Welcome to our community of practice on:

Poverty-focused Micronance

Brought to you by:

The Social Performance Task Force and the Pro-Poor Seal of Excellence

Why do we need a group for Poverty-focused Micronance?

1.4 billion people in the world living on less than $1.25

Over 200 million clients served globally, and growing

Why do we need a group for Poverty-focused Micronance?

Where the industry is moving CCOUNTABILITY WORKING ON A

What is the role of the Pro-Poor Seal of Excellence?

Seal of Excellence

* Graphic from SPTF.info PPT Introduction to Social Performance

What is the Pro-Poor Seal of Excellence?

Measure poverty
outreach

Learn about client needs

and preferences

Change services to

create better outcomes

Poverty Outreach. Positive and Enduring Change.

What does the Seal aim to achieve?

Positive and enduring change for people living in

poverty

Creating a learning environment to share poverty

results best practices

Attracting more MFIs and funders to pursue poverty

alleviation as part of their core mission

What is dierent about the Seal?

The Seal denes a journey

What does the journey towards the Seal look like?

Three Dimensions of the Seal
Outreach to Poor People Services that Meet the Needs of Poor People Tracking Progress for Poor People

Progressive Levels of the Seal

From Aspiration to Leadership

What does a Pro-Poor MFI look like?

A financial service provider receiving the Pro-Poor
Seal of Excellence serves as a beacon by which others can navigate toward the same destination services that reach the poor and make a real difference in their lives.

Not that the Seal recipient is perfect! This

financial service provider is simply farther than others along one of several possible routes to the destination. They are leaders that others can follow. They set an example to inspire and guide others along three dimensions.

What does a Pro-Poor MFI look like?

Outreach to Poor People:
A Seal recipient has shown that at least some of its services reach people who are poor by comparison to the great majority of their countrymen, even by comparison to the great majority of humanity. They can document this outreach because they actually measure the poverty of some or all of their clientsusing some reasonably accurate and credible measure of poverty. The measurement shows not only their success in reaching poor clients, but also their firm intention to do so.

What does a Pro-Poor MFI look like?

Meet the Needs of Poor Clients:
A Seal recipient has shown that at least some of its services/products are designed specifically for poor people. They show this by the evidence of their service/ product design processes: they know who among their clients are poor; they study the needs and constraints of these poor clients; they design and test services/ products specifically for these clients, and adjust according to the response of these clients until confident that the clients are using the services/ products in ways likely to bring benefits to themselves and their families.

What does a Pro-Poor MFI look like?

Tracking Progress for Poor People:
A Seal recipient has shown that at least some of its poor clients are tracked over time to assess the apparent influence of the services/products on their lives. This is not expected to be research that can attribute changes in lives to use of the services/ products. It is simply the effort of tracking progress (or lack thereof) over time and responding to evidence of positive, negative or no change by asking deeper questions about what the service provider might do better for all clients. The provider keeps tracking and changing and tracking and changing until it sees more positive change in the lives of poor clients and less evidence of being stuck or falling backward.

Progressive Levels of the Pro-Poor Seal of Excellence

There are progressive levels of
Community of Aspiring Practice
the Seal, which reflect both the quality of documentation of the three dimensions above and the progress of the service provider along a path toward its pro-poor destination. serious intent can join the lowest, most inclusive levela community of practice of propoor fellow travelers. and especially from their peers who have achieved higher levels of the Seal.

First Level

Emerging Practitioner

Any service provider with

Second Achiever Level

Members learn from each other

Top Level Leader

Focusing a lens of Poverty

Gender

Poverty

Youth

Social Lens

Green

Rural

What do we mean by poverty?

Bolivia
$2/day
(2009 est.)

% of population below poverty lines

Senegal
(2011)

Philippines
$1.25/day
(2009 est.)

Natl Poverty line

$1.25/day
(2008)

$1.25/day
(2005)

Natl Poverty Line

(2009 est.)

Regional country poverty rates

% households below dierent poverty lines
Na-onal $1.25
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

$2.50

AFRICA

SE ASIA

LAC

MENA

EECA

Data for countries with PPI: Reliable recent national data, different poverty lines (Mark Schreiner, GF)

Accurate methodology / diculty of data collection

Poverty measurement involves a variety of complex factors To require that a certain type of data be available can be prohibitive

The trade-o:

Many of the measures used vary regionally

Collecting good data is expensive!

A comprehensive methodology should capture the specificities of regional factors and variability

A wholly accessible methodology should be easy to understand and implement

As a first step, we are benchmarking poverty as the bottom 40%. From there we can account for more specific regional factors.

Regional country poverty rates

% households below dierent poverty lines
Na-onal $1.25
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

$2.50

Bottom 40%

AFRICA

SE ASIA

LAC

MENA

EECA

Data for countries with PPI: Reliable recent national data, different poverty lines (Mark Schreiner, GF)

What is our shared vision for Poverty-focused Micronance?

We would like to open this discussion:
What does our shared vision look like? What are we striving for? What are the most important pieces of the puzzle?

Todays Guests
LISA KUHN FRAIOLI

CARMEN VELASCO

Co-Founder, Pro Mujer Executive Committee Chair, Pro- Poor Seal of Excellence

EMMANUELLE JAVOY

Managing Director, Planet Rating Technical Committee, Pro-Poor Seal of Excellence

Vice President for Latin America,

Freedom for Hunger (former)

Imp-Act Consortium & Latin American Network for Gender Justice in Economic Development

Steering Committee,

What is our shared vision for Poverty-focused Micronance?

We propose the following as a starting point:
The poverty-focused community of practice, over the long term, will develop models that assure sustainability and long lasting changes in clients lives. The goal is to set a vision for the sector that prioritizes effective poverty outreach and quality data collection and analysis. Balancing earnings with strong client relationships and accountability for measurable results can reinvigorate the role of financial services as a powerful tool and platform in the fight against poverty.

Send us your thoughts!

measurelearnchange@gmail.com

What topics would you like to discuss? Do you have suggestions for the format of the sessions? Would you like to hear from certain people or organizations?

Upcoming Events
Save the Dates! Wednesday, April 3rd Wednesday, May 1st
Times TBA

The Poverty-focused Microfinance community of practice will have regular meetings the first Wednesday of every month.

Who leads the Seal?