PAWG Mid-year Meeting

Washington, D.C.
6 May 2004
 Introduction

 FINCA had been conducting client research,

using summer research interns since 1997
(founder-driven)
 Began to focus on poverty assessment in 2001
with Imp-Act project (donor-driven)
 Microcredit Summit Campaign and CGAP
(industry driven)
 Suspicion of mission drift (founder)
 Tool distinguishes between poorest, moderately
poor and non-poor
 Time and Costs

 Outreach: 9-11 country programs per summer

 350-400 interviews in 20 days per program
 Interns: $5,000/country—2 interns; $2,500 data
analysis (HQ)
 Supervised by headquarters; beginning to
institutionalize assessments and/or use local
university students
 Client’s time: 15 minutes
 Credit Officer’s time: 1 day, 2 VBs, 10 interviews
 Data Collection and Analysis

 New, current, ex and non-clients are selected through a

stratified random sample
 Country programs are surveyed every one to two years
 Data is sent weekly to HQ and stored in Excel database
 Interns provide end-of-the month briefing, summary of
findings
 HQ summarizes all data, does regional & country
comparison and analysis with SPSS
 Misreporting or Data
Manipulation
 Collected at VB meetings and house visits
 Interview scripts standardized at training of
interns
 Email list serve and IM used to discuss issues
with whole team as they arise
 Third party data collectors (non-staff, non-client)
 Data screening and cleaning in field (daily) and at
HQ by senior staff
 Adaptations

 In LA and Africa: FCAT tested in 11 countries

 In NIS:
 A separate client-completed questionnaire being tested
 At evaluation/training events (BDS + tea + cookies)
 Only adaptation was to adjust to MDG indicators
 Mostly applicable to any development program