RESOURCE CENTER

SPM During the Crisis

The resources below reflect a social approach to COVID-19 and will help providers and other stakeholders to take a customer-centric approach to crisis management.

 

Read SPTF’s report: COVID Recovery–Recommendations for Funders, FSPs, and Regulators

Webinars & Trainings

Webinar Series: Using Customer Insights to Drive Your Crisis Response.

Watch webinar #1: SEF (South Africa) and 4G Capital (Kenya) discuss what they’ve learned from clients and how it is shaping their organizational response to COVID. Read a one-page brief on lessons learned from SEF and 4G. Download the PPT here.

 

Watch webinar #2: FINCA International and Annapurna (India) discuss their client data tools and how ongoing client monitoring is essential during this crisis. Download the PPTs for FINCA and Annapurna. Read a one-page brief on lessons learned from FINCA and Annapurna.

 

Watch webinar #3: BRAC International and Ujjivan (India) discuss the findings from their client assessments and how the data has informed decision making. Download the PPTs for BRAC International and Ujjivan. Read a one-page brief on lessons learned from BRAC International and Ujjivan.

 

Watch webinar #4: Al Majmoua (Lebanon) and VisionFund International discuss the findings from their client assessments and how the data has informed decision making. Download the PPTs for Al Majmoua and VisionFund. Read on one-page brief on lessons learned from Al Majmoua and VisionFund.

 

Watch webinar #5: FINCA Impact Finance webinar: The Economic Impact of COVID-19: Results of a Global Survey of Microfinance Customers.

 

Watch the Investor-FSP Roundtable: Using Customer Insights to Drive Your Crisis Response and Recovery and read a summary report from a four-part roundtable series for investors and FSPs.

 

Webinar in French: Listen to the webinar with Al Majmoua (Lebanon) and UCEC-MK (Chad) in FRENCH. Read the summaries in ENGLISH: Al Majmoua and UCEC-MK.

 

Webinar in Spanish: Listen to the webinar with Fundación ESPOIR (Ecuador) and ADRA Perú in SPANISH. Read the summaries in ENGLISH: Fundación ESPOIR (Ecuador) and ADRA Perú.

 

COOPAC MF Prisma Case Study: Data-driven decision making.

 

Webinar on Building Resilient Leaders: June 24, 2020. This webinar began with small break out discussions on the results of the individual resilience test assigned in the previous webinar (https://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/resilience-test/). Oricel Caminero presented a framework with six components of resilience and the steps to improve on them. She laid out the objectives for resilient leaders to demonstrate these competencies and set the tone for building resilience in their institutions.


Webinar on Introduction to Institutional Resilience, 10 of June 2020. This webinar began with a facilitated dialogue among participants from across the Caribbean region, representing a variety of FSPs, who discussed their current challenges as they begin reopening their economies after the COVID-19 related lockdowns. Some countries benefit from government support and some do not; some countries have recently reopened their economies, while others will begin later in June. All the FSPs are experiencing challenges related to liquidity, portfolio quality, adjusting to staff working remotely, and supporting clients whose lives and livelihoods have been drastically affected by the pandemic. The second portion of the webinar features expert trainer Oricel Caminero introducing the concept of resiliency and presenting a framework for building resiliency both within people and institutions.


Maintaining a Healthy & Productive Workforce During the Crisis, 5 of May 2020. During the COVID-19 crisis, microfinance institutions (MFIs) are under incredible pressure to maintain portfolio quality and manage a cash shortage while supporting their workforce and preserving customer relationships. This webinar looked at practical examples for successfully managing this balancing act. The speakers will answered these questions: How can MFIs protect their employees? What are alternatives to retrenchment? What works to keep employee morale high? Looking ahead, how can MFIs position themselves to emerge from the crisis with a strong workforce, ready to serve customers?


Cybersecurity for the Financial Inclusion Sector, 30 April 2020. Suricate Solutions, Smart Campaign @CFI, and SPTF present essential cybersecurity practices for financial service providers (FSPs) to implement, and guidance on how FSPs can help their clients protect themselves from cyber fraud.


Webinar on Resources to Respond to the COVID-19 Crisis, 6 of May 2020. This webinar discusses the effects on the Caribbean of the covid-19 pandemic and presents an overview of SPTF’s tools and resources that are available to help FSPs design their response to the crisis.


FSP management in a time of crisis. The European Union is offering a series of webinars for microfinance institutions (MFI) interested to learn how to continue doing business in the time of a pandemic and successfully cope with the COVID-19 effects. The series contains six webinars with a kick-off session on 9 April. Visit the MFC webpage to learn more.


Liquidity risk management during COVID. More than ever, our sector is seeing the importance of effective liquidity risk management. These webinars discuss strategies for liquidity analysis, stress testing, and contingency planning. They also introduce a tool that allows FSPs to build scenarios and analyze liquidity gaps, as well as a toolkit for business continuity. Thank you to ADA and Oikocredit for allowing us to use their materials in designing these webinars.

 

Guidance Notes and Videos

Building resilience in inclusive finance organizations, June 2022

 

This document presents a guide for building resilience in inclusive finance organizations based on the experience of twelve (12) organizations from six (6) Latin American countries. It also considers the conceptual framework from three important sources, which are listed in the References section.

 

Crisis Checklist: Designing a Response to the Crisis Based on the Universal Standards for SPM

 

This Checklist offers the top 15 Essential Practices that an FSP can use to design a social response to the current crisis based on the Universal Standards for Social Performance Management, as well as examples from the field that describe how others are implementing these practices during the pandemic.

 

This version of the Checklist includes the Essential Practices and why they are important now, while leaving space for the institution to design its response. Read how BRAC Microfinance used the checklist to assess its crisis response and design a client-centered strategy.

 

Social responsibility to employees during the pandemic

 

All of us want to reach the other side of this pandemic with our customer and employee relationships intact. We want to be proud of how we treated people in the most turbulent times.

 

SPTF is exploring the theme of social responsibility to employees as it relates to the COVID pandemic. Read our blog post on the FinDev Gateway—Treating Staff Responsibly During the Pandemic: Three Things to Do Today.

 

Watch our videos on treating employees responsibly:

 

A customer-centric response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Social Performance Management in Practice

 

As a client-focused organization, here are some key principles and examples from the field that you might find useful to guide your response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Click here.

Read emerging good practices from Genesis Empresarial and Fundación Paraguaya.

Other Resources

covid-finclusion.org: A forum for the financial inclusion sector to discuss responses to COVID-19

 

SPTF, e-MFP, and CFI are moderating this new online discussion forum for the financial inclusion sector. The objective of this site is to facilitate an informal and open exchange of our latest actionable ideas, so that we can learn from each other and better coordinate our responses by connecting to and/or building on what others our doing.

 

Social Investor LinkedIn page

 

SPTF has created a Linked In group exclusively for social investors who want to connect to discuss ideas and possible coordinated responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you would like to join the group, please email katiehoffmann@sptfnetwork.org. 

 

FinDev Gateway COVID-19 page

 

The FinDev Gateway COVID website is the primary site to find publications, studies, tools, and other resources related to response to the COVID pandemic, Click here for the French and Spanish resource pages.

Practical Dreamers

Cerise+SPTF are practical dreamers. Since our origins in the late 1990s-early 2000s (when inclusive finance was better known as microfinance), there has been steadily growing interest in social performance: in making sure that vulnerable low-income clients are not exploited, and that products and services help create better lives. Many organizations have published high-level principles and frameworks. Cerise+SPTF translate those aspirations into concrete, practical actions.
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Cerise+SPTF is a joint venture between SPTF | US, SPTF | Europe, and Cerise. Cerise+SPTF pursues a common strategic plan and shares resources under a Memorandum of Understanding. For legal purposes, we remain three separate entities incorporated in, and subject to the laws of, our respective home countries.