Knowing the number of poor who have access to financial services would likely only be useful to provide context to microfinance agencies in search of donor funding. Operationally, for microfinance institutions, such broad data has little if any impact as there is little if anything they can do with it - for microfinance institutions that exist in the developing world, there is unquestionable need and overwhelming demand for their services. I doubt that there exists a microfinance agency that suffers from so much capital that they don't know what to do with it.

Given the cost that might be required to collect this substantive data, what may be far more useful to donors/investors and other high level users is to encourage transparency within the industry through the quarterly or monthly publishing in the local press of prevailing interest rates (presented in a consistent format and taking into account forced savings) and at a given and appropriate loan amount, while also compelling microfinance institutions to make basic audited financial statements or credit rating agency reports publicly available on an annual basis in order to receive donor/investor capital. Such information would then allow the donor/investment community to assess for themselves what level of "sustainable impact"/"effectiveness" is being made (particularly given the subjective nature of the ideas of "impact" and "effectiveness") while also providing local actors (both MFIs and the poor) with 'actionable intelligence' to more quickly and better able to respond to market signals and needs.

DFID has been working with others to develop better data on access to and usage of financial services in developing countries. DFID funds Finmark Trust, an independent trust based in South Africa which has been conducting specialised household surveys of financial services usage and access in South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia. The information that these surveys have produced has proved very useful for the banking sector in South Africa, which is now funding follow-up surveys themselves. DFID is now exploring the feasibility of replicating this approach, or using alternative approaches to collect such data in other countries. DFID believes that better access indicators could be very valuable in promoting wider access to financial services for the poor in developing countries by:

I would probably throw the data away, and try to make sure everyone in my organization did not waste their time thinking about it. Instead, I would try to get the staff to look for better ways to get the limited amount of resources our organization has available into places and organizations that are able to do the most good work with the least resource. . . but where are the data to make such a determination? I would call up UNCDF to ask them to research something that would be enormously valuable, like getting on the record some management information about the effective organizations in microfinance ... and red flagging institutions that are not effective at all. I would send an e-mail to the MFP list to suggest that people operating microfinance organizations become involved with the Afrifund Database initiative or some other database initiatives working along similar lines so that more management information about effective MFIs is on the record (for example TheMIX). I would make a plea to all the established official development assistance (ODA) experts and organizations to stop producing "economic" data and start producing "management" data since we already know that "development' is in trouble but we don't have the information to be effective in fixing it.

Access of any organization to complete, perfect data on MFI performance and impact is an ideal that, for the moment, seems nearly impossible. However, some industry wide efforts such as the MIX (Microfinance Information Exchange) is addressing this need, using an Internet based system for MFIs to upload their information and make it accessible to all concerned.

Otherwise, here at the African Development Bank, if we had access to relevant MFI performance and impact information, we would use it in the following manner:

Promotion of the microfinance sector within the Bank: MF remains a largely unknown paradigm within the Bank. The extent to which information on MFI performance and impact can be disseminated within the Bank, the more support the sector will get in terms of priority.

Basis for making more sound investment decisions: Access to appropriate data will assist in the evaluation and appraisal of any proposals or requests for loan and equity investments into MFIs.

Public relations for the Bank: The extent to which we can publish the performance data of MFIs in which we invest and support, the image and respect of the Bank will be increased.

I will analyze the data to determine the trends across countries in terms of product development, savings mobilization, group dynamics, sustainable interest rates so as to determine what works and how. This will serve as a basis for determining best practices in the microfinance market and an advocacy tool for replication of such breakthrough initiatives in other places to allow for a wider access of the poor and the low-income groups to financial services.

The first thing I would want to know is what financial services do they have access to, and what needs are unmet. But with the hard data you reference, I would also try to solicit action from appropriate groups, financial institutions and governments to better serve the financial needs of the many millions of the world's disenfranchised poor with smart card-based "virtual bank accounts" serviced by a network of satellite-linked automated banking machines (stationary and mobile) and MFIs equipped with satellite phones with compatible chip terminals for processing deposits, withdrawals, card-to-card and account-to-account transfers, remittances and sales.