Social Impact Assessment of Microfinance Programmes - weman

We first discuss results based on tables presented in the Appendix to this Chapter.
Since Akhuwat has been in operation just a few years, almost all of its clients are still
only in their first or second loan cycles. Clearly, any ‘impact’ of the intervention by
microfinance institutions, is highly tenuous, and at best, slight and partial. We would
expect little to have changed in a matter of two years, and to find not much significant
difference between Active Borrowers, Pipeline Borrowers and Non-Borrowers. Most of
the tables in the Appendix suggest so as well.
Most of Akhuwat’s clients, are involved in ‘business/retail shops’ or are ‘personal
community service providers’ – Table A.5.2. In terms of Housing Quality – Table
A.5.2.6, there is very little difference between the three categories, nor is there in the
access to Services. This is not a surprising result since we expect most people to have
similar sort of residential facilities if they live in the same, or similar, neighbourhood.
Table A.5.2.4 shows the Economic Status of Akhuwat clients compared to their
neighbour Non-Borrowers, and the results suggest that the Per Capita Income of Active
Borrowers is greater than it is of other categories. However, on the basis of the Official
Poverty Line, only 15 percent of Akhuwat’s clients fall below this threshold, implying
that like almost all MFIs in our sample, Akhuwat is concentrating on that category of
client who is above the Poverty Line. The Health and Education characteristics of all
three categories, as in the case of most other MFIs in urban areas, are not very different
from each other.
The perceptions of clients and non-clients about various aspects of their lives, make
interesting reading. Table A.5.2.26 on the perceptions of clients over the loan cycle about
how well they eat, seem to suggest that the longer they stay with the programme, the
greater the impact in terms of improvement in quality of life and diet, on their lives. This
result is similar to that of other MFIs. On most welfare questions, the longer they have
been with the programme, the better they think they are doing. However, even more
interesting is Table A.5.2.29, where the perceptions of New (Pipeline) Borrowers are
tabulated. What is particularly noteworthy in this table is, that Pipeline Borrowers who
have just started in the programme a few months ago, have a very positive perception of
the impact of the microfinance programme.
As we show in Chapter 2 in the Methodology Section, in the first-best state, a key
requirement of impact studies is that clients-to-be or new clients, not be ‘contaminated’
with news and information of microfinance activities. However, as we argue, in urban
Pakistan today, this is not possible, since with numerous small and large, official and
donor programmes funding microfinance, there is a huge amount of information available
about microfinance services. Table A.5.2.27 confirms this view that a large proportion of
Non-Borrowers are aware of credit facilities.
Tables 5.2 to 5.7 in this Chapter confirm earlier argument that it is improbable that one
will see any impact between Active Borrowers and new entrants in the programme or
amongst Non-Borrowers. All three tables suggest that any difference between the two
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