Progress out of Poverty Blog

A Visit with FINCA Peru, Piloting the PPI Standards Certification Process

Wed, 09/01/2010 - 13:00 — PreetiWali

Having escaped the stifling heat of New York City, it seemed strange to think about winter in August. I landed in Lima, Peru in the heart of the coldest winter in nearly 50 years. As could be expected, weather was a popular topic of conversation; though not everyone was worried about warm coats.

I first met Iris, founder and executive director of a local microfinance institution (MFI), FINCA Peru, at headquarters in downtown Lima. She too was concerned about the weather because the temperatures had dropped to a point where livestock, the primary source of income for her clients, were literally freezing to death. Her concern for her clients, not for her collateral was evident.

As a volunteer for the Grameen Foundation Bankers without Borders® program, my goal in Peru was to conduct a Grameen Foundation certification of the use of the Progress out of Poverty Index™ (PPI™) at FINCA Peru.

The PPI is a 10-question poverty assessment tool that helps poverty-focused organizations to understand the poverty distribution of the their clients and target clients, track poverty over time, and to adjust their products and services to best serve their clients in moving out of poverty.

It was encouraging to see that Iris had learned as much from the PPI questionnaires completed by her clients as I did. She was surprised to glean from a PPI sample study that fewer than expected of her clients sampled were below the poverty line. The information reinforced FINCA Peru’s strategy to focus on more rural clients to reach the poorest in Peru.

This trip to Lima has confirmed that giving my time is much more inspiring to me than simply mailing in a check. The ability to see the poverty assessment tool in action and evaluate FINCA Peru’s implementation of the PPI to better understand the clients they serve and enhance the way they serve them was well worth the shivering.

Mia Feldman is an associate at J.P. Morgan in New York. She traveled to Peru in August 2010 to work on the PPI Certification (Progress out of Poverty Index) pilot project with FINCA Peru in Lima, Peru. Mia's participation in this project is part of J.P. Morgan's partnership with Bankers without Borders as the program's presenting sponsor.

A Visit with ESAF in Kerala, India Piloting the PPI Standards Certification Process

Fri, 08/27/2010 - 12:16 — PreetiWali

 

I arrive in Kerala in the middle of the monsoon, with days characterized by gray skies and consistent rain, heavy only at times, but invariably rainy. Kerala is situated on the country’s southwest coast. It has the highest literacy rates in the country, and while predominantly Muslim, holds the country’s largest Christian population. Kerala is a contradictory state. It produces one-third of the world’s tea and has an economy propped up by expatriate remittances from the Middle East, while also having approximately 90 percent of its indigenous population living below the national poverty line.

I am here to work with ESAF India, a microfinance institution (MFI) headquartered in Thrissur, Kerala, serving approximately 225,000 clients through 125 branches throughout India. ESAF India is the first MFI to pilot the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) certification process, applying standards recently developed by the Grameen Foundation Social Performance Management Center to validate the use of the PPI. The PPI is a tool developed by Grameen Foundation to measure poverty results, giving MFIs information that will allow them to ensure they are sticking to their social mission serving the poor and to develop products to meet the assortment of client needs. The standards are designed to help MFIs use the PPI correctly. They cover five areas of use:: intent, collection, process, training and reporting of poverty results.

Over the course of one week, I work closely with ESAF’s PPI Manager, Benita, and am privileged to have access to staff from the managing director to the loan officers, as well as to be introduced to several ESAF India clients. Based on my interactions, it seems to me that ESAF India is committed to meeting their clients’ needs and social goals. As the PPI contributes to both, they are in the process of implementing various processes and training to achieve best-in-class PPI use. Even more apparent is the confidence that microfinance loans and membership in a sangam has instilled in the clients. These women have gained not only financial benefits, but also greater independence, practice managing money and people, and, according to one loan officer, “social fearlessness.”

With the development of the new standards, Grameen Foundation is helping ESAF India, and all MFIs that go through the PPI certification process, to accurately measure poverty results and fulfill its social mission.

Jamie Dunchick is an associate at J.P. Morgan in New York. She traveled to India in July 2010 to work on the PPI Certification (Progress out of Poverty Index) pilot project with ESAF India in Thrissur, Kerala. Jamie's participation in this project is part of J.P. Morgan's partnership with Bankers without Borders as the program's presenting sponsor.

Notes From the Field: Americans Are Not All White?!

Thu, 08/26/2010 - 15:20 — PreetiWali

As the program officer responsible for PPI deployment in Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East North Africa, I have the opportunity to meet people from many countries and help them to understand social performance management better. I also have the opportunity to help reshape their perceptions of an American. When I first began working with our West African representative based in Senegal, we had many phone calls, but he never realized that I am a woman of Caribbean descent since I have no accent. The Internet connection was rarely strong enough for video chat so he didn’t realize I have skin the hue of many people in Senegal. In fact, he came to the airport looking for a white American woman – a fact he later shared with me and we had a good laugh about. I sound American but to many Africans I could be one of them…until I open my mouth. I am perhaps a paradox – a self-identified Caribbean-American woman with no Caribbean accent working in development; I suspect there are few who could fit this description. 


Today, I was told by my Ethiopian colleagues that they too had assumed I was a white American woman. They explained that they perceive Americans as white (so much for NYC being the melting pot of the US) and as I was a staff member coming from our headquarters in DC, it was reasonable to them that I was therefore white. Consequently, they arrived at the airport looking for a white woman from DC and so I was able to walk right pass them. The discovery that I was otherwise was made only when they saw the hotel shuttle taking off and flagged it down. I now understand why my name was said in such a questioning tone. As it went, the participants upon arrival to the training assumed when they saw me that they were to be trained by an Ethiopian and then I opened my mouth….and my language was not Amharic (which I’ve finally learned to pronounce) but English. When I was told this today, I started to laugh and my newfound friends smiled and said, “No, this is true!” which made me laugh even harder. I have no doubt it’s true but I love the fact that we can get to a point, in such a short timeframe, where my colleagues are comfortable admitting that I was not what was expected. 

 In sharing their assumptions about Americans, I’ve realized that not only am I helping to impart knowledge on social performance and the PPI, but I’m helping to reshape people’s expectations about who an American could be, and that knowledge transfer can perhaps be considered another benefit of the work we do.

 Sharlene Brown
Sharlene Brown is a Program Officer with the Grameen Foundation Social Performance Management Center, handling trainings for MFIs in Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle-East/North Africa. Sharlene is based out of Washington, DC.






PPI Standards of Use - What Are They Good For?

Tue, 08/24/2010 - 11:46 — PreetiWali

I think we can all agree that measuring the key metrics of our efforts helps us better accomplish our objectives. Well, what about assessing how well we are measuring those metrics?

I had the pleasure of discussing the release of a new set of PPI™ Standards of Use during the annual Social Performance Task Force meeting in Bern, Switzerland last month. To a certain degree, that was preaching to the choir. We had a tough time slot (after the last plenary of the day, at the same time as a cocktail party!), yet our meeting was very well attended by PPI users and supporters from all over the world. We had a great discussion, with lots of views heard. I’ve since heard overall very positive response to the establishment of PPI Standards. One PPI “super user” has already started planning to use the certification of its use of standards to help make decisions about how to support PPI users improve their integration of standards.

While the feedback was positive, the group had some question about the standards, and, even more so, about the certification process. Why hadn’t we told them before about the standards? What if organizations using the PPI were not ready to be certified?
With the official PPI Standards of Use press release going out today, I thought I’d address some of those concerns here and provide the space for a discussion. Please post any thoughts in the comments, and I’ll do my best to respond as appropriate.

One of the first issues seemed to me a natural confusion between the standards and the certification process. If, instead of the PPI, we think about learning French (which I’ve been trying to do ineffectually for the last two years…) the standard might be the ability to have a simple conversation at the market whereas the certification would be a test of those skills. We are thinking of these two things as obviously connected but still separate.

The standards are, well, just that - standards. We expect that PPI users as well as investors and donors who support PPI users will begin to think of the standards as minimum-use requirements. We’ll all be able to use the standards when training and planning PPI implementation plans. They’ll help new and experienced PPI users alike to identify areas for improvement. The standards are therefore a stand-alone resource. Of course, a related phase is to have some outside certification of the quality of PPI implementations. With the standards released, we are now in the process of piloting that certification process. After that pilot is completed, we’ll have better information about how much time is involved, any likely complications and other logistical concerns. Then we’ll open up the process to PPI users who want to volunteer to be certified. The certification will not be mandated. Or, I should say, it won’t be mandated by GF. I would guess that over time, as more and more PPI users are certified, there will be greater pressure to be certified. I think that is a positive long-term trend since it solidifies the value of PPI data for both management decision-making as well as for external reporting.

Look out for updates on the certification process and an opportunity for interested PPI users to sign up for certification. That’s coming later this fall.
We’ve enjoyed a significant amount of constructive feedback from our partners at all stages of PPI implementation. I hope you’ll continue to provide that feedback either directly or through this blog.

I’m really optimistic about this process as it should help at all stages of PPI implementation.

To view/download the standards go to: http://www.progressoutofpoverty.org/ppi-standards-use

To read the press release in English, French, and Spanish: http://bit.ly/PPI-standards

Jeff Toohig

Jeff Toohig is the Deputy Director of the Grameen Foundation Social Performance Management Center. He is based in Washington, DC.

Training PPI Trainers in Indonesia

Thu, 07/29/2010 - 13:45 — PreetiWali

As part of its commitment to measure the social impact of microfinance on the poor, the Indonesia Microfinance Association (IMA) requires all its member organizations to implement Social Performance Management (SPM). And in partnership with Plan International and the Grameen Foundation, IMA introduced the Progress Out of Poverty Index™ (PPI™) as a SPM tool to its members in a PPI Training of Trainer (ToT) workshop on May 25-27 in Bandung, West Java.

This initial training was attended by 32 participants from 19 organizations, including banks (Bank Sahabat, Bank Andara , Sampoerna Microfinance) , BPRs (Rural Credit Banks), cooperatives (Syariah Cooperatives), venture capital firms , and microfinance foundations as well as private companies such as Chevron and a state-owned enterprise focusing on microfinance (PNM). Due to the high demand for the training, IMA and Plan International Indonesia held a second training session June 15-17. Kreshna Aditya from Bank Sahabat attended the first session. He reports that Bank Sahabat has already been using the PPI, but with a questionnaire from the Philippines. “With this training, we could have the correct PPI questionnaire for Indonesia and implement it in our organization.”

Muchlis Ali of Plan International Indonesia also attended the first training, which he described as “interesting, fun and applicable. We will use the PPI for our Youth Economic Empowerment Program,” he said.

From the second session, Freddy Tamira of BISMA said,“ Now we could understand the concept of Social Performance Management and the tools to measure it. PPI is very simple and easy to use. BISMA will introduce PPI to our member MFIs.”

Many organizations from both sessions already have followed up their training by introducing the PPI internally within their institutions. These organizations include: Sampoerna, Bank Sahabat, DINARI, MBM, TLM , KBMT, Widhatul Ummah and BISMA.

To learn more about the PPI for Indonesia, download documents from our Indonesia PPI Toolkit.

 

Frans Purnama is a guest blogger on the Progress Out of Poverty blog. Frans is a Microfinance Advisor for Plan International in Indonesia. In addition to starting his own MFI in Tangerang in 1998, Frans has worked with MFIs in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Timor Leste. He is currently based in Jakarta.  

Notes from the Field: Action Planning and Reflections

Wed, 07/07/2010 - 16:46 — PreetiWali

It’s Friday and it’s all coming to a close. Participants from FDEA and and MEC Feprodes are preparing their action plans—getting ready for their PPI pilots and ensuring appropriate allocation of time and resources for using the PPI. This is an incredibly important step in the process; we find that without action plans, many participants would return to their institutions, overrun with work, and PPI plans would lag. Action planning gives our trainees a chance to consider all the possible operational issues, resulting in a draft plan to take back to their executives and to talk over with their field officers. Together management and staff can then understand the needs and costs of using the PPI. The planning process also results in strong commitments from more institutions to invest in social performance, an excellent way to wrap up our training.

This trip has been eye opening on so many different levels. It has given me a clearer understanding of how MFIs see the PPI and why they choose to use a poverty assessment tool. In poverty stricken countries such as these it is so important for MFIs to be able to be able to show they are mission aligned, to track their clients' progress out of poverty, and to reinforce the image of microfinance as an important tool in the fight for poverty alleviation. Lastly,  this trip has definitely reinforced the need to practice my French more when I return to DC.

West Africa may be very poor economically but the people are incredible, they are committed, and they are so generous with their time, their homes, with everything. Their “teranga” always comes through. Merci bien à tous, c’était un grand plaisir, a la prochaine!

To close, I'll leave you with a clip from our Executive Day in Bamako that was covered by Mali National Television (ORTM).



 Preeti Wali is Communications Officer at the Grameen Foundation Social Performance Management Center (SPMC). She is based in Washington, DC.