Microfinance Measuring Impact

Creating lasting positive impact in the lives of the most vulnerable takes more than good intentions and chance. At Opportunity we work alongside our local partners to ensure they’re using best practices to improve their services, allowing us to reach more families in poverty and get better social outcomes.

By measuring and assessing the impact of our programs, we can ensure your support is reaching those most in need with tools to help them transform their lives. This includes:

• Analysing client data so partners can understand who they are reaching and how clients’ lives are improving
• Simplifying product prices and making client pricing more transparent
• Promoting social reporting in organisations – helping partners attract funding and expand services by demonstrating a focus on client needs and outcomes.

Social Performance Management ensures that we understand our clients’ needs and equips us to design products and services that will enable them to most effectively transform their futures and their communities.

Opportunity’s Social Performance Management (SPM) program has grown significantly across The Opportunity International Network and has been rolled out at over half of our partners globally, including partners in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

The willingness of Opportunity’s partners to go the extra mile to truly serve the poor ensures our Social Performance Management (SPM) program’s success. It has never been better demonstrated than in our partners’ response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Understanding social impact from the people who experience it

For the second year in a row, 60 Decibels, an impact measurement company, surveyed almost 2,000 Opportunity International Australia clients across seven of Opportunity’s local partners in India and Indonesia. The results of the Microfinance Index were again positive in 2023, with similar results to 2022.

Ninety-four per cent of the clients surveyed, predominantly women and families experiencing poverty, reported improved quality of life, thanks to microfinance.

Nine out of 10 of the microfinance clients surveyed reported increased income and being better able to manage their finances. More than eight out of 10 have increased their savings – making them more resilient to any future economic shocks and reducing the risk that they will fall back into poverty.

These results show that microfinance availability to women and families living in poverty is delivering practical, sustainable solutions and a rising tide of women entrepreneurs in countries like India and Indonesia.

^{Loan recipient Rani proudly holds up six fingers. This is how many buffalos she now has!}

Attaining the Sustainable Development Goals 

In 2015, the United Nations published the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 global goals to combat poverty and protect the planet, enabling a better, more sustainable future for us all.

Almost a decade later, in 2024, financial inclusion remains key to the SDGs, not as a goal itself, but as a powerful cross-cutting tool necessary to attain many other SDGs.

Here's how Opportunity's program work connects to some of the UN's key SDGS:

━━━━━━ outcome contributes directly to the Sustainable Development Goal

-------------------- outcome contributes indirectly to the Sustainable Development Goal

If you're using a desktop or tablet, please view the Sustainable Development Goals map in full screen here.