Social Impact Assessment of Microfinance Programmes - weman

eflections. External evaluations and research studies are also commissioned; however,
the frequency and scope needs to expand significantly.
6.1.8.5 Systemic Planning and Future Directions
SAFWCO has a long range of plans for its operational, institutional and programmatic
expansion. While more specific plans will emanate from the five year strategic planning
that has recently been initiated, broad directions have been shared. With respect to assets
and operational sustainability, SAFWCO has acquired its three branch offices, hence has
reduced the expenses for rents. It has also procured a land parcel of 16 acres for its
DHARTI project i.e. Development of Human Action Research and Training Institute.
The recently established Human and Institutional Development Centre is also procured
from SAFWCO’s own savings of Rs. 3.2 million which is now generating its own
operational costs through consultancies and outsourcing services.
Geographically, SAFWCO has expanded its operation to Achroo Thar district which is a
very marginalized and highly ignored area with extinct facilities or infrastructure.
Similarly, it plans to start its operation in very disadvantaged communities of Jamshoro
and Kohistan areas of Sindh.
6.2 Survey Results
In this section we present the results from our survey for SAFWCO. The results are based
on the data collected on the basis of the questionnaire – see Appendix at the end of the
Report. A select few of the results are presented here in table form, in the main text of
this Chapter, while the substantial majority of tables are presented in the Appendix to the
Chapter. The Appendix to this Chapter contains the largely ‘descriptive’ tables and
results, while the tables which are part of the text in this Chapter, are the more
‘analytical’ tables. In the Appendix to this Chapter, there are far more tables than those
on which we offer comments in the text. Many of these tables are simply informative and
so we do not discuss them in the Chapter. They are being provided for the reader’s own
interest and perusal. Only the more interesting, striking or pertinent results and tables
from the Appendix are discussed in the text.
As we show in Chapter 2, the survey was conducted across four types of populations for
the purposes of the Study. Two of the categories are ‘clients’ or ‘borrowers’, while the
other two are ‘non-clients’. In the borrower/client category, there are two types of clients,
the ‘Active Borrowers’ and the ‘Pipeline Borrowers’. The former category that of ‘Active
Borrower’, is that client who has been in the programme of the MFI for longer than ten
months; s/he may have been a client for some years in their nth loan cycle or may have
even been a client in their first year. ‘Pipeline Borrowers’ are classified as those new
clients who had joined the programme of the MFI a few months – usually between 1-4
months – of the start of our survey. There are also two categories of ‘Non-Borrowers’,
one which are selected from the neighbourhood of the old Active Borrowers, and the
other from the neighbourhood of Pipeline Borrowers. Ideally, and in the best case
possible, the Active Borrower and the Pipeline Borrower (and their neighbours) should
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