CGAP Poverty Assessment Tool

The CGAP Poverty Assessment Tool provides transparency on the depth of outreach of MFIs. It provides rigorous data on the levels of poverty of clients relative to people within the same community through the construction of a multidimensional poverty index that allows for comparisons between MFIs and across countries. The tool involves a survey of 200 randomly selected clients and 300 non-clients, takes about four months to complete and costs around $10,000. Field tests were successfully completed on seven MFIs in seven countries. The Poverty Assessment tool should be used in conjunction with other appraisal tools (such as the CGAP Appraisal Format) to ensure a holistic understanding of MFIs.

Poverty assessment tools research and analysis is also being conducted by USAID in collaboration with the IRIS center through USAID's Accelerated Microenterprise Advancement Project (AMAP).

A Closer Look at PAT

Assessment of MFI Client Poverty Levels

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