine percent moved above the $2 a day line. This movement occurred despite Haiti’s extreme poverty, which was compounded by the devastation of three hurricanes and a tropical storm that threatened or destroyed the livelihoods of approximately 14,000 Fonkoze clients.