POWG in-person meeting, Monday June 1 (9am – 5pm ET)

In person:
1. Thierry van Bastelaer (CARE),
2. Kate Druschel (GF USA)
3. Malini Tolat (GF USA),
4. Dr Rao (Microcredit Summit Campaign),
5. Aude deMontesquiou (World Bank/CGAP),
6. Allyn Moushey (USAID),
7. Natalie Domond (DAI),
8. Sabina Rogers (SEEP),
9. Mary McVay (SEEP),
10. Jan Maes (Friend of SEEP, facilitator)
Virtual:
1. Brian Beard (IRIS; attended 2 half),
2. Bobbi Gray (FFH; attended 2d half)
3. Tom Coleman (SIP author/consultant)
4. Divya Chaturvedy (SIP author/consultant),
RSVP yes, but couldn’t make it:
1. Lisa Kuhn-Fraioli (FFH),
2. Jo Sanson (Trickle Up),
3. Jenny Dempsey (ProMujer)
4. Alexi Taylor-Grosman (FINCA)
RSVP no
1. Dev Miller (CCF) - traveling
2. Sachi Shenoy (Unitus) – SPTF meeting in Madrid
3. Susannah L (TU) – in Mali
4. Jane Katz (HFHI) – other meeting
5. Sarah Ward (MC)
6. Amy Davis (HFHI, SPWG) – SPTF meeting in Madrid
7. Jeff Blythe (MCS) – preparing for next week’s Colombia MCS

Breakout session 1 (10a-12p): Frameworks for defining poverty

As a group, we identified 3 categories for “why the very poor don’t access MFI financial
products”

A. Services Not Accessible

What does it mean?
1. Physically: no service providers
2. Cost too high: quality (not a target market)
3. Customer awareness: of availability, of utility
4. Lack of trust in service providers
How to Fix it?
1. …

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 a. Infrastructure
b. Incentives
i. Public – auto …?? [couldn’t read]
ii. Market diversity?
c. Better/efficient model => technology
2. Incentivize development of models that work
3. Marketing and educating ??? [how is this same as #4?]
4. Education/ marketing
5. consumer protection

B. Services Not Appropriate

What does it mean?
1. Mismatch between demand, supply
2. Too risky, expensive
3. Cash flow mismatch
4. Up-front/ sunk costs too high
5. Models don’t work for socially, culturally, or educationally excluded
6. Demand for wider range of products, services

How to fix it?

1. Increase incentives to reach ultra poor
2. Increase research on demands/ needs of poor
3. New risk reduction strategies w/in
a. Households
b. MFIs
c. Communities
4. Building improved linkages w/ safety nets, social protection
5. Develop graduated models
6. Address exclusion
7. Integrated programming

C. Services Not Enough

What does it mean?
1. Unmet basic needs (food, health…)
2. Vulnerability to external/internal shocks
3. Lack of complementary MF/ED services (market access, skills)
How to fix it?
1. Start where some basic needs/ complementary services available
2. Strategic alliances for basic needs/ services
3. Advocacy
4. Community mobilization for local provision of needs/services
5. Products that affect basic needs (positive externalities)
6. Staff orientation for #5
7. Financial literacy
8. SSN/insurance

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Breakout session 2 (1-3p): Utility of tools (PPI, PAT) beyond compliance

Social Performance Task Force (meeting now in Madrid)

- They are starting a WG (Nigel Biggar is involved) on the use of poverty tools for internal mgt of
MFI

- How does that fit in w/ what POWG is doing? How can we all work together?

SEEP AC Monday session: utility of tools beyond compliance

- How to use these tools beyond reporting, how to do it properly (and report out to USAID)

- How do you design programs, products/services to reach very poor

- Need to include implementers (whether they’re members or not)

- MSC: use of poverty scorecard

- What is the purpose of the day?

o Use PACT case studies (that POWG did in 2006): do analysis and provide to participants
as mini cases to work from

o Enough about the tools, what about the work?

o Distill key principles of product design => what is road map for how we get there?

o Even if we have that info (principles), what are road blocks that are barriers to MFIs from
reaching the poorest w/ appropriate products and services

- Practitioner (MFI staff) buy in

o They don’t agree w/ the indicators

- How can you use the results of PPI (and PAT?) to redesign your program, products?

- Analysis of the data: characteristics of the clients helps MFI think strategically about program,
next steps

o To use the data, forethought and planning is required

o Know what you want to know => run analysis

- USAID

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 o Interested other uses of PAT

 Ramifications: will it become a requirement written into grants?

- How can we responsibly make the trade-off between statistical reliability and usefulness

o People just want a final answer

- FORMAT FOR SESSION

Part of day’s Sub-session Focus or takeaways Tools/resources

session and
Life with Poverty Assessment 3 years in: Technical
Poverty Practitioner input Capacity Building
tools 1. Are the challenges different? Marketing
2. Do you need 2 groups? Why aren’t more
people using?
Uses of poverty tools beyond Applying to Enterprise
compliance (of USAID grant Development
requirements)

Effective Service/product design and delivery Grameen cases

Models for market Expansion POWG cases
reaching linking w/ other development VALUE designs
and serving services/work
the very Principles Cases
poor Application/adaptation
to own program
MF/MED together or separate?

Life after ?
Poverty
Tools

Other case studies, info to gather (for POWG activities, for AC session)

• DAI: lessons learned, PAT in practice (will be coming out in DAI Developments this summer;
follow up w/ Natalie Domond)

o Attribution w/ VCD projects => how to differentiate between someone who received
services and those who didn’t but who are expected to replicate

• Grameen Fdn USA: results of using PPI (www.progressoutofpoverty.org/casestudies)

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 • BRAC: follow up w/ Imran Matin

• EDA Rural: Grameen Kooten (follow up w/ Frances Sinha)

• USAID: see if there is more data in MRR that would be useful; if not, perhaps Allyn could put
request through appropriate channels

• Microcredit Summit Campaign: will be publishing papers on…

o (July) MF in Bangladesh

o (end June) India: nationwide survey of what % of clients have moved out of poverty;
qualitative survey

***Define parameters now that we want to know from Grameen’s (or other POWG members’) data 2-3
yrs down the road.

VALUE facilitating a practitioner learning program on VCD, poverty tools,

outreach: what are their strategies? VC finance plans
- Swisscontact & Mercy Corps (Indonesia) => tofu and tempe

- ACCESS Dvt Services (India) => Jaipur jewelry association

- Katalyst Prgm (Bangladesh) =>

- AMPATH and Fintrac, maybe K-REP (Kenya) =>

- Jamaica Exporters Association (Jamaica) => ornamental fish

SEEP MEMBERS ONLY

Strategic direction of POWG (3 yr): On what should POWG focus?

- Principles for poverty outreach: looking at it from a population lens

- Have we passed the analysis phase (use of the tools)? Yes, so answer these questions:

o What is the meaning of the data?

o Are we learning anything about the usage of the tools? What are we learning?

o What have we been achieving w/ the tools?

- Product development process for products designed for very poor

o When they find out that they’re not reaching the very poor, what is our support?

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 - What is the biggest value in terms of what we do?

o Product design (!) for very poor people

o Integrated, collaborate w/ other WGs

SEEP MEMBERS ONLY

Concrete product that POWG can produce in next 6 mo

- Research frame: characteristics, commonalities as data is being collected

- Data: who is willing to share data? What do we know already?

o Is the data reliable?

o What were the reactions at the MFIs to the data?