Social Impact Assessment of Microfinance Programmes - weman

Chapter Three:
Asasah
3.1 Institutional Review
3.1.1 Background and History
Asasah was started on 1 March 2003 by Tabinda Jaffrey, its Chief Executive Officer
(CEO), with the objective to enhance micro productivity and alleviate poverty. Asasah
was established with a 100 percent commercial financing structure and was registered in
December 2003 as a non-profit Company by Guarantee under Section 42 of the
Companies Ordinance 1984. The most interesting aspect of Asasah is its business
approach to microfinance. Initially it had no donor funding available and paid a very high
interest on its commercial finance, therefore, sustainability became a major focus. In
addition, Tabinda Jaffrey, the CEO of Asasah had spent seven years working on the
Executive Committee of Kashf Foundation and felt the approach taken by them to be
‘very slow and cautious’ and wanted to take a different route. Thus with her business and
finance background, microfinance experience and the availability of only commercial
funding, the CEO set up Asasah and treated it as a profit-oriented business with the aim
of achieving viability and sustainability rapidly.
The result is that in three and a half years, Asasah has 27 branches, over 25,000 active
members; it has disbursed over Rs.457 million and has a recovery rate of 100 percent –
see Appendix. Its Operational and Financial Self Sustainability stands at 78 percent and it
aims to reach 100 percent sustainability by December 2007. In June 2005, Asasah
completed its pilot project in which it launched 5 products, streamlined all processes and
systems and developed an operational manual.
Asasah’s mission is quite broad and comprehensive and states that its objectives are to:
‣ Improve living standards of people below the poverty line through the provision
of diverse economic, educational and information services
‣ Safeguard the interest of donors, financial institutions and individuals interested
in poverty alleviation
‣ Improve community well-being, and balance the interests of stakeholders by
encouraging participation
‣ Keep employees motivated and ensure continuous achievement of objectives
through staff capacity building
Asasah started operations from commercial funders, who still remain its primary
investors. The Chief Executive Officer stated that it was a difficult task to convince
commercial institutions to invest in Asasah and to assure them that their investment will
yield decent returns. The first investor who became interested after months of persuasion
was First Elite Capital Modarba. They pledged Rs.7 million for 1,000 clients to Asasah
and gave them a year to complete the disbursement. Asasah managed to loan out the
money in three months and its recovery was 100 percent. After this success, other
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