SONATA: Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) Pilot Summary of Analysis February 2009

Sonata’s Mission and Goals Mission: “Identify and motivate poor women in a cost-effective way and deliver them micro finance services in an honest, timely and efficient manner." Goal: “SONATA's ambition is to ensure that at least 50% of people who enter the program cross the poverty line within 5 years of participation in the program.”

Progress out of Poverty Index What is it? An objective client poverty assessment and targeting tool, which: – Provides client poverty level, social performance, data – Enables MFIs to manage social performance An inexpensive and easy to collect scorecard – Derived from representative national household income and expenditure survey – Comprised of simple, non-financial indicators

Who Is Using the PPI? Within the Grameen Foundation Network – Asia – 9 partners – Latin America – 4 partners – MENA – 2 partners Globally – MFIs: Over 40 institutions – Social investors – Social raters – National/Regional networks – Government institutions 4

Sonata’s PPI Pilot Design PPI Pilot objectives: – Gather representative PPI data across six branches in the UP region – Gauge the operational and logistical challenges and opportunities associated with implementing the PPI Pilot Scope: Six branches Pilot Duration: Eight weeks Pilot Sample Size: Census approach, all incoming and renewal clients within an eight-week period.

PPI Pilot Collection *Clients without a loan cycle specified were not used in the analysis and are displayed under the ‘Applied for Loans’ column. **32 entries were not included in the analysis due to duplicate entries.

Overall PPI Analysis Entering Clients 26% of new clients are below the national poverty line, 38% are below the $1/day poverty line, and 88% of the clients are below the $2/day poverty line. Renewal Clients 30% of renewal are below the national poverty line, 46% are below the $1/day poverty line, and 91% of clients are below $2 a day.

Rural Vs Urban Looking at the entering clients(below), it is clear that the rural clients are more likely to be poor (29.7% below National Poverty Line as compared to 12.2% for the entering Urban clients.)

Branch wise Analysis Branch wise classification In terms of branch wise classification of poverty levels, there is a great range of poverty levels across branches, especially for entering clients. For example, Saray Akill is targeting the poor in the sample with over 33.3% of the entering clients below the national poverty line and almost half of the clients below the $1/ Day poverty line Renewal clients, however, seem to have the same likelihood of poverty across branches.

Branch wise Analysis: (Continued)

Occupation of Clients Animal Husbandry, Buffalo, and Goat purchasing is the most common type of business that clients are doing. Approximately 60% of the entering clients (249 clients out of the 416) are involved in this business. However, looking at poverty likelihoods, 35% of such entering clients (in animal husbandry) are below the national poverty line. The renewal clients who own general stores are less likely to be poor as compared to renewal clients in other occupation, quite understandably.

Occupation and Poverty

Loan Amounts and Poverty… For both entering and renewal clients, the higher the loan amount, the less likely the client will be below the poverty levels (excluding those with a loan amount of zero).

Loan Amounts and Poverty

Age and Poverty Age In terms of age, the entering clients mostly fall between years. Though clients across all age groups have almost the same poverty levels, further analysis shows that the younger entering clients are poorer than the older new clients. The renewal clients show the same patterns of likelihood of poverty, irrespective of the age group. However, the renewal clients above the age of 45 seem likely to have the least possibility of falling below the poverty lines.

Age and Poverty

Conclusions It does make a lot of sense to position ourselves on the social front, which has been one of the key USPs of Sonata More so, when we have things like socials ratings, social performance, social audits CHI V/s PPI – CHI – targeting – PPI – targeting, tracking, impact assessment, national level bench marking, strategic decision making Implementation Plan – next slide – As a Performance measurement tool – As an Impact Evaluation tool – Census approach (entering, renewal, cycle 1/3/5, 2/4/6, exit clients) – Sample basis (a few clients, a few branches, a few years) Synchronization with the MIS – Repeated / Multiple set of information – Interface software tool from GF

Addressing Implementation: Key Factors Management Information Systems Quality control & validate requirements Reporting capabilities Human Resources New employee (staff & Mgrs) training Ongoing training Policy Collection protocol/policy Collection quality control Performance Management Reporting (internal/external) Monitoring 18 Key factors to consider when preparing for implementing the PPI

Thank You!

APENDIX

Poverty Lines Based on the same data 1 the PPI is based on: – 17.0% of Indians are below the National Poverty Line (Rs 14.25) – 8.4% of Indians are below the USAID “estreme” line (Rs 11.94) – 9.5% of Indians are below $0.75/Day/PPP (Rs 11.53) – 25.4% of Indians are below $1/Day/PPP (Rs 15.38) – 42.6% of Indians are below $1.25/Day/PPP (Rs 19.22) – 56.9% of Indians are below $1.5/Day/PPP (Rs 23.07) – 74.9% of Indians are below $2/Day/PPP (Rs 30.75) 21 1 Source: Microfinance Risk Management, L.L.C. based on Schedule 1.0 of Round 62 (July 2005 to June 2006) of India's Socio-Economic Survey (SES) conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO, 2005).

Utter Pradesh Poverty Rates