IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/usuxwp/23751.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Issues in Designing Effective Microfinance Impact Assessment Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Simanowitz, Anton

Abstract

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 encouraging the use of internal practitioner-focused impact assessment that can serve as a means to improve practice and service delivery, not merely satisfy the needs of external stakeholders. The paper looks specifically at the benefits of designing and implementing effective practitioner-focused client and impact assessment. It considers the types of questions MFOs should be asking in terms of use of impact assessment tools, such as indicators. It makes the point that impact assessment must be context-specific, taking into consideration the type of information to be gathered and the purpose of this information. Above all, it stresses that impact assessment is an ongoing process, rather than a one-off event which benefits neither the clients nor the organisation.

Suggested Citation

  • Simanowitz, Anton, 2004. "Issues in Designing Effective Microfinance Impact Assessment Systems," Working Papers 23751, University of Sussex, Imp-Act: Improving the Impact of Microfinance on Poverty: Action Research Program.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:usuxwp:23751
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.23751
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/23751/files/wp040008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.23751?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Namizata Binaté Fofana & Gerrit Antonides & Anke Niehof & Johan Ophem, 2015. "How microfinance empowers women in Côte d’Ivoire," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 1023-1041, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:usuxwp:23751. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/idsusuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.