Guidelines for Impact Monitoring & Assessment in Microfinance ...

Table of Contents
IMPACT MONITORING & ASSESSMENT IN MICROFINANCE PROGRAMMES
Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................ 7
PART 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 9
1.1 SCOPE .................................................................................................. 9
1.2 UNDERSTANDING IMPACT AND IMPACT MEASUREMENT.......... 15
What Does Impact Mean? ................................................................................ 15
What Do Impact Monitoring and Impact Assessment Mean? .......................... 17
From Proving Impact to Improving Intervention................................................ 19
1.3 QUALITY ASSURANCE IN GERMAN TECHNICAL
COOPERATION .................................................................................. 22
A New Conceptual Approach to Quality Monitoring ......................................... 22
Implementation of the Quality Management System........................................ 24
Quality Management Tool: The Impact Model.................................................. 25
1.4 A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH ............................................... 28
Bridging the Attribution Gap.............................................................................. 28
The Analytical Framework: A Systems Perspective......................................... 30
The Methodological Framework: Knowledge Creation..................................... 31
The Operational Level: Quality Assessment and Process Orientation............. 38
Composition of the Team.................................................................................. 40
A Step by Step Approach ................................................................................. 42
PART 2: Implementation Steps ......................................................................................... 47
2.1 Introduction........................................................................................ 47
2.2 STEP 1: IDENTIFICATION OF CORE ISSUES.................................. 51
Analysis of Programme Effectiveness................................................... 52
Financial Market Conditions ............................................................................. 52
Programme History: Financial Institution and Instruments............................... 52
Programme Outreach ....................................................................................... 53
Performance Indicators..................................................................................... 56
Analysis of Environmental Condititions................................................ 57
Government Policies......................................................................................... 58
The Natural Environment.................................................................................. 59
Physical, Social and Institutional Infrastructure ................................................ 59
Economic Infrastructure and Socio-economic Context .................................... 60
Analysis of the Household Level ........................................................... 61
The Composition of a Household ..................................................................... 61
The Concept of Household Socio-economic Portfolios .................................... 62
The Concept of Vulnerability of Livelihood ....................................................... 63
2.3 STEP 2: FORMULATION OF CORE HYPOTHESES......................... 67
Identification of Impact Domains ........................................................... 68
Levels of Analysis ............................................................................................. 68
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