Florent Bédécarrats

Josepha Laroche

François

Johan Bastiaensen

Co-optation, Cooperation or Competition? Microfinance and the New Left in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua

Co-optation, Cooperation or Competition? Microfinance and the New Left in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua

Florent Bédécarrats, François Doligez, Johan

Introduction 1 The role of microfinance in the development process is subject to debate. After receiving worldwide recognition with the UN's International Year of Microcredit in 2005 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 to a Bangladeshi microfinance icon, microfinance is currently being challenged by the new Latin American left -in the very place where the sector's growth has been most impressive. These new leftist governments have adopted differing positions with regard to microfinance actors and the mainstream microfinance paradigm that has reigned for the last two decades.

The phenomenon calls for fresh analysis from a political economy perspective to understand this contested redefinition of microfinance's role in countries where political powers are appealing for a socialist approach. Although microfinance is being questioned everywhere, the climate in Brazil seems to be one of acceptance and complementarity 2 , unlike the confrontational atmosphere observed in Nicaragua [START_REF] Padilla | Las microfinance somos muy politicamente atractivas[END_REF] . The situation is more ambiguous in Bolivia [START_REF] Bédécarrats | L'influence de la régulation sur la capacité de la microfinance à contribuer au développement: le cas de la Bolivie[END_REF] , Ecuador [START_REF] Rhyne | Microfinance Among the Populist' The Huffington Post 11[END_REF] , and El Salvador.

Are we witnessing in Latin America the reintroduction of state intervention in a sector that has matured under a private commercial model? After the 'lost decade' of development, are we moving towards a new relationship between the political elite and citizens, one that offers more protection to the vulnerable in exchange for increased dependence on their leaders? Should we qualify as populist these governments' attempts to take control of microfinance institutions (MFIs), which, under the pretext of expanded financial access and lower interest rates, ultimately threaten the sector's sustainability and subject it to clientelistic manoeuvrings? Are we seeing the emergence of a new institutionalised forum that reconciles regulation, public policies and private initiative, or simply superficial attempts to manage tensions, which are destined to fail?

The prevailing discourse rarely goes beyond conflicting orthodoxies claiming either state or market superiority. Indeed, it is only very recently that a few microfinance actors have begun to reconsider possible linkages to public programmes, especially in the agriculture and rural sectors [START_REF]Políticas Públicas y Marcos Regulatorios para las Microfinanzas, Seminar FOROLAC-REDCAMIF[END_REF] . In this article, we compare the relationship between the microfinance sector and leftist governments in three Latin American countries. After examining the historical trends underpinning these recent political shifts, we will summarize the confrontations between public policy and microfinance in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. We then propose an analytical framework to categorize the dynamics at work in each of these countries, and the strategies microfinance actors are using to reposition themselves in this new environment.

The heated debate over development finance

The Latin American left: a mixed political reality After several decades of repressive dictatorship and increasingly contested neoliberal governments, left-wing coalitions returned to power in Venezuela (1999), Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2005), Honduras, Chile, Bolivia (2006), Ecuador, Nicaragua (2007), Paraguay (2008), El Salvador (2009) and Peru (2011). The spectacular rise of this new left in the form of social movements, political parties and governments cannot be ignored by financial and development institutions [START_REF] Calderon | Una inflexión histórica. Situación y cambio político en América Latina socioinstitucional[END_REF] . Indeed, despite their heterogeneity, these new leftist actors all claim to represent an ideological and symbolic rupture from neoliberalism and wilfully challenge assumptions of state inefficiency and the predominance of private initiative and markets as the most effective modes of organizing society and the economy [START_REF] Arditi | Arguments About the Left Turn in Latin America: A Post-Liberal Politics[END_REF] . Some researchers analyse this political dynamic in binary terms that oppose a populist, statecentred and authoritarian left with a social democratic one that is more modern and reformist [START_REF] Castañda | Latin America's Left Turn[END_REF] . Although this typology is useful for distinguishing the extremes of the leftist political spectrum, it induces a simplistic perspective that impedes understanding of the forces at play between the grass-roots and heads of partisan organizations, and the processes that lead to policy formulation [START_REF] Cameron | Latin America's Left Turn: Beyond Good and Bad[END_REF] . To grasp the multiple dimensions in which these interactions unfold, it is important to take into account the cognitive and normative elements that drive the discourses, paradigms and conceptual frameworks of the new lefts, as well as their interests and institutions-defined as the ensemble of rules and practices that affect behaviour and mark historical inertia [START_REF] Hall | Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms[END_REF] . Therefore it is useful to examine the segments of society involved in mobilizing voters and activists, but also the diverse backgrounds of the political elites.

Leftist governments in Latin America claim to be so strongly opposed to previous policies that many have undertaken deep constitutional reforms to make a clean break. However, whether they can translate these changes into an alternative development model is questionable. So far, governments have promoted more egalitarian income distribution, but have remained attentive to macroeconomic equilibrium. In most cases, changes have materialized through expanded social welfare programmes to benefit the poorest. Although these redistribution mechanisms create enormous opportunities in terms of health and education, they are based on existing modes of production, in particular tax revenues from the primary sector, and are not paired with more structural economic reforms [START_REF] Moreno-Brid | What is New and What Is Left of the Economic Policies of the New Left Governments in Latin America[END_REF] . Recent political shifts have done little more than reinforce the 'trickle down' orthodoxy without questioning the requirements of expanded reproduction of private capital and the new 'post-Washington consensus' [START_REF] Beasley-Murray | Latin America's Left Turn: an introduction[END_REF] .

We must be careful not to idealize the relationship between governments, parties and social movements. There is much to be learned from the manoeuvrings and reversals of alliances between the constituents of these organizations and the 'professional politicians' that emerge from them 14 . The left's accession to power in several countries coincides with a polarization of politics and rising tensions between those in power and the opposition. These tensions tend to reinforce clientelistic strategies and push the new governments to mobilize all available resources to strengthen their popular support. The pervasiveness of such power struggles is further exacerbated when the executive branch assumes control of administrative or judicial authorities.

Poverty champions or loan sharks?

The economic history of Latin America is particularly scarred by the collapse of state banks and government credit programmes. The main tools of development finance in 1960s and 1970s, state-run banks and programmes were notorious for being highly dysfunctional: cumbersome loan procedures, poor internal control, unqualified and occasionally corrupt staff and clientelistic management practices [START_REF] Trivelli | Banca de desarrollo para el agro: experiencias en curso en América Latina[END_REF] . These failings, absorbed by public finances, played a major role in the 'debt crisis' of many developing countries [START_REF] Long | World Development Report[END_REF] . The idea that such defects are intrinsic to public finance mechanisms took root in the minds of researchers, policy makers and development professionals [START_REF] Adams | Undermining Rural Development with Cheap Credit[END_REF] , and eradicating public intervention became a priority of the structural adjustment policies imposed by international financial institutions, lenders of last resort to bankrupt states. After these reforms, whole sections of the economy were left without access to credit and savings, despite being essential to their functioning and growth [START_REF] Bastiaensen | Non-Conventional and Rural Finance and the Crisis of Economic Institutions in Nicaragua[END_REF] . Community organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) attempted to remedy this financial exclusion through initiatives often promoted by former managers of public credit programmes and deteriorating cooperatives, or by international faith-based organizations. Despite their diversity, these organizations converged in their opposition to state intervention in development finance [START_REF] Weber | The Imposition of a Global Development Architecture: The Example of Microcredit[END_REF] and helped structure the foundations of a private microfinance sector in line with the monetary and fiscal policies of their governments. MFIs hence developed as an alternative form of finance, well suited to the growing informal sector, and became a preferred solution to poverty and underemployment, ideologically compatible with neoliberalism [START_REF] Morduch | The Microfinance Promise[END_REF] .

In order to reduce subsidy dependency and attract private investors, international donors supporting the sector emphasized financial sustainability, pushing MFIs to cover their costs, commercialize operations and turn a profit, in order to ultimately integrate the international financial system 21 . As a result, microfinance NGOs increasingly sought to transform into commercial entities; credit and savings cooperatives, on the other hand, struggled to adapt to this new paradigm and continued to be marginalized. Although microfinance usually mobilizes insignificant volumes in macroeconomic terms, it affects an enormous number of people. In 2008, Latin American MFIs managed nearly 13 million loans totalling more than $13.9 billion and 13.4 million savings accounts for a volume of $9 billion [START_REF] Martinez | Latin America and Caribbean Microfinance Analysis and Benchmarking Report[END_REF] As these figures show, MFIs already play a significant role in the national economies of the countries in question and are growing rapidly. This expansion has not come without criticism. Due to the constraints of an often costly retail business striving to be sustainable [START_REF] Rosenberg | The New Moneylenders: Are the Poor Being Exploited by High Microcredit Interest Rates? Washington DC[END_REF] , microfinance interest rates are significantly higher than traditional bank loans, as evidenced by the average portfolio yields above 24 . This paradox elicits heated debate as to their fairness and the poor's capacity to support such costs, especially when they lead to significant gains for MFIs [START_REF] Guérin | La microfinance est-elle socialement responsable? Introduction[END_REF] . Microfinance's supporters point out the prohibitive cost of the alternatives available to the poor, such as moneylenders. Arguing that the main constraint is supply, they caution against interest rate caps and recommend letting competition and economies of scale drive rates down. However, the latter does not appear to occur automatically, as increased efficiency only partially translates into lower interest rates; rather, it appears to fuel particularly high levels of profitability, as is the case of the largest institutions in Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua (see table ). While many population segments, especially in rural areas, still lack access to microfinance, the excessive urban concentration of institutions has resulted in regional and nationwide debt crises, sometimes exacerbated by the development of consumer credit [START_REF] Marconi | Bolivia During the Global Crisis 1998-2004: Towards a Macroeconomics of Microfinance[END_REF] . In some countries, urban market saturation has led to rapid expansion into so-called easy segments of the rural market, resulting in lax and even reckless lending practices, dramatically deteriorating portfolio quality. Private credit bureaus, presented as tools to curb multiple loans, have cropped up in almost all Latin American countries, allowing financial institutions to share information about customers. However, governments rarely consult these agencies, which are not obligatory and moreover do not include the informal finance mechanisms that continue to play a fundamental role in the dynamics of debt [START_REF] Morvant-Roux | Accès au microcrédit et continuité des dynamiques d'endettement au Mexique: Combiner anthropologie et économétrie[END_REF] but manage to stay outside the purview of government regulation.

National trajectories

The uncertain future of microfinance in Bolivia Bolivia, a pioneer in microfinance, has become the flagship for commercial microfinance. MFIs' portfolios represent 31.5 per cent of the country's financial system in volume and the sector serves the majority (70 per cent) of customers [START_REF] Bédécarrats | L'influence de la régulation sur la capacité de la microfinance à contribuer au développement: le cas de la Bolivie[END_REF] . After an intense growth phase in the 1990s, during which nearly a million (primarily urban) clients were served, the country was rocked by its first debt crisis and confrontations with 'debtors' associations' between 1999 and 2002. It pushed the nascent 'microfinance industry' to develop mechanisms to better manage competition, such as credit bureaus and codes of conduct for institutions. The episode spared, even reinforced, two non-profit organizations: CRECER and PROMUJER, both oriented towards women and reputed as having the most socially oriented practices in the sector [START_REF] Marconi | Bolivia During the Global Crisis 1998-2004[END_REF] .

Movement for Socialism (MAS) leader Evo Morales completed his first presidential term between 2006 and 2009. It was marked by several major reforms, including changes to the constitution and the nationalization of hydrocarbon industries, but also a polarization of politics, crystallized by the antagonism between the executive branch on the one hand and the legislative and judicial branches on the other, as well as confrontations between indigenous Altiplano populations and those from eastern parts of the country [START_REF] H Do Alto | Nous serons des millions: Evo Morales et la gauche au pouvoir en Bolivie[END_REF] . With its landslide victory in December 2009, MAS now controls most of the political institutions, which has eliminated the obstacles of his previous term. Popular expectations are very high. Evo Morales' party appears to be structured around two components: one, of Marxist origins, has long played a role in the political system and has close ties to the microfinance elite. The other, associated with indigenous groups and popular movements, is often at odds with the first.

This somewhat disparate left takes an ambiguous stance with regard to microfinance. While it depicts MFIs as usury lenders during elections, with MAS candidates promising loans at single digit interest rates, the party has made only patchy attempts at real action. The Bolivian regulatory framework was a paragon for commercial microfinance [START_REF] Vogel | Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance Activities: The Bolivian Case Study[END_REF] because it prioritized profitability and stability, thus encouraging the standardization of practices to the detriment of development objectives [START_REF] Bédécarrats | L'influence de la régulation sur la capacité de la microfinance à contribuer au développement: le cas de la Bolivie[END_REF] . There was a shift in 2006, when Evo Morales named a former public sector banker active in microfinance as Commissioner of the highly orthodox Banking Commission, and then again in 2008 when the latter called for the Central Bank to supervise NGOs, thus far unregulated. Despite a protracted accreditation process, NGOs will soon have the possibility to mobilize savings. But this window of opportunity to build a non-profit, rural and socially oriented microfinance sector does not appear to be a government priority. Indeed, shortly after these changes, the Banking Commission was abolished to create a supervisory authority controlled by the Ministry of Economy. The reform affected all administrative authorities independent of the executive branch, and was accompanied by large staff turnover.

In substituting financial specialists deemed too technocratic with less experienced political appointees, the supervisory body lost the technical capacity to effectively monitor a sector still vulnerable to bankruptcy and fraud.

Besides regulation, the government has taken measures to increase funding at the local level.

With Venezuelan capital, it created the state-controlled Banco de Desarrollo Productivo (BDP) to channel cash transfer programmes and refinance microfinance institutions, as well as to directly provide credit to farmers' and artisans' organizations. However, the start-up capital was not renewed and the BDP'S activities have remained confined to a small, local loan fund for existing financial institutions, supervised by four ministries competing for its control. During the late 2009 electoral campaign, MAS party rhetoric stressed the need to create a genuine state-owned development finance mechanism, often mentioned in conjunction with a possible regulation of microfinance interest rates. However, these declarations have yet to give rise to concrete measures.

Even though the government's positions may ultimately change, microfinance institutions feel they are under threat of political take-over. Some non-financial NGOs have already been 'expropriated' by organizations close to the MAS. Among the MFIs, however, only AGROCAPITAL has seen its development restrained and this for very specific reasons. This institution, initiated by USAID, had indeed actively participated in the programmes for the eradication of coca production and was a target mainly on this account. Other MFIs have not been affected, but the situation may evolve. Surely, the new constitution explicitly gives a voice to social movements, making it an obligation to involve them whenever public funds are used, and, by extension, funds from international development agencies. This has reinforced militant groups close to the MAS in relation to the microfinance sector.

In light of these threats, some microfinance institutions are fostering ties with private banks, in anticipation of a decree that will force the latter to direct part of their portfolios to microcredit, like in Venezuela. For many MFIs, integrating the banking sector seems like the best protection against political whims. Not only is the latter exempt from obligations to involve social movements, it can apply particularly high interest rates on credit cards without worrying about sanctions. Other MFIs, particularly NGOs affiliated with the national microfinance network, are focusing on policy dialogue. They are striving to demonstrate their social utility by building alliances with farmers' organizations, while emphasizing their complementarity to public policies by offering to mediate the government's cash transfer programmes.

Nicaragua: Chronicle of a Crisis Foretold

The Development Bank of Nicaragua was liquidated in the early 1990s, during the political transition between the Sandinistas and the Liberal government. A first wave of commercial banks created at the same time quickly went bankrupt, often due to fraud. Microfinance flourished in this context in various forms. Commercial microfinance banks, supervised by the Banking Commission and authorized to collect savings from the public, experienced growth of 42 per cent a year between 2004 and 2008 [START_REF]Source: Compiled from data from the Superintendencia de Bancos[END_REF] , largely supported by public and private investors. Meanwhile, NGOs grew an average of 24 per cent per year, somewhat slower than their commercial counterparts, due to regulatory constraints on savings mobilization and due to the decisions of public donors who, following the recommendations of multilateral institutions [START_REF] Bastiaensen | A critical review of CGAP-IADB Policies Inspired by the Fondo de Desarrollo Local, Nicaragua[END_REF] , spurned support to unregulated non-profit organisations often concentrated in rural microfinance. Nevertheless, the success of a few rural-focused NGOs, such as Fondo de Desarrollo Local (FDL), Prestanic and Fundeser, generated growing interest among social and even commercial investment funds [START_REF]Thus, multilateral and bilateral agencies in 2008 accounted for 60% and 30[END_REF] . There are also some cooperatives, but they are significantly smaller. In late 2008, it was estimated that the key players served more than half a million customers, representing a significant proportion of the roughly one million small businesses in the country [START_REF] Flaming | S Duarte Country-Level Effectiveness and Accountability Review[END_REF] . Although this estimate is an approximation, market saturation is evident, with most cases of over-indebtedness in urban areas and among livestock farmers.

Procredit and Banex, two regulated microfinance banks strongly supported by mainstream champions of profitable microfinance, engaged in a strategy of expansion and aggressive competition. This was made possible and even necessary due to major liquidity injections from public donors and, to a lesser extent, private investors. In doing so, they sought to eliminate unregulated MFIs lacking comparable financial resources. Thanks to their institutional quality and rural outreach, however, many of these MFIs resisted and managed to secure international funding to sustain portfolio growth.

This headlong rush led to relaxed risk control, multiple lending and over-indebtedness, thereby creating the conditions for a genuine debt crisis across the sector, triggered by an acute recession that hit traders hard in 2009. The recession was exacerbated by the depression that gripped livestock farmers, economic pillars of northern Nicaragua, due to declining demand for cattle in Mexico, itself due to soaring maize prices caused by the explosion of subsidized demand for bio-ethanol in the US, as well as the application of new trade regulations prohibiting exports of cattle under 330 kg. This spiral led most MFIs to accumulate bad loans and stiffen their collection practices. Particularly affected by the crisis, Banex liquidated in 2010 while Procredit had to be recapitalized by its international holding. The latter, seeking to move towards a more creditworthy clientele, raised its minimum loan amount to $2500.

The Sandinista party returned to power in Nicaragua in 2007 after 18 years of opposition. Its victory was not the result of more votes-it registered the same 38 per cent as it had for over a decade-but the fruit of a divided opposition and political manoeuvrings that allowed the best candidate with more than 35 per cent to take office without a second round of elections. This explains why consolidating popular support became the new government's top priority. It sought to reinforce clientelistic relationships through social programmes, including subsidized microcredit financed with Venezuelan funds, and economic networks created around Venezuelan-Nicaraguan private companies, federated under a consortium called ALBA ('dawn' in Spanish), controlled by a nepotistic political network. These relationships were forged through local intermediaries, like cooperatives, that played an important role as subsidy brokers among small-scale economic actors in exchange for their partisan allegiance.

To secure support in rural areas, the government pushed for the creation of ALBA-Caruna, which transformed an existing savings and credit cooperative created by a Sandinista peasant organization, and significantly expanded its operations with the proceeds from Venezuelan petroleum deliveries [START_REF] Gómez | Crisis institucional en Nicaragua: entre un Estado privatizado y un Estado monarquizado[END_REF] .

It is against this backdrop that a movement driven by entrepreneurs close to the Sandinista party emerged in 2008 in the north. It originally set out to condemn practices used by supervised MFIs, such as the seizure of collateral and imprisonment for fraud, the only institutions allowed this type of legal recourse in the event of default. Following initial negotiations and agreement between local representatives of the movement, known as No Pago, and MFIs, the President Ortega himself encouraged his audience to rebel against these 'loan sharks' during a public speech in Jalapa 13 July 2008:

'I told you that you must protest, you must complain; I understand the complaints because undoing all the chains set up by governments serving the oligarchy and the Empire in just one year and a half is not easy. They have put us in chains from all sides. You did the right thing to protest against the moneylenders, but instead of protesting in the streets, protest outside the offices of these loan sharks and install your picket line in front of their offices. Stand strong, we support you! (...) They are threatening to stop lending, but what they do is not a favour, it is a business, designed to enrich themselves at the expense of the needs of the people since the people's banks disappeared in 1990.' [START_REF]Translation of Daniel Ortega's speech transcribed in El Nuevo Diario[END_REF] The next day sparked off months of violent clashes between the No Pago groups and MFI staff, inaugurated by setting fire to a microfinance NGO that had nothing to do with the initial reimbursement disputes, but was notorious for being close to members of the liberal opposition.

This political strategy intensified with the over-indebtedness crisis in 2009. The situation was exploited by local elites (often among the biggest defaulters) who were the main instigators and coordinators of the riots and appeared to be manoeuvring to reinforce their clientelistic networks by ensuring groups that debts would be cancelled. The occasionally violent conflict continued throughout 2009, with the government vacillating in its positions towards microfinance, ultimately maintaining an ambiguous policy that reflected local power dynamics. The opposition's claims gradually shifted from repayment issues to interest rates. Under pressure from the No Pago movement and with the support of Sandinista and non-Sandinista politicians representing livestock farmers in the north, a bill was introduced 13 April 2010 allowing defaulters to refinance their loans for five years at 18 per cent per annum. Despite the fervour that marked the struggle for this Moratorium Law, only a small portion of the No Pago debtors made use of it, apparently counting on more significant debt remissions in the electoral campaign of 2011. The introduction of a new microfinance bill in June 2011, however, seems to have opened a new era of more cooperative relationships between the government and the microfinance sector, and political support for the No Pago appears to have waned 39 . How these relationships will evolve remains to be seen.

In this context, as in Bolivia, the trend is for mature NGOs to prepare their transformation into commercial structures, in order to be regulated by the Banking Commission and thus extricate themselves from government intervention. However, it is a trend that limits the pursuit of social objectives, particularly in rural development. And yet, faced with political threats, the private sector paradoxically offers better regulatory protection than the non-profit sector.

Ecuador: measures to undermine the sector remain 'manageable'

The microfinance sector in Ecuador is composed of large organizations, banks and cooperatives, supervised by the Central Bank, and a range of unregulated NGOs and small cooperatives. In addition, there are two public banks that are unfortunately mismanaged, operate at a loss, are often manipulated for political ends, and rely on frequent injections; they are considered among the most dysfunctional in the region [START_REF] Trivelli | Banca de desarrollo para el agro: experiencias en America Latina in curso[END_REF] .

The Ecuadorian left united around the Alianza País coalition in 2006 to bring Rafael Correa to power. A former economics professor, Correa had a fleeting experience as finance minister before he was sacked under pressure from international financial institutions, which opposed his measures. Shortly after taking office in January 2007, he dismissed the World Bank's representative and launched a process of constitutional reforms, creating the foundation, in 2008, for major shifts in economic policy: greater control of oil resources and emphasis on a solidarity-based economy. Correa surrounded himself with an elite that was not representative of the traditional ruling parties: ministers came from NGOs, consulting firms and, to a lesser extent, academia [START_REF] Basabe-Serano | Ecuador: reforma constitucional, nuevos actores políticos y viejas prácticas partidistas[END_REF] .

Drawing on his academic experience as a professor, the president has developed an economic plan structured around three areas: public, private-entrepreneurial and popular. The latter corresponds to microenterprises. Under this plan, the solidarity-based economy is at the confluence of these three areas and includes participatory governance, social services, civil society and social economy enterprises [START_REF]The concept of social economy refers here to organizations engaged in economic activities defined by the status of collective ownership, such as cooperatives, mutualities, associations or unions[END_REF] . Different from the 'progressive' neoliberal vision that sought to include individual entrepreneurs in the mainstream market, Correa's approach, endorsed by the new constitution, enables their growth in an economic sphere that is a hybrid between capitalism, mutualism and the State.

A new bill, enacted May 11, 2011, seeks to prioritize the concept of 'popular finance', based on a criterion of collective ownership, over that of microfinance, defined by the type of products offered and the poverty level of its users. This law, which does not recognize the status of microfinance NGOs, would force them to either become for-profit entities or turn into cooperatives. Up to now, the law remains rather vague about the practical implications of its principles and several crucial modalities will have to be defined in the regulations expected by the end of 2011. Moreover, the government has challenged the allocation of international development aid and created an institute to coordinate donor initiatives so that their efforts converge with priorities established under national development planning. For now, the new priorities are not restrictive, but the government's efforts to collect information and assign each NGO to a ministry suggests its intention to include the non-governmental sector in its institutional framework.

The government has made changes to the institutional environment in which microfinance operates. Since his inauguration, Correa has repeatedly threatened the 'golden bureaucrats' and criticised the independence of some institutions vis-à-vis the elected representatives of the people. Thus, in addition to cross-cutting measures to reduce civil servants pay scales, the Central Bank has been monitored more closely. Technocrats have been replaced by political appointees with less technical capacity and expertise. The President has also opposed multilateral institutions, often more symbolically than operationally, such as in publicized stances against World Bank and IMF in 2007 and 2008, and through the support for the ALBA-related Banco del Sur, which still only exists on paper.

The government has also established a $40 million fund, administered by the Ministry of Social Development, for MFI on-lending. In order to ensure the social utility of institutions being refinanced, the government has developed a tool to assess social performance based on a widely recognized international social audit tool [START_REF] Zeller | Measuring social performance of micro-finance institutions: A proposal[END_REF] . It also has a direct credit programme called '5, 5, 5', which lends $5000 for 5 years at 5 per cent per annum. Many observers believe the programme was designed for political purposes and denounce poor management. Some mischievously add the number '40' to the name, referring to the program's default rate.

In this context, Red Financiera Rural, the national microfinance network that federates most of the MFIs in the country, has emerged as an ineluctable mediating body. It has organized training sessions on microfinance for new hires at the Central Bank, and more importantly, in light of the government's scathing reports and declarations concerning interest rate caps, has led intense negotiations with the government to ensure caps are applied incrementally. The majority of MFIs have managed to formally comply. Even the unofficial spokeswoman of commercial microfinance has admitted that 'the policy at least has the virtue of providing clear signals and allowing time to adjust' [START_REF] Rhyne | Microfinance among the populists[END_REF] .

A complex, ambivalent relationship

Conflicts imbued with ideological antagonism

In each of the cases presented above, the brutal disagreement that has occurred in the aftermath of political shifts can be traced to a challenging of the status quo on subsidiarity between the state and private initiative. Neo-liberal reforms gave the impression that the state was withdrawing from its sovereign functions [START_REF] Strange | The Retreat of the State[END_REF] to allow the market to organize profitable activities and delegate the management of vulnerable populations to private solidarity-based organizations or international development aid. Today, microfinance and socialist movements have something in common: their raison d'être and mission is to improve the living conditions of the poor and excluded. Yet they belong to different registers. The first insists on its technical expertise and apolitical nature, while the latter considers itself a vector allowing groups that suffer from a lack of political representation to exist in the public arena.

Despite this shared purpose and potential complementarity, attempts to articulate the two inevitably run up against profound differences stemming from the two movements' genealogy. Microfinance has for the most part thrived in the wake of structural adjustment, filling a void created by dismantled of social systems and the withdrawal of state intervention in the economy. Moreover, MFIs have often received the support of the same international institutions that imposed financial deregulation, fiscal austerity and trade liberalization -the very measures that today's social movements are fighting against. The socialist movements diametrically oppose multilateral organizations and criticize all the measures the latter have supported. Microfinance's alleged ties to these organizations make them the target of historical revenge, usually presented as a consequence the left's destruction of the 'projectorate' [START_REF] Rodriguez | El Proyectorado: Bolivia tras 20 años de ayuda externa[END_REF] imposed by international development agencies.

Leftist movements reproach microfinance for a variety of reasons, which together constitute a structured argument [START_REF] Toro | La pobreza: a gran negocio-análisis crítico sobre Oeneges, Microfinancieras y Banca La Paz, Oficina contra la usura Bancaria-Mujeres creando[END_REF] . At the centre is the debate on interest rates, described as exorbitant by movements whose social ethos does not sit well with poor people paying more than the rich. Microfinance providers are also criticized for their intransigent collection practices when it comes to dealing with recovering loans from poor clients prone to repayment difficulties. Such firmness contradicts the discourse of the left, which highlights collective rather than individual responsibility when it comes to inequality [START_REF] Bobbio | Derecha e izquierda: razones y significados de una distinción política[END_REF] and considers the poor as citizens and loyal supporters rather than as entrepreneurs who require discipline. A third complaint against microfinance is that its supply depends entirely on the existence of a solvent demand. Leftist governments disapprove of microfinance's reluctance to lend during economic crisis and its pro-cyclical effect. On a structural level, they also criticize MFIs for focusing on urban service sector activities and small trade, ignoring the primary or secondary sectors that figure so prominently the development plans of socialist movements.

It is useful to analyse the history of power relations that crystallize debt practices in Latin America. Peonaje, i.e., debt bondage, was at the heart of the systems inherited from the colonial era [START_REF] Chamoux | Pratiques de crédit au Mexique[END_REF] . Indeed, the creation of public institutions, self-governing organizations or commercial endeavours must be understood in terms of the political relations that underpin them. This prism of understanding explains why financial cooperatives, which proliferated in the mid-twentieth century, primarily addressed the least economically subordinated. It also explains why so many Latin American MFIs have ties to religious movements, be they progressive or conservative, Catholic or Protestant [START_REF]Nicaragua, for example[END_REF] . We can also analyse the creation of public banks as way for the state to replace traditional casiquismo with new partisan allegiances [START_REF] Lehmann | Democracy and Development in Latin America: Economics, Politics and Religion in the Post-war Period[END_REF] . According to this perspective, although MFI clients are no longer subject to the obligations of reciprocity that marked colonial history or present-day political clientelism, in return, they must submit to high prices and strict repayment discipline which occasionally translates into a genuine dependence on credit. Conversely, when the government criticizes microfinance and distributes subsidized credit in the name of economic empowerment of the poor-particularly common during election periods-it is striving to create subservience through political means.

Although the left's ideological opposition to microfinance is based on a substantial indictment of the sector, these movements have yet to propose a viable alternative. In all three cases discussed above, high profile public credit programmes have resulted in disappointing results. These failures, like those of comparable programmes in Venezuela [START_REF] González De Kauffman | El pago de servicios públicos: garantía para la devolución de microcréditos del programa "Ciudadanía Plena" en Maracaibo, Venezuela[END_REF] deprive the socialists of the examples they need to confront the orthodoxy they oppose. Still, counter-examples exist in Brazil, Chile and Guatemala [START_REF] Abramovay | Social Movements Beyond the Iron Cage: Weak Ties in Territorial Development[END_REF] , where public and private providers are working together to develop truly hybrid methods that ensure financial sustainability. Paradoxically, these examples have not attracted much attention at the regional level and have not yet been replicated in Bolivia, Ecuador or Nicaragua.

Institutional factors affecting microfinance

Beyond ideologies, local realities are influenced by institutional factors and private interests that affect how conflicts take shape and how they are resolved: through compromise or confrontation. Clear messages paired with coherent measures are essential for building a system that enables collaboration between public and private actors. This has not been the case in Bolivia or Nicaragua, where the governments have taken positions that are not only inconsistent, but even contradictory at times, opposing those of their Ministers and other members of their administrations. Although the phenomenon is familiar to political scientists [START_REF] Dahl | Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition[END_REF] , it is confusing for microfinance practitioners.

Mediating bodies are crucial under these circumstances, as they can help build frames of reference common to both microfinance institutions and politicians. The technical committees of the Central Bank and ministerial departments played a key role in Bolivia and Ecuador, translating policy intentions into intelligible and enforceable measures. The executive branch's appropriation of these bodies has resulted in a loss of technical capacity, as less experienced staff are more easily influenced by their hierarchical superiors but also by the institutions they are supposed to supervise. It is equally important that microfinance practitioners build consensus around shared positions and rally behind a common spokesperson. In all three countries, microfinance networks [START_REF] Asomif | founded in 1992 in Nicaragua, Red Financiera Rural (www.rfr.org.ec), founded in 2000 in Ecuador, FINRURAL[END_REF] have flourished in a context marked by political tensions, and proved critical to negotiating agreements that improve the sector's visibility in return for greater transparency on microfinance's social utility. They have set up accountability systems that responded to local concerns and publicized microfinance's contribution to the public good in effort to retain their autonomy. Moreover, these networks seek to enhance their legitimacy by forging ties with farmers' organizations, developing rural and agricultural programmes, and promoting alliances with state-owned development banks, such as refinancing agreements with BDP in Bolivia. Some observers argue that these efforts are motivated by MFIs' vested interest in social protection measures, the manna that makes potential borrowers more creditworthy [START_REF] Gallegos | El nuevo tiempo del Estado. La política posneoliberal del correísmo[END_REF] . But this perspective is quite relative; microfinance has developed thus far without this kind of support and increasingly serves the most vulnerable populations. In many cases, microfinance enables governments to overcome the very real challenge of reaching their poorest and most isolated citizens.

Moreover, a more detailed sociological analysis of the elites might be useful to identify opportunities for dialogue and promote goodwill. In many countries, microfinance NGOs are led by left-leaning individuals who entered the sector when their political or civil servant activities were undermined by military repression or structural adjustment. In Ecuador and Bolivia, several MFI managers share close relationships and even personal friendship with policy makers, which has helped create a common ground. In Nicaragua, the tension between microfinance and government owes much to the fact that several MFI managers are former officials of the revolutionary government of the 1980s, now distant from the new government of Daniel Ortega.

Strategic perspectives under constraints

The increasing tension between microfinance and socialist governments affects MFIs differently, depending on their organizational and operational characteristics. The result is differentiated strategies, which are represented in the following typology: For years, the commercial paradigm prioritized competition as a way to improve microfinance market efficiency; today, the excesses of unbridled growth have resulted in debt crises and sometimes abusive practices towards clients. Past efforts to prevent the public actors from regulating social aspects of microfinance or evaluating its contribution to development now appear naïve, and incite scepticism by some governments.

The minimalist vision of microfinance, void of non-financial dimensions such as health, education and local development, was put forth by multilateral institutions as a paragon of good practice. It is now hotly contested. Ironically though, the segment of microfinance that is purely financial and most lucrative is, for the most part, protected from government intervention. It does not depend on the public sector for refinancing and moreover is protected by a solid legal framework that governments are careful not to touch. Indeed the institutions that risk the most are those that have resisted the commercial paradigm by pursuing professional, sustainable operations while maintaining strong commitment to development goals and social change. These organizations, nearly wiped out by the mainstream regulatory measures of Central Banks that favour private companies and banks, are now trapped in the middle of an increasingly polarized sector dominated by two competing approaches: one driven by commercialization and the other based on public policy. If they fail to demonstrate their relevance, they will have no choice but to retreat to the commercial sphere or submit to the control of public authorities.

Conclusion

The particularly tense relationship between the government and MFIs in Nicaragua, and the more ambivalent situations in Ecuador and Bolivia, is evidence of the multifaceted, indeed ambiguous, nature of the two sectors. On the one hand, Latin American lefts have the stated objectives to create strong and equitable economic growth; but they are also motivated by the desire to broaden and strengthen the clientelistic networks that will allow them to stay in power. On the other hand, microfinance institutions, which emerged in the wake of failed state banks as the only economically viable, development-focused alternative to local financing, have in many cases experienced mission drift, scaling up their operations under an eminently commercial form.

The time has come to revisit both the nature and functioning of financial inclusion mechanisms. Citing the rather bland results of microfinance in terms of economic transformation, socialist-leaning governments are attempting to intervene in the provision of credit services to the poor. But because these programmes are, above all, political tools and lack the human resources to manage them sustainably on a large-scale, they tend to be sporadic and are therefore often complemented with conditional support to existing MFIs. In light of this, it would make sense to negotiate and set up a regulatory framework to prevent abuses, coupled with complementary public policies to improve targeting and impact of microfinance. Instead, political opportunism unfortunately tends to give way to intense but ephemeral competition between existing MFIs and temporary public programmes as well as to piecemeal and often contradictory legal reforms that largely conform with the financial orthodoxy of the previous era.

Paradoxically, this has exacerbated the polarization of the two extremes of the microfinance spectrum in the countries studied. On the one hand, the weakest institutions tend to attract government support, in return for handing over control of operations-even if it means forgoing financial sustainability. On the other, the most commercial institutions protect themselves against the threat of interference by strengthening their ties to the private sector. In short, it would appear that the institutions most directly threatened are those that have achieved viability on their own, using an approach that continues to prioritize local development.

Nevertheless, the debate on how to redefine the roles of the public and private sectors in development finance involves interlocking spheres at local and international levels. It is thus difficult to know how this controversy will evolve. A shift in multilateral support away from commercial microfinance, or the emergence of an alternative approach from a country like Brazil, could still influence national trajectories.

Key data on microfinance in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador

  . The table below gives key indicators for Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

		Bolivia	Nicaragua	Ecuador
	Financial inclusion (December 2009)
	Total number of active lenders (i)	1.122.507	686.701	1.968.856
	Active lenders as % of the total population	19%	20%	23%
	Active microfinance lenders	865.464	391.375	656.986
	Active microfinance lenders as % of total population	15%	11%	8%
	Dimension and evolution of the sector (December 2009)
	Amount of credit outside of microfinance (million USD) (ii)	4.038	1.278	10.701
	Amount of microfinance credit (million USD)	1.854	472	1.281
	Share of microfinance in the national financial sector	31,5%	27,0%	10,7%
		ProCredit,	Banex,	CrediFé, Banco
	Three main microfinance institutions of the country	BancoSol,	ProCredit,	Solidario,
		FIE	FDL	ProCredit
	Number of lenders of the three main MFIs	356.279	148.219	263.132
	Share of the three main MFIs in the microfinance sector
	(#lenders)	41%	38%	40%
	Portfolio of the three main MFIs (million USD)	1.038	299	693
	Share of the three main MFIs in the microfinance sector
	(#loan volume)	56%	63%	54%
	Annual portfolio growth of the microfinance sector (2006 -2009)	28%	7%	15%
	Annual portfolio growth of the three main MFIs (2006 -2009)	32%	10%	12%
	Interest rates and rates of return (2008)
	Average portfolio yield of the microfinance sector	23,22%	31,76%	22,47%
	Average portfolio yield of the three main IMFs	19,64%	26,55%	17,68%
	Average return on equity of the microfinance sector	9,06%	6,05%	5,65%
	Average return on equity of the three main MFIs	12,99%	15,36%	19,04%
	Sources: Data obtained from the Microfinance Information eXchange (www.mix.org), except for:
	(i): Data for Bolivia were obtained from ASOFIN (www.asofin-bo.org). Since there were no data available for
	Ecuador and Nicaragua, the values were extrapolated from data collected by the World Bank in 2004, assuming
	that average loan amounts remained stable. (They are thus very tentative estimates.) .
	(ii): Data calculated from the statistics of the National Banking Oversight Institutions, deducing the amounts of the
	regulated microfinance institutions.


Florent Bédécarrats

Cécile Lapenu

Assessing Microfinance: Striking the Balance between Social Utility and Financial Performance By

Introduction

Microfinance was designed as a development tool, but remains firmly anchored in the market economy, creating an ambivalence that blurs the traditional distinction between the political and economic, the public and private, the commercial and social. Its hybrid nature makes it unique among development tools: microfinance benefits from financial, fiscal and regulatory support, while maintaining relative independence from governments and donors and their fluctuating agendas. The result is a heterogeneous and complex sector that articulates different scales: the local, given it is microfinance, and the national, as States closely supervise retail banking activities. But it is also a global field, involving various transnational actors: non governmental organizations (NGOs), cooperation agencies, investors, private entrepreneurs, multilateral agencies, and so on.

Operationally, the simultaneous pursuit of financial and social goals puts microfinance in a unique dialectic. A school of thought promoted by influential multilateral organizations has gained momentum since the late 1990s, based on the idea that building large-scale inclusive financial systems depends on making microfinance a profitable commercial sector linked to international finance, so as to access more capital and involve banks. The result has been a rise of regulatory mechanisms, the standardization of practices, an emergence of partnerships with commercial banks, increased access to refinancing on financial markets and the calling into question of subsidized support and non-financial services. Credit with education, business development services and health-related trainings were pushed off the agenda even if poverty alleviation was still the overall goal.

The market approach gave rise to assessment methods and information systems intended to bring microfinance into the global financial market [START_REF] Littlefield | Breaking Down the Walls between Microfinance and the Formal Financial System[END_REF].

But they offered only a partial picture of operations. From time to time, in-depth studies attempted to assess whether microfinance was achieving its social objectives 1 , yet they appeared marginal compared to efforts to perfect and systematize financial assessment methods. The introduction of more rigorous management in microfinance institutions (MFIs) was critical to their growth, but we will see that it has also had the effect of limiting their ability to meet some of their development objectives, increasing the risk of mission drift [START_REF] Christen | Commercialization and Mission Drift: The Transformation of Microfinance in Latin America[END_REF]. It has induced the danger of deteriorating quality of services in particular in terms of proximity to clients, exposed the sector to the vagaries of the macro financial system, and threatened to tarnish the hereto positive image that has allowed it to benefit from the goodwill of regulators, donors and the general public. This context validates calls to make finance more responsible, and has led to a ramping up of efforts to assess the social dimension of microfinance.

Our purpose is to show how assessment methods reflect different visions of what microfinance should be (or is capable of doing). Despite these at times competing views, there is now an overall complementarity for balanced management of MFIs in order to improve practices and sustainability. Our research was conducted within CERISE, a microfinance network comprised of technical assistance providers and research institutions that is directly involved in the creation of indicators and assessment methodologies. 2 In Section 2, we begin by describing the factors that led to the systematization of financial assessment in microfinance. We will show that despite its heterogeneity, the sector has been governed by increasingly standardized criteria for metrics, management systems and governance principles. In Section 3, we describe how the emergence of social assessment methods has served to counterbalance this approach.

We argue that both the normative content of these methodologies and the way they are applied have diverging implications on the way the microfinance sector can grow. In Section 4, we will describe several innovative approaches for assessing the social performance of microfinance institutions, in particular the social audit tools (such as the CERISE Social Performance Indicators-SPI) that are now widely used by social investors, networks and microfinance institutions. We will also analyze how assessment methods influence regulatory frameworks and help MFI combine social and financial performance. Finally, Section 5 concludes.

Financial assessment: from the drive for sustainability to the threat of excessive commercialization

Growth and commercialization of a diverse sector

The microfinance sector has experienced intense growth worldwide since the late 1990s.

The Microcredit Summit estimated that in 1997, 17 million people were served by MFIs; in 2009, the number had skyrocketed to more than 190 million [START_REF] Reed | State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report[END_REF]. This expansion seems set to continue given potential demand, estimated at over one and a half billion people by sector stakeholders [START_REF] Bouuaert | A Billion to Gain? A Study on Global Financial Institutions and Microfinance[END_REF]. From the supply side, it is estimated that the number of MFIs is approaching ten thousand (Armendáriz & Labie, 2011, p.329), about 3600 of them reporting to the Microcredit Summit and 1900 reporting to the Mix Market 3 , the international platform for reporting in microfinance.

However, these aggregated figures mask the extreme heterogeneity of microfinance in terms of size, legal status, ownership structure, target clientele, type of products, and cost of services.

The now widely-accepted performance assessment criteria used in microfinance strive to consolidate financial sustainability. This is because unlike other development tools, microfinance is considered a market-based sector that ultimately will no longer need public funding. The seminal works that reflect this objective, such as the Pink Book by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) (World Bank, 1995;CGAP, 2006), the MicroStart guide (UNCDF, 1997), the United Nations's Blue Book (UNDP/UNCDF, 2005), and other key references published by World Bank [START_REF] Helms | Access for All -Building Inclusive Financial Systems[END_REF] argue that the way to create large scale inclusive financial systems is to build a commercial microfinance sector capable of recovering its costs, but also generating profits to fuel growth and attract private capital. This argument eventually gave rise to the adoption of for-profit models and operating systems based on market principles.

The idea took hold that public sector management, cooperatives and NGOs were inherently non-optimal, and that the professionalization 4 of MFIs could only occur by integrating the private sector. The 1990s gave rise to a phenomenon of corporatization of NGOs. Inspired by the creation of BancoSol in Bolivia, borne of the NGO Prodem, these transformations were necessary to be authorized to capture savings and earn the trust of investors.

Growing pervasiveness of norms for financial assessments

The market approach drew heavily on management standards that promoted professionalization and sector sustainability [START_REF] Christen | Microfinance Consensus Guidelines: Guiding Principles on Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance[END_REF], but also risk reduction and profit maximization. In particular, its framework was based on the importation of prudential standards modeled on the Basel criteria, defined by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Standards for risk assessment were gradually imposed on MFIs in several ways.

Institutions that accessed international refinancing were progressively submitted to due diligence and monitoring of investment funds, while institutions that mobilized local savings had to conform to national regulatory frameworks. Defined by Central Banks, often independent of governments, the national frameworks were formulated with technical assistance from multi-and bilateral institutions, sometimes as part of national microfinance strategies supported by international donors [START_REF] Duflos | National Microfinance Strategies[END_REF].

Under the Basel I framework, prudential rules were relatively simple, a translation of capitalization and solvency ratios promoted by the BIS, that countries ultimately adapted to their own macroeconomic policies. To avoid credit rationing, 5 Central Banks imposed interest rate caps and portfolio segmentation based on the types of activities financed [START_REF] Trigo | Supervisión y Regulación de las Microfinanzas en el Contexto de la Liberalización del Sector Financiero[END_REF]. But the gradual introduction of Basel II has induced the obligation to make weighted provisions for outstanding loans, depending on risk exposure. Parameters for risk assessment include, among others, client liabilities, uncertainties related to their activities, loan terms, loan guarantees, and so on. [START_REF] Artus | De Bâle 1 à Bâle 2. 'Effets sur le marché du crédit[END_REF]. These prudential norms, which aim to disperse the risk of loss, mechanically pushed microfinance institutions to focus on less risky customers with more legally reliable guarantees. In Bolivia, regulation has contributed to a decline in joint liability loans, alternative guarantees and agricultural financing, which are automatically assigned a high prudential index [START_REF] Bédécarrats | L'influence de la régulation sur la capacité de la microfinance à contribuer au développement : Le cas de la Bolivie[END_REF]. Institutions are also obliged to make additional provisions based on strict delinquency criteria poorly suited to agriculture, a sector in which natural hazards and market volatility often lead to late repayment without necessarily jeopardizing the loan.

Strict application of the Basel criteria incurs additional management costs that are particularly high in microfinance. This is because Basel II calls for financial institutions to create a specialized department for risk assessment and adapt procedures (management information systems, credit analysis) to collect exhaustive and standardized risk information. Moreover, the application of these criteria poses problems to supervisory authorities, which do not always have the operational capacity to oversee an entire MFI network of rural branches. It is estimated that the ratio of supervision-related expenses to assets can vary for a microfinance institution and a large bank by a factor of thirty-to-one [START_REF] Barlet | Le Point sur la réglementation et la supervision de la microfinance[END_REF]. The Basel criteria assume levels of risk, degrees of institutionalization and capacities to produce information that are in fact far removed from the reality of developing countries and especially the target market of microfinance.

Aware that many MFIs are straying from their original mission as a result of these norms, many actors are calling for change. The international network of the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), for example, has repeatedly tried to introduce adaptations for cooperatives [START_REF] Arnold | BASEL -Expected/Unexpected Losses[END_REF][START_REF] Grace | Exposure Draft for Small and Medium Entities[END_REF]. Other actors promote a pared-down version for microfinance [START_REF] Matarrita | Costo de la Supervisión y Regulación de CACs -El Status Quo y la Perspectiva de Basilea II[END_REF][START_REF] Bastiaensen | A Critical Review of CGAP-IADB Policies Inspired by the Fondo de Desarrollo Local, Nicaragua[END_REF]. They argue that ensuring rigorous management is possible without transposing the formal standards of the conventional banking sector. The alternatives being put forward are based on microfinance's strengths -operators' understanding of the activities they fund, capacity to assess risk in the informal economy thanks to proximity, and transparency based on direct dialogue between clients and local stakeholders -instead of reporting formats based on the massive aggregation of data that is collected and interpreted automatically.

Specifically, these proposals suggest assessment of not only the skills of senior management, but of loan officers, branch managers and client representatives. They recommend including innovative forms of collateral with weak legal enforcement, but that have been proven effective (peer guarantee, assets without propriety title, warrantage, and so on). Finally, they strongly emphasize governance, understood more broadly than corporate governance, which is restricted to relationships between shareholders and managers, to include the MFI's ability to effectively involve all stakeholders affected by the institution's future. The recent questioning of financial system regulation that has come in the wake of the recent crisis echoes these proposals.

Risk of mission drift in microfinance

By the early 2000s, international development aid had been largely discredited [START_REF] Naudet | Les OMD et l'aide de cinquième génération[END_REF], but microfinance was emerging as one of the few interventions that actually worked. Still, the growing influence of the market approach to microfinance eventually started to raise concerns. Some sector observers even warned against its role as a spearhead of neoliberalism [START_REF] Weber | The Imposition of a Global Development Architecture: The Example of Microcredit[END_REF]. But the debate within the sector and in the press really broke out with the initial public offerings of Mexican MFI Compartamos [START_REF] Epstein | Compartamos: From Nonprofit to Profit[END_REF] and SKS India [START_REF] Reille | SKS IPO Success and Excess[END_REF]. More recently, the crises in India, Morocco, Nicaragua and Pakistan [START_REF] Chen | Croissance et vulnérabilités en microfinance[END_REF]CGAP, 2010) have served as reminders of the acute risk of mission drift, prefigured by authors who have studied the evolution of products and management practices in institutions that have undergone transformation [START_REF] Dichter | Whats Wrong with Microfinance? Rugby[END_REF][START_REF] Copestake | Mainstreaming Microfinance: Social Performance Management or Mission Drift?[END_REF].

Commercialization, it would seem, can lead to mission drift. It also brings with it the danger of borrower over-indebtedness.

A survey by Deutsch Bank of major fund managers found that social utility is a primary motive for investment in microfinance [START_REF] Dieckmann | Microfinance: An Amerging Investment Opportunity[END_REF], and yet, in absence of transparency on the social dimension of its activities, reputation risk is a genuine threat to the sector.

Social norms

Proliferation of social assessment methods

The social value of microfinance has long been taken for granted; the sector's number one priority has essentially been to scale up. In the mid-1990s, when attention was driven by growth and sustainability, focus was on the number of clients, profitability, subsidy dependency, reduction of delinquency, and operational and financial sustainability [START_REF] Schreiner | Development Finance Institutions: Measuring their Subsidy[END_REF]. Through the mid-2000s, efforts to assess the contribution of microfinance to development were often denigrated by influential players in the sector, who did not want social concerns to "hijack" MFIs' focus on financial performance [START_REF] Jacquand | Measuring Social Performance: The Wrong Priority[END_REF].

However, the aforementioned developments in recent years have led microfinance actors to make the social dimension of their activities more visible. The recognition of a double bottom line that marries financial and social performance is poised to become mainstream [START_REF] Christen | Financial Institutions with a Double Bottom Line: Implications for the Future of Microfinance[END_REF]. This shift has revealed that good social outcomes are indeed compatible with financial performance, as they improve client retention, repayment and staff productivity [START_REF] Gonzalez | Microfinance Synergies and Trade-offs: Social versus Financial Outcomes in 2008[END_REF][START_REF] Bédécarrats | Combining Social and Financial Performance: A Paradox? Valladolid: Microcredit Summit[END_REF]. Some even propose to relax regulatory constraints for institutions that have proven their social utility [START_REF] Lyman | Regulating Transformational Branchless Banking: Mobile Phones and Other Technology to Increase Access to Finance[END_REF], or to introduce public or market-based incentives for institutions that contribute substantially to public interest [START_REF] Cull | Financial Performance and Outreach: A Global Analysis of Leading Microbanks[END_REF][START_REF] Morduch | Smart Subsidy For Sustainable Microfinance[END_REF]. Consequently, assessment practices have mushroomed. In 2008, SEEP Network (Small Enterprise Education and Promotion) counted 25 social assessment tools in microfinance [START_REF] Woller | Social Performance Map[END_REF].

Until the late 1990s, social assessment mainly took the form of client surveys through impact studies, usually commissioned by public donors eager to prove the usefulness of their contributions. To produce reliable and rigorous results, however, impact studies must be long and are often costly. They are fraught with methodological limitations that minimize their scope and, moreover, are often too academic to be exploited by practitioners. Since the early 2000s, there has been a rise in operational assessment methods that practitioners can apply themselves, thus allowing them to use results to improve their practices. More recently, highly academic impact studies have made a comeback, using a method borrowed from epidemiology 6 [START_REF] Duflo | Use of Randomization in the Evaluation of Development Effectiveness[END_REF]Karlan, Goldberg & Copestake, 2009). It is an approach that resonates with donors' call to prove aid effectiveness [START_REF] Ravallion | Evaluation in the Practice of Development[END_REF] and presents an image of scientific rigor that very much reflects today's econometric culture. However, these impact studies pose some difficulties due to high costs, methodological flaws [START_REF] Deaton | Instruments of Development: Randomization in the Tropics, and the Search for the Elusive Keys to Economic Development[END_REF][START_REF] Bernard | On « Nailing » what Works Through Impact Evaluations: Lessons from Experience at AFD[END_REF], and ethical issues [START_REF] Duvendack | What is the Evidence of the Impact of Microfinance on the Well-being of Poor People?[END_REF].

The MFIs themselves appear to increasingly prefer simple and relatively inexpensive methodologies based on individual interviews or focus group discussions to help better understand the interaction between clients and products and services. These methodologies are closer to market research and customer satisfaction analysis, in that they are primarily used to tailor products and services to demand, attract more users, retain loyalty, limit non-repayment and avoid over-indebtedness.

One of the breakthroughs in operational assessment methods is the ability to assess the economic level of clients. Based on a number of innovations [START_REF] Henry | Microfinance Poverty Assessment Tool[END_REF], two initiatives developed in parallel only a few months apart similar methodologies called "proxy means testing." They are based on household consumption surveys conducted by national statistics bureaus, and consist of a dozen of observable indicators statistically correlated with poverty levels. When used on a representative sample of MFI clients, it is possible to determine the percentage of users who are poor and follow their evolution. The first instrument, called Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT), was developed at the request of United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The tool must be applied to all microfinance programs supported by USAID, in order to comply with a US congressional mandate to serve 50% of extremely poor people. The second tool, the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI), was developed by CGAP, the Grameen Foundation and the Ford Foundation, for voluntarily use by MFIs. Some major networks like Accion and Finca have developed their own systems for assessing clients' poverty levels, based on sophisticated statistical analysis [START_REF] Welch | ACCION Poverty Assessment Framework[END_REF][START_REF] Hatch | Microfinance and Social Performance: How FINCA Used a Client Assessment Tool To Identify Mission Drift[END_REF]. Several MFIs, such as the Ethiopian institution Buusaa [START_REF] Gonofaa | Development of a Client Assessment and Monitoring System, or « Social Ledger[END_REF] have developed their own tool for measuring poverty, less scientifically rigorous but directly integrated into their product strategy. Poverty indices are becoming a norm for all MFIs under international accounting standards. We are also seeing a mainstreaming of audit methodologies designed to assess what an institution does to fulfill its social mission. The first audit tools were the CERISE-SPI (Social Performance Indicators) [START_REF] Cerise | Social Performance Initiative (Phase 2). Audit of the Social Performance of Microfinance Institutions: The Definition of a Tool[END_REF] and the Quality Audit Tool (QAT) of the Microfinance Centre [START_REF] Mfc | Quality Audit Tool for Managing Social Performance[END_REF]. These audit methodologies draw on information already available within the MFI. However, some actors would like to see other aspects taken into account, which involves the collection of additional data. Thus, the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) is trying to push MFIs to inquire about the environmental impact of their clients' activities [START_REF] Bierens | FMO Environmental and Social Risk Institutions[END_REF], while the International Labor Organization promotes a focus on decent working conditions in financed microenterprises [START_REF] Breda | Microfinance for Decent Work Action Research[END_REF].

Based on an audit, MFIs can select and calibrate indicators according to their own strategy, in order to create dashboards that allow for continuous monitoring, as have a number of MFIs in Cambodia, India and El Salvador [START_REF]Sharing Innovative Practices for Responsible Microfinance Investment: Strengthening Governance for Responsible Finance: Examples from European Investment Funds[END_REF][START_REF] Amk | Social Performance Committee: Operating Social Reporting Framework at the Governance Level[END_REF], as well as the Confederation of Financial Institutions (CIF) in West Africa. In Latin America, such retooling of social audit indicators for monitoring purposes has resulted in 'balanced scorecards' that link strategic planning and management indicators [START_REF] Labie | Comprendre et la gouvernance des organisations à but non lucratif : Vers un apport des tableaux de bord ?[END_REF][START_REF]Sharing Innovative Practices for Responsible Microfinance Investment: Strengthening Governance for Responsible Finance: Examples from European Investment Funds[END_REF]. Starting in 2005, microfinance rating agencies also began to develop methodologies for extra-financial assessment to round out financial assessment procedures already in place.

It is increasingly common for social assessments to be commissioned at the same time as financial ratings and the Rating Initiative 9 has subsidized over 200 social ratings since

2008.

With regard to foreign investment in microfinance, there are several frameworks that orient social performance reporting. These include the Environmental, Social and Governance framework (ESG) set up by the investor initiative United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment which aims to provide an overall framework for all economic sectors to report on financial, social and environmental results. In addition to these guidelines, which are very general, CGAP, Argidius Foundation and Ford Foundation spearheaded the creation of the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF), an international working group to ensure consistency between the various initiatives in social performance. In 2006, at the impetus of actors active in social performance, the SPTF produced a common framework for social assessment in microfinance. Between 2006 and 2008, the SPTF served as a platform for international rating agencies specialized in microfinance to render their assessment methods compatible with each other. In 2008, the SPTF produced a list of standardized indicators, which are now incorporated into the reporting formats of Mix Market. In 2010, more than 300 MFIs had reported social performance standards to the Mix Market.

Social performance reporting emerged earlier and more extensively in countries where microfinance has been questioned by governments, such as Bolivia, Benin, Ecuador and Nicaragua. In these countries, local microfinance networks have negotiated legal principles or policies in return for greater transparency on the social value of microfinance. They have set up reporting systems tailored to local contexts, to demonstrate MFIs' contribution to public good and to maintain their autonomy from state control [START_REF] Forolacfr | Memoria Regional: Experiencias en la Promoción del Desempeño Social en Latinoamérica y el Caribe[END_REF]Consortium Alafia, 2008).

CGAP has worked to bring transparency in terms of social performance to the level of foreign investment, by including ESG indicators in their microfinance investment vehicles disclosure guidelines. The guidelines reflect both aggregated key social performance data for MFI investees, as well as factors relating to the practices of the funds themselves.

Norms that reflect different conceptions of microfinance

At first glance, this multiplication of assessment methods seems confusing. But a closer look reveals that they are complementary and reflect different aspects of microfinance's social value. Such diversity reflects the vision and interests of the different stakeholders involved in the sector. Nevertheless, as the pressure is growing to set common norms, the stakes are rising regarding whose vision of microfinance will prevail. Some evaluation standards have been designed at the request of MFI borrowers and savers, often the members of cooperative institutions, who are typically more vocal about demanding accountability. In these cases, the focus has been less on poverty considerations than proximity, quality of services, and member participation in governance. Similarly, the types of indicators and the way they are applied are often different when the assessment is the result of a funder's request, whether a foreign investment fund, cooperation agency, or government-run program. Here, the underlying principles of the assessment and selected social indicators depend on the funder's mandate and the MFI's degree of dependency from that source of funds. For instance, following the injunction of the U.S. Congress to justify its role in poverty reduction, USAID developed a tool for measuring extreme poverty.

For their part, private equity funds have long been content with the bare minimum, but intensified public criticism of microcredit has pushed the investors of these funds to demand greater transparency regarding the social utility of microfinance, a primary motivation for their investments. As a result, investment vehicles have begun to apply client protection principles and transparency indicators.

The concept of 'social performance' is defined by the Social Performance Task Force as 'the effective translation of an institution's mission into practice in line with accepted social values' [START_REF] Hashemi | Beyond Good Intentions: Measuring the Social Performance of Microfinance Institutions[END_REF]. We propose to characterize the content of the different approaches to social assessment based on a matrix composed of two axes. The columns show the different stages that make up the 'social performance pathway', a sequential approach commonly used in management to decompose the intervention from objective to results, that has been widely disseminated by the SPTF. According to the pathway, the study of the mission and social goals of an institution should come first, before questioning whether they are consistent with the actions and processes in place. Next, comes the examination of the short-term outputs and outcomes, that is, observable changes in the lives of clients and the environment, which are considered impacts if the changes can be attributed to the MFI's activities.

In rows, we show the social dimensions which microfinance can influence. We distinguish two fundamental areas: social responsibility of economic agents, which applies to microfinance as well as any other economic sector, and involves preventing potential harm the activity may have on customers, the community and the environment.

The other area is social performance, which is specific to microfinance and its 'double bottom line'. The criteria here reflect microfinance's specific development mandate, which is to serve a growing number of poor and excluded people, improve the quality and appropriateness of financial services and increase benefits for clients. The matrix shows the different aspects that are assessed along these two axis.

Working from the above matrix, we can map the social standards discussed above according to where they are in the social performance pathway and the dimension they relate to, as in the following figure 1.

This mapping exercise reveals three lessons for analyzing social norms in microfinance.

First, the distribution shows that social control mechanisms of microfinance activities focus on diverse and potentially complementary aspects. Nevertheless, there is overlapping, indicating aspects for which the promoted standards are potentially in competition with each other, if they are not harmonized. Last but not least, these norms reflect different perceptions of what microfinance is capable of doing; the fact that some criteria are emphasized over others reflects a choice.

Actors who only promote responsibility generally see microfinance as a business like any other. This position tends to consider 'financial inclusion' the only positive externality of MFIs. Actors who emphasize social performance believe that the microfinance sector has a development mandate.

Figure 1: Analytical matrix: Coverage of the different social assessment methods

There is also divergence among the latter. Some focus their attention on poverty, arguing that microfinance only makes sense if it improves the lives of the poor. Others stress the importance of targeting less vulnerable unbanked populations, pointing out that they are more creditworthy, and therefore better positioned to take advantage of investment opportunities and drive local economies.

Application methods that correspond to different regulatory models

Social assessment methods have been developed by practitioners in an attempt to selfregulate the sector's activities. In other words, they are a voluntary effort to evaluate and improve practices. Methods differ depending on whether they are applied internally, externally or as a combination of the two.

Internal social assessments are common when an institution wants to set up its own social criteria for monitoring purposes or audit its strengths and weaknesses in order to integrate social performance into strategic planning. Audit methodologies, in particular, are flexible and can be adapted to the needs and constraints of the institution. They are useful for creating linkages between decision-making and management strategies. More than 500 MFIs worldwide have conducted internal social audits. 10 In many cases, networks will adopt audits as a form of self-regulation. The case of CIF (Confédération des Institutions Financières) illustrates this dynamic. This network federates six of the largest MFIs in West Africa, which together reach nearly one in six households in the five countries where they operate. CIF provides crucial support for members in system development, human resource policies, product diversification and management strategies, including social performance. Growth has led CIF's members to professionalize their operations, which have become increasingly complex and technical.

Conscious of the risk of relegating social goals to a non-priority position, CIF decided to conduct CERISE-SPI audits of each of its members. The audits revealed several key objectives in need of attention, like targeting the excluded, agriculture finance, and allocation of surpluses for improved community welfare. They also led to the definition of a small set of social indicators that have been added to the financial dashboards of the member institutions to monitor their progress. What differentiates this internal process from an external audit is the participation of elected representatives, managers and field staff, and a series of peer reviews among members. The audit is completely appropriated and integrated into governance structures at the branch, federation (MFIs) and confederation (network) levels.

However, internal audits and monitoring, while 'tailored' to the user's needs, do not allow for the verification or calibration of information. This can diminish comparability and reliability of results in the eyes of outsiders. To mitigate this weakness, the four main microfinance rating agencies each formulated their own social rating methodology based on existing audit formats. These rating tools ensure rigor and consistency, albeit to the detriment of some of the advantages of internal approaches, but because each agency has its own methodology, doubts persist as to the comparability of results. And while Mix Market has created a reporting format to collect social performance information from MFIs, it is so far mostly self-reported and thus of questionable reliability (McKee & Koning, 2011, p.6).

In light of these credibility issues, many stakeholders are turning to certification. The Smart Campaign is preparing a certification program for MFIs on client protection while the Microcredit Summit is working on a Seal of Excellence, which covers a wide range of social performance indicators, with a strong focus on poverty targeting. Also noteworthy are the efforts of some regional MFI networks to promote certification programs for MFIs, according to different priorities: rural focus, women outreach, development of productive activities, poverty reduction. Finally, the Social Performance Task Force has begun to elaborate universal standards, which intend to synthesize all social measurement initiatives. This enthusiasm is a sign of the sector's yearning for regulatory mechanisms that include social performance and combine rigorous third-party verification. But the risk is to overwhelm stakeholders and foment competition between the different initiatives.

In addition, these initiatives rarely include clients, civil society or public authorities. The risk is that these labels in gestation will not have legitimacy in the eyes of local stakeholders. This explains why some governments are taking steps to pass regulation that aims to prevent MFIs from harming their clients. In countries like South Africa, Peru and India, policy makers are seeking to impose disclosure guidelines for financial products, ethical collection practices and even adequate evaluation of borrowers' repayment capacity [START_REF] Mckee | Responsible Finance: Putting Principles to Work[END_REF]. Consumer protection mechanisms are essential for aspects like price transparency, for which country-level microfinance networks have a hard time enforcing effective norms.

To avoid superposition of mismatched supervision, efforts are being made to strike an intermediate approach between internal and external assessment, industry and public regulation. Such initiatives combine self-evaluation, peer reviews and occasional external verification. This trend is driven primarily by microfinance networks in countries where government relations have been strained, such as Bolivia, Benin and Ecuador. In the latter, it is worth detailing the experience of the Ecuadorian Red Financiera Rural (RFR), a professional association with 40 members (savings and credit unions, banks, NGOs and local networks) that together reach 600,000 clients. RFR has set up a 'Social Responsibility System' for microfinance institutions, comprised of a strategic alliance with a credit bureau, social performance evaluation services and a code of ethics [START_REF] Rfr | A Social Responsibility System for the Microfinance Institutions[END_REF]. Together, these three elements play an important role in keeping the sector in check, by encouraging peer comparison and economies of scale for data collection and processing. In Ecuador and elsewhere where hybrid initiatives are being tested, MFIs participate in the design and implementation of assessment tools or verification, through a peer review process. The mediation role played by local microfinance networks combined with the vigilance of government authorities can ensure consistency. In Ecuador, the government ultimately adopted the social performance assessment framework developed by RFR for its own assessment purposes, to verify that the MFIs it refinances are truly committed to local development [START_REF] Bédécarrats | Co-optation, Cooperation or Competition? Microfinance and the New Left in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua[END_REF].

The self-regulation of social performance we see at the MFI level applies to investors, as well. An increasing number of investment funds now include extra-financial data in funding applications and verify their veracity during due diligence (eMFP, 2011a). The initiative on the Principles for Investors in Inclusive Finance unites investors around the promotion of seven dimensions: range of services, client protection, fair treatment of investees, responsible investment policies and reporting, transparency, balanced return and, harmonized investor standards. Moreover, investors are increasingly open to analyzing their own systems and strategies. To this end, CERISE has developed a Social Audit tool for Microfinance Investment Vehicles/MIV (SAM). The tool was designed to analyze investment funds' strategies, activities and available data in view of strengthening and systematizing their social responsibility approach. SAM was applied by social performance pioneer Oikocredit in 2009 [START_REF] Lapenu | Responsible Investment in Microfinance: What Can we Learn from Social Audits for MIVs?[END_REF] and pilot-tested with investors beyond the microfinance sector, to integrate audits of the support to small and medium entreprises and social business. Similarly, the rating agency MCril has designed a framework for evaluating the financial and social performance of investment funds. As of 2011, it has been pilot-tested with four MIVs.

CGAP promotes disclosure guidelines that distinguish different types of funds based on social practices. The guidelines are regularly used by MIVs to glean trends and conduct peer analysis. They are currently supported through an online platform, powered by Symbiotics. Finally, LuxFLAG, the label agency, added a new dimension to its Microfinance Label in 2010, to ensure social, environmental and ethical issues are integrated into funds' methodologies and systems.

Conclusion and perspectives

The assessment standards initially developed for microfinance have certainly contributed to the sector's sustainability and growth, but they also engendered unexpected consequences: they hindered the consolidation of non-profit MFIs, created obstacles for serving rural areas and the agricultural sector, led to the standardization of practices and pushed microfinance institutions to move away from their initial target population. This is because, beyond their technical dimension, assessment norms conceal strategic implications, interests, and worldviews. The prevailing approach to microfinance has been market-driven, motivated by the belief that its success hinges on commercialization.

The metrics, management systems and governance principles that ultimately became the sector's norms reflected this vision. Today, the move is towards regulatory mechanisms that measure the sector's contribution to development. This rebalancing is largely due to sector stakeholders' concerns for consistency and commitment to the double and triple bottom line, itself due to excesses and increasing reputation risk for the sector as a whole.

The stakes are changing, and with them the rationales and power relations that underlie the creation of norms.

The proliferation of different social performance mechanisms bears witness to the fact that social criteria address multiple concerns. There are those that focus on corporate social responsibility, a generic approach whereby an MFI, like any business, strives to avoid causing harm to its employees, the environment, and customers. Other approaches go further and highlight microfinance's specific development mandate: financial inclusion, improved standards of living and creating benefits for clients. Attempts are underway to harmonize these mechanisms, to limit the risk of sending mixed messages and to simplify reporting burdens on MFIs. It is uncertain how industry norms will evolve. What is clear so far is the very marginal role of clients and public authorities in this process. Forgoing their direct involvement in defining industry norms risks stripping these norms of their legitimacy, possibly feeding the backlash against microfinance. On the other hand, there is growing evidence that social and financial performances are compatible and mutually reinforcing. Therefore, if adequately coordinated, this trend is likely to culminate in a highly responsible sector with a strong double bottom line. 5. Credit rationing occurs when loan portfolios are concentrated on less risky and more profitable loans. Limiting interest rates and segmenting portfolios help stimulate access to sectors deemed riskier or less profitable.

Notes

6. The method involves modifying the operations of assessed institutions so that they randomly select people that could be served, but who will not be for the duration of the study, in order to serve as a control group and thus overcome the difficulties the attributing impact.

7. The Pocantico Declaration:

www.db.com/de/downloads/company/the_pocantico_declaration_final_0515b.

8. See www.smartcampaign.org. 9. http://www.ratinginitiative.org .

10. The CERISE-SPI has been administered over 600 times, by more than 450 MFIs; the majority of these audit findings are collected in the CERISE-SPI database;

QAT by MFC has been used by about 40 MFIs, and technical assistance programs such as CRS-Mision in Latin America and Africa or Eda Rural in India have also conducted internal social audits with some of their MFIs partners.

Following

  the initial public offering of Compartamos, criticism reached new heights and prompted the emergence of initiatives to promote codes of conduct to guide the practices of microfinance providers. This movement was publicized by a declaration 7 calling for the establishment of ethical principles across the sector. A working group led by CGAP and Accion picked up on the momentum and developed what are now seven client protection principles, promoted by the Smart Campaign: 1. Appropriate Product Design and Delivery, 2. Prevention of Overindebtedness, 3. Transparency, 4. Responsible Pricing 5. Fair and Respectful Treatment of Customers, 6. Privacy of Client Data, 7. Effective Complaint Resolution. 8

4.

  The notion of professionalization in microfinance refers to a number of facets, including establishment of clear rules of governance, definition of job functions and skill sets, adoption of pay scales, establishment of information systems specific to MFIs and codification and oversight of the practices of loan officers.

Table 1 : Analytical matrix: Social dimensions assessed

 1

	Stage in the
	pathway Social	Intent and objectives	Internal systems and operations	Outputs	Outcomes-Impact
	dimension
			Client protection	Prevention of over-
		SR towards	policies (ex:	indebtedness,	No harmful
		clients	SMART	transparent pricing,	effects on clients
			principles)	ethical behavior, etc.
	Social responsibility Applies to all	SR towards employees	Adapted HR policies	Employee retention, satisfaction and motivation	Efficiency and institutional sustainability
	sectors	SR towards the environment	Prevention of environmental degradation at MFI and client level	Minimize environmental impact of MFI and its users	Reduce effects on global warming, biodiversity, etc.
	Social performance Specific to the social mission of MF	Include the excluded Offer appropriate services Provide	Client targeting Diversification, quality and complementary services Participation,	Inclusion of poor and excluded clients Meet demand, satisfy and retain clients Empowerment,	Financial and economic inclusion Improved standards of living Integrated and
		benefits to	capacity building,	increased income,	sustainable
		clients	cost reduction	increased activities	development

Table 2 : Type of social assessment methods

 2

	Assessment focus	Regulation model	Strengths	Challenges
	Internal: by the	Self-regulation	Useful for strategic	Lack of credibility
	MFI management,		planning	and comparability
	with participation of
	stakeholders
	External: by a third	Mainstream	Reliability,	Lack of
	party (typically a	regulation (Basel II	standardization	appropriation by
	rater or public	model)		MFIs. Not in phase
	entity)			with the public &
				industry proposals
	Mixed: by the MFI	Interface for	Striking a balance	Depends on more
	with review of a	combining	between	complex design/
	third party (support	regulation and self-	organizational	negotiation
	organization,	regulation	learning and	processes
	network, investor)		reporting

  Comité d'Echanges, de Réflexion et d'Information sur les Systèmes d'Epargne-crédit, http://www.cerise-microfinance.org. 3. Mix Market: http://www.mixmarket.org/.

	2. CERISE,
	1. For	example	the	assessments	conducted	by	UNCDF:
	http://www.uncdf.org/english/microfinance/microstart/programm
	e.php.