The quest for the evaluation of microfinance social performance

Javier Sierra, Victoria Muriel-Patino, Fernando Rodriguez-Lopez

Abstract


Several stakeholders have joined forces in recent years to facilitate consensus building on practices, indicators and standards that might serve to increase accountability and improve microfinance social performance. As a result, several sets of social standards have been developed to provide social performance assessment with a similar level of consistency and acceptance as those of financial performance. In this paper it is explored how standard-based evaluation methods may be used to test the underlying theory of change of microfinance, and the rate of use of existing methods in practice. Our findings suggest that social rating and social performance assessment using SPI4 are the most used methods. Nevertheless, standard-based methods are not suitable to assess the complete magnitude of microfinance social performance. Hence, microfinance social performance cannot rely on standard-based methods only, but need to use specific evaluation frameworks and indicators to fully measure microfinance effectiveness.

References


ARMENDÁRIZ B, SZAFARZ A (2011). On Mission Drift in Microfinance. Handbook of Microfinance 32(31041):341-365. doi:10.1142/9789814295666-0016.

BOUCHER S (2014). The Progress Out of Poverty Index. Detailed Analysis of MFI Implementation.

CERISE (2015a). Grille d’analyse «Social Business».

CERISE (2015b). Guidelines for Using the Social Business Scorecard.

CERISE (2018a). SPI4 Audit Guide.

CERISE (2018b). SPI4 Audit Guide ALINUS.

CLARK H, SINHA F (2013). Social Rating Guide.

DESIERE S, VELLEMA W, HAESE MD (2015). A Validity Assessment of the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) TM. Evaluation and Program Planning 49 (April 2014). Elsevier Ltd. 10-18. doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2014.11.002.

E-MFP MICROFINANCE AND ENVIRONMENT ACTION GROUP (2016). The Green Index 2.0, An Innovative Tool to Assess Environmental Performance in the Microfinance Sector. European Microfinnance Platform Brief 6. http://www.e-mfp.eu/sites/default/files/resources/2016/10/Green_Index_2016_final_web.pdf , accessed March 15, 2018.

GRAMEEN FOUNDATION (2014). Global Report on Poverty Measurement with the Progress out of Poverty Index.

HUYBRECHS F, BASTIAENSEN J, FORCELLA D (2015). Guest Editorial: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Green Microfinance. Enterprise Development and Microfinance 26(3):211-214. doi:10.3362/1755-1986.2015.018.

JACKSON ET (2013). Interrogating the Theory of Change: Evaluating Impact Investing Where It Matters Most. Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment 3(2):95-110. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2013.776257.

MICROFINANZA RATING (2016a). Microfinance Institutional Rating.

MICROFINANZA RATING (2016b). Social Rating Methodology.

ROBLES V (2018). Fondo Esperanza. Using Outcomes Data to Drive Performance. Case Study. Social Performance Task Force.

SCHREINER M, MATUL M, PAWLAK E, KLINE S (2014). Poverty Scorecards: Lessons from a Microlender in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Poverty & Public Policy 6(4) http://www.microfinance.com/English/Papers/Scoring_Poverty_in_BiH_Short.pdf , accessed March 15, 2018.

SIMANOWITZ A (2003). Appraising the Poverty Outreach of Microfinance.

SINHA F (2017a). Guidelines on Outcomes Management for Financial Service Providers. Key Terms and 10 STEPS for Practical, Cost-Effective, Outcomes Management. Social Performance Task Force. https://sptf.info/images/Guidelines-on-Outcomes-Management-for-FSPs.pdf , accessed March 15, 2018.

SINHA F (2017b). Making the Case for Outcomes Management to Financial Service Providers. What Is Outcomes Management? How Do Financial Service Providers Use Outcomes Data? Social Performance Task Force.

SMART CAMPAIGN (2014). A Guide to Client Protection Assessments.

SMART CAMPAIGN (2016). Client Protection Certification Standards.

SPAGGIARI L (2016). Guidelines on Outcomes Management for Investors. European Microfinance Platform and Social Performance Task Force.

THE RATING INITIATIVE (2012). Rating Guide.

WARDLE L (2017). The Universal Standards for Social Performance Management Implementation Guide. Version 2. Social Performance Task Force.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_ried/ijds.351

Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.