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Yes! I want to support microfinance and empower people to work their way out of poverty.

Social Monitoring

• Consumer Protection: Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are increasingly realizing the benefits of incorporating a discrete consumer protection strategy into their organizational philosophies and operations. Members of the ACCION Network have defined and adopted a pro-consumer pledge. It defines principles to ensure that financial services benefit customers while also ensuring that the legitimate needs of microfinance institutions are met, in order that MFIs can continue providing services over time. To learn more about this area of our work, please visit the Consumer Protection project at the Center for Financial Inclusion's website.
   
  
• Measuring Impact: Assessing the impact of microfinance programs on clients has been a topic of continued study over the last thirty years. Measuring impact answers the question: “How are the lives of the participants different relative to how they would have been had the microfinance program not been implemented?”  The impact of microfinance is believed to work in a variety of ways. Microfinance is thought to reduce vulnerability, by improving the ability of microentrepreneurs to cope with shocks and helping them to diversify their income streams. Microfinance is also believed to improve standards of living, by increasing household income and expenditure (thereby reducing poverty), building human capital and helping to create jobs. Finally, microfinance helps people to build and change their asset base and to improve their housing. ACCION has measured impact in a diverse set of ways over the last four decades, and continues to work to assess its impact. To learn more about this area of our work, please visit the Double Bottom Line program at the Center for Financial Inclusion's website as well as ACCION's publications area at the Center: http://resources.centerforfinancialinclusion.org.
  
  
• Poverty Assessment: ACCION’s poverty assessment project addresses the challenge of helping microfinance institutions determine the poverty levels of clients being served, so that microfinance institutions can determine whether they are achieving their social missions and how their ability to reach their target client population is changing over time. To learn more about this area of our work, please visit the Double Bottom Line program at the Center for Financial Inclusion's website.
  
  
• Social Performance: Most microfinance institutions have a double bottom line, that is, their core purpose is to meet social objectives, which they attempt to do while maintaining financial viability. ACCION has attempted to contribute to the industry discussion to develop a framework to measure social performance. To learn more about this area of our work, please visit the Double Bottom Line program at the Center for Financial Inclusion's website.

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