Jacob Shiman: Finance for Social Impact in Colombia

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 Finamiga (http://www.finamiga.co/quienes-somos/) is a Colombian microfinance institution that offers financial products tailored towards rural agricultural borrowers. The institution sought the assistance of Partners of the Americas Farmer-to-Farmer to evaluate the social impact of its products and services by reviewing client and loan data. Remote volunteer Jacob Shiman worked with Finamiga to analyze its social impact data and then adopt its data collection and interpretation to match the best practices of the broader microfinance sector. Using Finamiga’s data for the Poverty Probability Index tests, Shiman helped Finamiga staff better understand the extent to which its services improved the lives of clients or, in some cases, fell short. He found that its agricultural clients were generally the poorest and learned that increased time between loans was associated with livelihood improvements. Finding that Finamiga did quite well compared to its competitors, Shiman provided recommendations on a range of practices Finamiga can adopt to further improve its social impact reporting.  As a result of Shiman’s assignment, Finamiga has an adjusted plan for client data collection that will provide valuable information on how its products and services impact the lives of borrowers.

“I learned a great deal about the challenges that Colombian microfinance firms face and the tradeoffs that accompany discussions about data collection. My Colombian colleagues taught me a great deal about microfinance and general business culture in Colombia. I was able to practice and further develop my econometrics, Spanish, and Stata skills during this experience, and saw how many microfinance firms sit on a plethora of data.”

 -Jacob Shiman

 

“Thanks to the support of the Farmer-to-Farmer program and volunteer Jacob Shiman, we were able to analyze new data regarding our poverty outreach indicators. We worked for almost five months with Jacob in reevaluating and strengthening our Poverty Probability Index (PPI) measurements. The insights obtained through his research have given us a broader perspective regarding the impact our microcredits have on our clients and important tools to appraise new products in the nearby future. This information will certainly help Finamiga UNI2 to develop new strategies to strengthen our client’s well-being and reduce their poverty risks. Needless to say, Jacob’s commitment and professionalism towards delivering a high-quality investigation exceeded, by far, our expectations.”

 

          -Sebastian Ayalde, Director of Social Development at Finamiga UNI2.

 


 

 

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