During its past fiscal year, Grameen Foundation’s Social Performance Management Center actively pursued its primary goal—to grow the use of the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) around the world. Our success is measured both in the number of new PPIs created (10) and updated (6), and the number of new microfinance users (43). The cumulative result at the end of the fiscal year: 27 PPIs and 73 PPI users, serving about 5 million clients.


It was also a year of building partnerships and sharing experiences that enriched the use of the PPI everywhere. We learned lessons about how to be more efficient and effective in expanding the tool, and how to collaborate with microfinance networks to leverage that growth. Here are some highlights from the year:

• • We carried out our first global survey of PPI users and found that 83 percent of respondents were using the PPI after completing their pilots, and 47 percent were repeating collections in order to track poverty indicators over time.
• • We beta-tested and piloted a new data management tool to help microfinance institutions collect, analyze and manage PPI data.
• • We developed relationships with microfinance networks and national microfinance associations, resulting in 12 partnerships. Working with three partners in sub-Saharan Africa, we created a new model for training PPI trainers.
• • We assisted in the development of local and national peer learning communities.
• • We continued to create case studies and web tools to share best practices about PPI use.
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Visit our Case Studies & Papers page to download/read the entire annual report.

http://www.progressoutofpoverty.org/casestudies 

Steve Wright is the Director of the Social Performance Management Center (SPMC) at the Grameen Foundation. Prior to joining us,  Steve was the Director of Innovation and Technology at the Salesforce Foundation. Steve has also been a high school administrator and teacher as well as being a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia. He is based in Oakland, CA.

As the new director of Grameen Foundation’s Social Performance Management Center (SPMC), I am pleased to share the news of a critical new approach to help pro-poor organizations make sure they are getting—and using—reliable data about the poverty levels of their clients. Today we are launching the Progress out of Poverty (PPI) certification process.

The Social Performance Management Center at the Grameen Foundation helps our customers to accurately target and effectively serve the poor. With the information provided by the PPI, microfinance institutions (MFIs) and other pro-poor organizations can customize their products and services to specific poverty levels and they can adjust those products and services over time. PPI users describe the PPI as essential to their efforts to empower the lives of the poor and poorest. That is why it is so important that PPI users are able to have their adherence to our Standards of Use certified.

In August we announced these Standards of Use--principles for administering the PPI correctly. The standards were endorsed by key microfinance networks and investors, including Oikocredit, Catholic Relief Services and Plan International Asia. The standards are the underpinning of our certification process.

“Ensuring quality data collection, use and reporting is critical to the success and usefulness of PPI to MFIs and to investors,” said Ging Ledesma, Manager of the Social Performance Unit at Oikocredit. “It is not enough for an organisation to claim that it is using the PPI. We need to be assured that the tool is being used properly and that the data generated can be relied upon. The certification process being launched today will go a long way in promoting these standards. We are pleased that two Oikocredit partners, FINCA Peru and ESAF in India have been certified and we are ready to help other Oikocredit partners to meet the PPI Standards of Use.”

The process itself will be carried out by a cadre of volunteer professionals selected through our Bankers without Borders initiative.  Each volunteer will meet with an organization’s operational and management staff during a four-day period to assess its compliance with the Standards of Use.

Paul Thomas, Founder and Managing Director of ESAF Microfinance, said, “It is important for us to know who our clients are, how ESAF’s programs are affecting their lives and to be able to address their changing needs and requirements with time. Since ESAF is not only about microcredit, PPI helps in measuring the well-being of our clients now and could be used to study the change and impact over years to come.” Starting in January 2011, PPI validation will be posted on the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX).

• - Learn more about the certification process.
• - Read the press release on the PPI certification process launch.
• - Request to be certified.
  
  
  

Steve Wright is the Director of the Social Performance Management Center (SPMC) at the Grameen Foundation. Prior to joining us,  Steve was the Director of Innovation and Technology at the Salesforce Foundation. Steve has also been a high school administrator and teacher as well as being a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia. He is based in Oakland, CA.