FINCA International

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Scorecard

Financial Questionnaire

Growth Questionnaire

Geography Questionnaire

 1.3% in Afghanistan
 5.7% in Armenia    
10.9% in Azerbaijan 
 1.5% in Congo, D.R.
13.4% in Ecuador    
 1.5% in El Salvador
 7.1% in Georgia    
 1.5% in Guatemala  
 0.3% in Haiti      
 2.3% in Honduras   
 9.4% in Kosovo     
10.2% in Kyrgyzstan 
 1.0% in Malawi     
 8.5% in Mexico     
 2.2% in Nicaragua  
12.1% in Russia     
 1.1% in Tajikistan 
 3.3% in Tanzania   
 5.2% in Uganda     
 0.5% in Uzbekistan 
 0.9% in Zambia     

Health Outcomes Questionnaire

• In FINCA's 2006 paper, The Varying Economic Impact of Village Banking (also posted here), Brock Smith says, "the average current FINCA client in either group is likely to spend about 40 cents more per day than the average new client, with several other variables held constant." (Smith 2006, page 8)

• The 40 cents per day figure in the above bullet point applies to clients from samples in two poorer groups of countries, (Malawi, Zambia, Haiti) and (South Africa, Guatemala, Nicaragua), but not to clients from a richer group of states (Kosovo, Tomsk, Samara).

• The first group of countries has HDI levels of about 0.4 or 0.45; the second group has HDI levels of about 0.66 or 0.69; and the third group has HDI levels of about 0.7 or 0.8.

• One crude interpretation would be that the 40 cents per day figure holds true for relatively poor regions (HDI below 0.7), but not for wealthier regions (HDI above 0.7).

• In 2006, FINCA served about 219,000 clients in countries with HDI levels below 0.7, and served about 217,000 clients in coutries with HDI levels above 0.7. Of the total money in outstanding loans, 21% is with the 219,000 clients in the lower-HDI countries, and 79% is with the 217,000 clients in higher-HDI countries. Sources: [8] and FINCA International#HDI_Questionnaire.

• FINCA spends about US$ 51,000,000 per year. Just for the sake of argument, if you assume for a second that there is no benefit to the 217,000 clients in higher-HDI countries, and that FINCA is spending all US$ 51 million for the benefit of the 219,000 clients in lower-HDI countries, that works out to a cost of about US$ 233 per lower-HDI client. If the sole benefit to each of those clients is an increased standard of living of 40 cents per day, that works out to a benefit of US$ 146 per year per client.

• Alternatively, if you assume that the 219,000 clients in the lower-HDI countries can be served for a cost of only US$ 10,710,000 (21% of the US$ 51 million total budget), then that works out to a cost of about US$ 49 per lower-HDI client, for a benefit of US$ 146 per year per client.

• Using the numbers from the previous bullet point, and merging that with the estimates from the GDP section on the Cost estimates page, if you could selectively fund just the FINCA work in SSA, you might expect the FINCA clients there to also benefit from a 2% increase in life expectancy, and maybe 7% improvements in the infant mortality rates and the primary school enrollment rates for the families of FINCA clients. So, in SSA, we might be able estimate that FINCA provides an indirect health benefit of about 0.9 YLLs per client.

• Hopefully former-clients would continue to benefit from the increased standard of living even after they are no longer clients with FINCA and FINCA is no longer spending money to get that benefit. It's hard to estimate the total cost-benefit ratio without knowing more about how enduring the benefits are, or how long a client typically remains a client, etc. Here's another quote from Smith's paper: "The results indicate that for both groups each month of FINCA membership corresponds, on average, to roughly 1 extra cent of daily expenditure. This amount is far from negligible when accrued over multiple years." (Smith 2006, page 9). That seems to suggest that it takes about 3 to 4 years for a client to reach level of benefit where they're seeing an increased standard of living of 40 cents per day. If you combine that assumption with the figures from the previous bullet points, then you get a total cost of US$ 181 per YLL for the money spent directly in SSA, or US$ 862 per YLL if you fund FINCA worldwide but only see benefits in the lower-HDI countries.

• These are painfully rough estimates, but it's interesting to compare these cost-benefit numbers with the other estimates on our Cost estimates page.

• For now, for lack of better data, I'll use the figures above, and assume that it costs:
  • US$ 181 per YLL for the money spent by FINCA in SSA
  • US$ 862 per YLL for FINCA worldwide

Transparency Questionnaire