There is already substantial evidence to suggest that microfinance has polarising effects (Buckley, 1997, Copestake, 2002, Hulme, 2000 Marr, 2002; Wright, 2001). This should come as no surprise. Whilst every effort should be made to reduce negative impacts, it is inevitable that some clients will...

This paper considers impact assessment (IA) for a specific microfinance organisation working in an uncertain environment. It argues that there are significant learning points both for new clients and for the organisations who supply their services and products, which can result in improved, more...

This paper is based on work conducted by Imp-Act - a three-year action-research programme aiming to improve the quality of microfinance services and their impact on poverty. Learning from the experiences of 30 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in four continents, Imp-Act is developing and...

This paper is based on work conducted by Imp-Act a three-year action-research programme aiming to improve the quality of microfinance services and their impact on poverty. Learning from the experiences of 30 microfinance organisations (MFOs) in four continents, Imp-Act is developing and...

This note presents a framework for assessing social performance (social performance assessment SPA), and how this information can be used to inform decisions that affect both the social and financial performance of the microfinance institutions this we term social performance management, SPM....

Both within and across countries, most attention has been devoted to measuring inequality among individuals (and globally countries). Within countries, increasing evidence shows that inequalities among groups (HIs) are important for wellbeing. However, the global component of HIs are generally...