Impact Monitoring and Impact Assessment in Microfinance Programmes
Impact measurement seeks to measure and explain induced changes that occur at the level of the target population in terms of their quantity, quality, and direction and addresses how to achieve meaningful programme results. In the context of microfinance, the latter requires analysing programme results on the basis of understanding the complexity, diversity, and contingency of the livelihood of the rural and urban poor.
Are you a programme coordinator or project manager responsible for initiating the monitoring process, for assessing results, and organizing the presentation, dissemination and storage of information? Or a practitioner, expert, consultant or researcher conducting impact assessment and impact monitoring? You will learn which methods to select in specific situations.
Have you asked yourself the questions "How can we improve positive impact and promote transformation?" or questions like:
Who are the programme clients?
Are clients benefiting from participation in the programme?
When does impact occur?
What happened?
In that case, the Guidelines for Impact Monitoring and Assessment in Microfinance Programmes will assist you to:
Design impact monitoring and impact assessment suited to prevailing contextual factors and objectives;
Build on and improve your existing M&E procedures, and will help you understand and appraise the impact of projects on human well-being (current M&E mainly focuses on performance indicators such as financial and institutional sustainability criteria);
Measure the effectiveness of microfinance programmes according to key concepts in poverty reduction: strengthening physical, human and social capital; increasing the standard of living; improving access to and control over productive resources; and enhancing knowledge about and participation in individual rights and power;
Design a less-costly, application-orientated M&E process that is context specific and provides reliable data;
Provide information for decision making, project design and mid-term corrections by proving impact (accountability) and improving intervention (project management);
Avoid undesirable or negative programme impact;
Identify various microfinance institution stakeholders and make them more aware of their ownership;
Indicate necessary changes in microfinance policies to ensure that efficient dissemination and transparency exist between the project, the microfinance institution and the donor; and,
Show donors the effectiveness of their input in response to their goal to alleviate poverty.
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