Managing Social Performance: NWTF (Philippines)

This paper describes the social performance management (SPM) strategy followed by Negro Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF), a Philippines-based MFI. It is part of a series that captures best practices and lessons learnt from the Imp-Act Consortium Global Learning Programme on SPM.

NWTF has more than 80,000 clients, mainly women, and operates in poor rural and semiurban areas with a loan portfolio of over USD 9 million. The paper observes that core aspects of social performance such as serving the poor, reaching areas with high incidence of poverty, continuing product development and adaptation and monitoring impact have been part of NWTF’s strategy since its inception. It outlines NWTF’s ‘Back to Basics of Grameen’ strategy designed to redress the balance between financial and social performance.

The paper discusses challenges for NWTF in further strengthening and streamlining its social performance management system. These include:

• Integrating Progress out of Poverty Index data across operations and into management information system;
• Integrating social aspects into human resource management systems through efforts of the SPM committee;
• Defining client-specific changes it seeks to create and setting social objectives for these changes.