July 2010
Training PPI Trainers in Indonesia
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
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.
Notes from the Field: Visiting Caurie Microfinance
Today I took a short trip with Ali (Babacar's brother) and Andre Roland Youm, Director of Operations at Caurie MF, to Thies in west central Senegal. Thies is situated 35 miles 56 km) east of Dakar, a 90-minute drive from Saly, where we held our PPI Training and Executive session. Thies, one of the largest cities in Senegal, is an important transportation center. The junction of the eastern Dakar-Niger River railway and the northern rail and road systems is located there. So is Caurie Microfinance, one of the larger MFIs within the country.
Caurie Microfinance has a portfolio of 31,479 clients in 6 branches. It is one of three MFIs that have most recently completed a PPI pilot in Senegal through the PPI Users Collaborative in Africa (PUCA) and is a partner of Catholic Relief Services (CRS).Caurie MF is using the PPI to know their client base, to better target whom to reach, and to understand the poverty movement of those clients over time.
I met with Mamadou Lamine Gueye, the CEO of Caurie Microfinance to talk about why Caurie chose to use the PPI, what it has learned and what it is planning going forward. Check out the interview below!
Preeti Wali is Communications Officer at the Grameen Foundation Social Performance Management Center (SPMC). She is based in Washington, DC.
Notes from the Field: Image is Important
“Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat” - the sound of heavy rain on a zinc rooftop. “Image is important,” I hear Alou Sidibe’s* words in my head.
“Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,” the rain continues. “Kafo is serious,” says Bourama, the first client interviewed with the PPI in the field test**, as we converse in his sitting room and he sweeps away the water that seeps in from the heavy rain outside.
“Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,” continues the rain. “Kafo is safe,” say Mamadou, the second client interviewed in the field test, as he explains that his family was robbed of all their savings which they kept in their home, and he had a good experience with Kafo a very long time ago when he lived in the village.
“Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,” the rain beats down on the truck window as we journey on rough pathways that are supposed to be roads to our last interview. During our trip, I reflect on the comments of the client which whom we’ve spoken and realize that Mr. Sidibe’s comment, “Image is important,” is so simple, but encapsulates so much of what social performance is about.
Social performance is about image – that of the microfinance sector, the MFI players, and the clients of those institutions. In essence, it is about how the sector and its actors, microfinance institutions, are perceived by a variety of stakeholders. Perhaps most importantly it is about how clients perceive these institutions and the potential value MFIs bring into their lives.
Ultimately, as participants in and observers of the microfinance sector, reaching the poor and unserved and improving their lives is the image of microfinance that we equate with success. To solidify this image, the sector and its actors must have strong data…and PPI data can get us there.
*Alou Sidibe is director general of Kafo Jiginew based in Bamako, Mali. Kafo Jiginew is a partner of Oikocredit, a member of the PPI Users Collaborative in Africa (PUCA).
**A field test is the application of the PPI questionnaire (scorecard) to a handful of clients by loan officers. It provides loan officers with the opportunity to conduct a few interviews, raise questions or issues they have around any of the indicators, and assess clients’ reactions to the questions.
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.
