The Future of the PPI >

Julie Peachey
•07/02/15
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As the Progress out of Poverty Index® (PPI®) grows – both in scale and across more diverse users – the Grameen Foundation and Mark Schreiner are focused on developing a sustainable model that current and future users can rely on, well into the future.

PPIs are now available for 60 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population living on less than $1.25 per day. It is used by more than 400 organizations in a variety of sectors as a key component of their monitoring and evaluation systems – for client targeting, market segmentation and to collect insight on client-level outcomes from development efforts. The PPI’s website received 23,000 unique visitors last year and averages 1,000 document downloads per month.

By design, the PPI has been freely available as a public good and easily accessible at www.progressoutofpoverty.org. This has been made possible by the generous support of various leaders in economic development such as CGAP, Cisco Foundation, Cordaid, Ford Foundation, Moody’s Foundation, and Grameen Foundation over the past decade. It has also been made possible by a growing number of PPI users who have funded and/or facilitated the field testing of PPIs in the countries in which they operate.

In order to ensure that the PPI continues to be available as a public good for any organization working to improve the lives of the poor, we engaged an excellent team of consultants from Bridges Impact+ to help us design and implement a long-term sustainable business model.  Essential elements of this model must include robust funding, strong governance, and a dedicated administrative home outside the Grameen Foundation.

Over the past few weeks, key stakeholders have provided valuable input to this process. At the recent Social Performance Task Force annual meeting in Cambodia, we were delighted to have a packed room at a session during lunch about the future of the PPI and the country-based approaches that Good Return, World Vision, and the Aga Khan Development Network have supported. On June 25 in Washington, DC, individuals from fourteen organizations gathered to agree on important next steps related to model design. We will be following up on this event with a pitch deck based on a new PPI business model, and a call for Expressions of Interest for the various roles involved in the new set-up. Our aim is to have a clear transition underway by Spring 2016.   

The PPI would not be where it is today – as an emerging global standard for client-level poverty measurement – were it not for its tremendous ecosystem of PPI users around the world. We believe the PPI has a strong future with collective funding and stewardship, and look forward to working with many of you to enable this transition.

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