AAt ASSIST, the ACCESS strategy of engaging in sector building activities have been further consolidated and refined under ‘The Responsible Finance Initiative’. Given the current meltdown that the Indian microfinance sector is witnessing, this initiative has become more significant than the work in other tiers of ASSIST microfinance strategy. Through a clutch of well knit strategies, ASSIST undertakes to promote responsible finance within the practice of microfinance sector in India. Key Responsible Finance sub initiatives include:
- The Microfinance India Social Performance Report: ASSIST shall publish and launch the India Social Performance Report in 2011, an annual publication that will collate and present comprehensive research based analysis and documentation of data and initiatives on social performance undertaken by the microfinance stakeholders in the country.
- Pricing transparency: With a large number of clients having low level of literacy and a long history of vulnerability, it was observed that MFIs do not put out quality information that would provide a basis to clients for making informed choices. It is in this context that MFTransperancy (MFT) launched operations in India in 2010 to facilitate the sector’s moves towards greater transparency.
- Client protection: Initiated by ACCION and C-Gap, the smart campaign focuses of raising awareness on the need and significance for client protection. Given the large-scale concerns on practices that MFIs employ with clients, ACCESS is spearheading to bring together key stakeholders to draw attention on the issue of giving respect to the clients. While ASSIST Trustee, Vipin Sharma is represented on the Steering Committee of the SMART Campaign, within India, ASSIST has organized a round table on client protection principles related to compliance.
- Knowledge Products: From time to time, ACCESS-ASSIST brings out important knowledge products that help in informing and influencing perspectives on key issues in the sector. While ‘Microscan’ is a document that captures the financial ratios of smaller NGO-MFIs and helps to attract supply side players to provide on-lending fund support to these smaller institutions, other studies have drawn attention of the sector on broader issues. For 2011, the ambitious ‘Two decades of the SHG Movements’ is being undertaken to bring to the attention of promoters and policy makers, the need to learn from the past experiences and make appropriate future investments for the movement’s growth.