|
|
Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! |  |
|
Overall Conclusions and Main Messages - MicroStart: Finding and Feeding Breakthroughs
| Guest post by: United Nations Capital Development Fund |
Article Overview: Through MicroStart, UNDP is making an important contribution to the growth of microfinance around the world, both through its direct support of MFIs and through the processes and ideas it is introducing into countries where microfinance is just beginning.
 |
Free Download - Summary of main recommendations - Impact Study of the Zakoura Microcredit Program By United Nations Capital Development Fund |
Overall Conclusions and Main Messages - MicroStart: Finding and Feeding Breakthroughs
Through MicroStart, UNDP is making an important contribution to the growth of microfinance around the world, both through its direct support of MFIs and through the processes and ideas it is introducing into countries where microfinance is just beginning. MicroStart effectively uses UNDP's strengths, particularly its decentralized presence in a wide range of countries. By organizing key players MicroStart brings local leaders into direct, often intense, contact with experienced microfinance providers (the TSPs) and local MFIs. Through this process, best practice ideas are tested and modeled (e.g., appropriate roles for donors and government; interest rate policy; funding mechanisms). As one Moroccan observer noted, MicroStart is introducing rigor into the relations between donors and MFIs, often for the first time. The evaluation affirmed the value of the basic structure MicroStart has set up.
By focusing on young MFIs in countries with less developed microfinance activities, MicroStart has chosen a good niche for UNDP. A particular contribution is bringing southern microfinance organizations into the picture as TSPs, and in encouraging northern TSPs to source more support regionally and locally. MicroStart's main tools -- small grants to MFIs and contracts with TSPs -- are effective mechanisms. The grants do not overwhelm organizations, and their modest size conveys the message that the technical support is more valuable than the money. SUM, which developed and manages MicroStart, is to be commended for creating an effective set of tools, and more recently for taking steps to use them flexibly.
The central recommendation of this evaluation concerns how to get the most benefit from the MicroStart structure. Too often in the course of the evaluation, we found all the wonderful resources of MicroStart being applied to organizations with very low potential. MicroStart aims to work with small, young and promising MFIs, but at the local level the idea of promising is sometimes lost. MicroStart should re-orient the country offices and TSPs toward identifying organizations with the potential to grow and become sustainable -- searching for breakthroughs. It must learn the distinguishing characteristics of potential breakthroughs, and it must remove the incentives that still exist to choose low potential MFIs. Where there are few promising organizations, MicroStart will have to work with a smaller number of MFIs, develop strategies for pulling the right people into microfinance, or use MicroStart as a winnowing process.
A second major area of recommendations concerns the structuring of the relationships between the TSP, the MFIs, and the funder. We observed that within the framework MicroStart sets up, capacity building is most effective when the MFI sees the TSP as a partner and values its assistance for its own sake, rather than as a requirement for accessing funding. To enhance this perception, MicroStart should adjust the funding agreements with MFIs to focus clearly on a limited set of objective performance indicators and to base release of tranches on these, rather than on subjective judgments about institutional development. This change will make MFIs more clearly responsible for their own performance while reducing the TSP's role as funding agreement enforcer.
A third important area of recommendations concerns the future activities of SUM. SUM already recognizes that effective MicroStart programs depend on creating ownership within the UNDP country offices and ensuring that those offices have staff knowledgeable to make sound decisions regarding microfinance. This strategy makes SUM a service provider to the rest of UNDP. SUM's planned capacity building program is an important aspect of this strategy of placing tools in the hands of country offices. SUM staff should focus on providing the best possible service, including more staff visits, focused on the key intervention points it has identified, and limiting involvement during other phases. The evaluation also offers a learning agenda for SUM, based in part on the concept of SUM as a center of expertise for the microfinance industry on young MFIs and in part on topics that have arisen during MicroStart implementation. Finally, the evaluation offers a series of specific recommendations for improving key steps in the MicroStart process.
MicroStart: Finding and Feeding Breakthroughs
Midterm Evaluation
Prepared for UNCDF/SUM
10 December 1999
Elisabeth Rhyne and Jill Donahue
Does It Make Sense for UNDP to Help Launch Small and New Organizations?
Recommendations
Can Technical Service Providers Add Significant Value?
Introduction - MicroStart: Finding and Feeding Breakthroughs
MFI Performance in Countries Visited: A Few Numbers
Related Forum Posts
Re: Tell a friend
- Thanks for the update Evan! I guess worse case scenario we can always just "cut and past" useful links to send to our friends. But in truth that might actually work better since our friends/business associates will actually take the time to open and read the messages we send them, since it's from a trusted source (e.g. Messages sent by the "Tell a friend" feature might get deleted by recipients who have never heard of the EvanCarmichael.com brand, even if it says it was sent by someone they know).
Re: Watch What you Read
- I agree. i believe more video's should be like Jeffery Gitomers video's under his Sales rant. They are typically not more than 3 minutes. His model seems to be;
1. Main Message (or Point)
2. Example
3. Next steps to put it into Action
take away the extra "blabber" and you've got viewers that will come back.
Re: Email Marketing
- Yes, true. What kind of changes happened in Email campaigns except the opt-in? Finding the exact target and reaching them is always a challenge.
What new methods can we have to reach the new customers?
Thanks
Robert
Re: Where is the best place to find a web developer?
- That's a really tough one. Finding a business partner is like finding a wife - it takes a lot of trust to get the right one. I would try to hang out at tech-related startup events and see if you hit it off with anybody.
Good luck!
Re: Hello from Missouri
- I have been unsuccessfull thus far finding an online resource of people who operate in the market I'm serving. Finding those people are a big part of why I posted here, but I'm not certain this is the right area either.
The search continues...
Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.
Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.
by: 
4 Building Blocks of an Effective Talent Management System
Simon Fuller Quotes
Lesson #3: “Tell ‘em quick and tell ‘em often”
Searching for the Stars: How Yang and Filo Took Their Business to New Heights
Salesperson Wimp-Out: I Need Help 
Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
E Mail Marketing Campaigns
Creating a Better Place to Work
10 Steps to Excelling at Franchise Sales
Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.