In 2000, following an initiative launched by ADA asbl, a pilot programme consisting of 9 African MFIs and 4 rating agencies was created in order to experiment with external performance evaluations of African MFIs. The aim was to learn from them and make subsequent recommendations so as to better develop this new market among a larger number of MFIs.
At the end of 2001, following the completion of the first evaluations, the programme drew its first conclusions and expressed the following recommendations:
- Performance evaluations ought to be performed on a regular basis and the promotion of updates among evaluated MFIs should be encouraged;
- Better define the objectives, terms and ratios used for evaluations and finally reach a consensus among agencies and MFIs;
- To this end, create an informal Forum, a kind of discussion platform between African MFIs and evaluation agencies;
- Work with CGAP, IADB, and the Rating Fund (which was closed back at the end of 2007) concerning the co-funding of ratingds and perfoermance evaluations.
Support the emergence of an open, competitive and transparent market for the supply side of performance evaluations and subsequently help stimulate both the demand for these services: resulting in a larger number of MFIs committing to external assessments, as well as the supply side: an increased number of professional rating agencies both in the North and in the South.
Based on the results of this pilot programme The “African MFI Performance Evaluation Forum” was set up in 2003 as a regular meeting point and discussion platform between MFIs and rating agencies active in Africa.
The forum has since formally institutionalised into the African Microfinance Transparency Forum (AMT) and was registered as a legal entity in South Africa in 2008.
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