Guidelines for Impact Monitoring & Assessment in Microfinance ...

MONITORING & ASSESSMENT IN MICROFINANCE PROGRAMMES
microfinance and goes beyond the objective of these guidelines. 34 Nevertheless, the
level of poverty of clients is usually determined by the average loan size or the average
loan size as a percentage of GDP per capita of new and repeated client loans.
Outreach indicators are both qualitative and quantitative and they are relatively simple
to collect if a regular performance monitoring system is used. In the framework
of IM, it is useful to track these indicators over time and compare them with the
stated goals of the programme.
In order to gather outreach indicators, we first ask questions about the characteristics
of the targeted population.
QUESTIONS
54
Identification of target groups:
• Does the project focus on rural or urban areas, or both?
• Does the project focus on female clients/ beneficiaries, or male, or
both?
Are these women and/or men:
• Self-employed micro-entrepreneurs;
• Small-scale farmers;
• Landless and smallholders;
• Resettled people;
• Indigenous people; or,
• Low-income persons in subsistence or remote areas?
The following list provides a comprehensive overview of possible outreach indicators
that can be easily integrated into an on-going monitoring process.
34 Compare Hatch/Frederick (1999), CGAP (1998)(2), and Ravallion (1994).