Assessment of the poverty level of microfinance clients is important for both practitioners and donors. For practitioners, increased understanding of the target market and whether it is being reached can help in the design of financial services better suited to the needs of different groups of...

This paper is about microfinance and its contribution to the eradication of poverty for millions of the world's poorest people. The Millennium Development goals set a critical challenge of halving absolute poverty in the world by 2015. Microfinance can make an important contribution to these...

Impact assessment surveys are questionnaire-based surveys that allow microfinance institutions (MFIs) to produce statistically valid information on the changes occurring in the lives of their clients and to assess whether these changes can be associated with their participation in the programme.

Most microfinance institutions (MFIs) have a social mission. They may seek to reduce poverty, to reach people excluded from financial services, to empower women or to promote community solidarity. Social performance is the effective translation of an institution's social mission into practice;...

This Practice Note discusses how microfinance institutions (MFIs) can cost-effectively monitor and improve their social performance. By monitoring, we refer to regular, systematic and on-going collection of timely and appropriate information that helps the staff and clients of an organization to...

Most microfinance institutions (MFIs) have a social mission. They may aim to reduce poverty, to reach people excluded from financial services, to empower women or to promote community solidarity. This Practice Note is mainly intended for staff of MFIs who are trying to improve their...

Indicators are criteria or measures against which changes can be assessed. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) need to use a variety of financial and social indicators, to track both their financial and social performance and the impacts they are having on their intended beneficiaries. There is a...

Microfinance organisations (MFOs) collect various types of information from their clients. However, it is often the case that this information is not used effectively to enable the MFO to better understand its clients and respond to their needs. The idea of the feedback loop is that this...

In order to know whether they are achieving their social goals and how to manage for social performance microfinance institutions (MFIs) need to find out: 1) Who uses the programme's products and services? Who does the programme exclude? 2) Why and when do clients leave the programme or fail to...