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The Business Case for Adding Health Protection to Microfinance
Jun 2010, Reinsch, M., Dunford, C. & Metcalfe, M.

Assessing impact of health protection products

This paper documents the impact that health protection products can have on the financial performance of MFIs.

The paper is based on the experiences of Freedom from Hunger and its MFI partners in the Gates-funded Microfinance and Health Protection initiative. In 2006, Freedom from Hunger set out with five MFIs to explore the possibility of designing and offering health-related products and services that could have positive social impact for clients as well as be practical, cost-effective and profitable for MFIs. The MFIs were Bandhan (India), CARD (Philippines), CRECER (Bolivia), PADME (Bénin) and RCPB (Burkina Faso). Each MFI tested a package of health protection products that included:

Health education;
Health savings;
Health loans;
Health microinsurance;
Linkages to health providers;
Sale of health products in rural communities.

By December 2009, the health protection products of the five MFIs reached a combined total of more than 300,000 microfinance clients. Over the course of the initiative, Freedom from Hunger and the participating MFIs found that health protection products do have the potential to positively impact not only clients, but also the financial bottom line of the MFI.

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Publisher(s):
Freedom from Hunger