Measuring Poverty Directly: Insights from ACCION`s Poverty Assessment Project

This document explains the impact assessment tool developed by ACCION in order to figure out the impact of microfinance activities on the livelihood of families using these services. The document also discusses how these services and products can be modified to meet the needs of the lower strata of the society using these tools.The document deals with the following:

• The objectives of designing the poverty assessment tool;
• The methodology adopted, data used in the methodology and the different comparisons used in the assessment;
• Recommendations for microfinance institutions (MFIs) on the basis of the final outcome of the assessments.

The document further discusses:

• The social scorecard - an instrument used to assess the client behavior and different aspects related to it;
• The manner in which this scorecard can be modified according the requirements of an MFI and the ways to assess its accuracy.