Grameen Foundation and Innovations for Poverty Action Broker New Industry Alliance to Advance Poverty Measurement

Grameen Foundation And Innovations For Poverty Action Broker New Industry Alliance To Advance Poverty Measurement

WASHINGTON, Sept 7, 2016—Grameen Foundation and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) are pleased to announce a new model for managing the Progress out of Poverty Index® (PPI®), a poverty measurement tool used by nearly 500 organizations around the world. The new model creates the PPI Alliance, a collective governance and funding structure, and designates IPA as the new organizational home for PPI.

Grameen Foundation has incubated and grown PPI over the past 10 years, leading to its current use in more than 40 countries around the world. The clear need demonstrated by this growth led Grameen Foundation to seek broader industry ownership of the PPI. IPA was selected as the ideal home because of its legacy of stellar data collection and reputation for excellence.

IPA’s core strength is in designing and managing randomized evaluations to tackle global poverty problems. Its research spans multiple sectors (including agriculture, education, health, governance, and finance) and geographies, and its global field research infrastructure operates in 20 countries and produces the highest data quality.

“Grameen Foundation is pleased to work with IPA to form this new alliance. IPA has strong alignment with the PPI’s mission to use data to inform decision-making. Its large global footprint, highly-respected brand, and connection to researchers, policymakers and practitioners will give the PPI a competitive advantage and enable it to continue to meet the growing demand for practical measurement tools,” said Steve Hollingworth, President and CEO of Grameen Foundation.

“One of IPA’s objectives is to improve the use and the quality of data in addressing poverty problems. The PPI has become a key tool in that regard, and we believe we are well positioned to build on its value and promote its usage,” said Annie Duflo, IPA’s Executive Director.

As part of the new model, the scorecards that are used to measure poverty will remain free to access, but the PPI Alliance will actively engage and empower a consortium of users who rely on the PPI and are committed to its future development. 

Charu Adesnik, Cisco Foundation’s Deputy Director, sums up what the PPI does for its users and their beneficiaries: “Today, through the PPI, the needs of millions of families living in poverty are better understood and can be met by organizations working to address the root causes of poverty. Critical to our own social investment strategy, Cisco and the Cisco Foundation use the PPI to measure the reach of our investments and initiatives.”

Member organizations of the new PPI Alliance will fund basic PPI operations through an annual fee and have the opportunity to sit on a steering committee that informs scorecard development, product innovation, and related service offerings.  Two of the members are playing additional roles that provide critical start-up support to this new business model: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as Anchor Funder, and Cisco Foundation as Foundational Partner. Other members on the Steering Committee include Catholic Relief Services, the DFID Impact Programme, Grameen Foundation, International Finance Corporation, Opportunity Internationaland VisionFund International/World Vision. The PPI Alliance is also pleased to have Acumen, Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation and Marie Stopes International as members.

Membership in the PPI Alliance is open to organizations that work with and on behalf of poor households. For additional information on joining the PPI Alliance, please contact Julie Peachey at [email protected].

About Grameen Foundation

Grameen Foundation is a global nonprofit organization that harnesses the power of mobile technology to deliver a vital mix of financial, agricultural and health services and information to the world’s poorest people. Our innovations enable women, smallholder farmers, and poor communities to build their assets, educate their children, protect their health and strengthen their resilience. Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997, inspired by the work of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Professor Yunus was a founding member of our board of directors and today serves as member emeritus. For more information, please visit www.grameenfoundation.org or follow us on Twitter @GrameenFdn.

About Innovations for Poverty Action

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a research and policy non-profit that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. IPA brings together researchers and decision-makers to design, rigorously evaluate, and refine these solutions and their applications, ensuring that the evidence created is used to improve the lives of the world’s poor. Visit www.poverty-action.org for more information.

About the Progress out of Poverty Index®

The Progress out of Poverty Index® (PPI®) is a poverty measurement tool for organizations and businesses with a mission to serve the poor.  The PPI is statistically-sound, yet simple to use: the answers to 10 questions about a household’s characteristics and asset ownership are scored to compute the likelihood that the household is living below the poverty line – or above by only a narrow margin.  With the PPI, organizations can identify the clients, customers, or employees who are most likely to be poor or vulnerable to poverty, integrating objective poverty data into their assessments and strategic decision-making. For more information and to download the tool and other resources free of charge visit www.progressoutofpoverty.org.

Press contacts

Liselle Yorke, Grameen Foundation
lyorke@grameenfoundation; 202-794-7327
Jeff Mosenkis, Innovations for Poverty Action
[email protected]; 203-772-2216