Programme impact assessment in micro-finance - The need for analysis of real markets

Impact assessment in micro-finance has focused on the impact of services on users and the ability of the organisation delivering those services to sus tain its operations into the future. However, a focus on building organisat ions capable of long-term provision assumes that they will have a positive impact on the efficiency of the financial market. This is an assumption whi ch impact assessment should also test but which has so far been neglected. Moreover, die search for a framework within which to undertake such an asse ssment must incorporate the complex array of social and political, as well as economic, relationships which financial markets embody. A fourfold analy tical approach is proposed which can incorporate gender relations and which focuses on state involvement, market organisation, market structure and so cial embeddedness.