SEEP Learning Initiatives

Discover valuable information, share your experiences, and help shape the future of microfinance and enterprise development. Work with us to advance our common vision: a sustainable income in every household.

Through The SEEP Network, practitioners from around the world collaborate to develop practical guidance and tools, build capacity, and help set standards.  These opportunities fall generally into three overlapping Communities of Practice: Financial Services, Enterprise Development, and Associations along with many cross-cutting initiatives.  Scroll down the page to discover our learning agenda and initiatives. 

Create a user account at http://members.seepnetwork.org to get involved in your global learning network! 

Financial Services Community of Practice

Financial Services Working Group

The Financial Service Working Group (FSWG) coordinates learning among SEEP Network members, as well as with non-member industry practitioners and technical experts, to provide resources, learning materials, trainings, and other learning venues to:

• Increase the financial management skills of SEEP Network members and partners.
• Develop tools and training materials for members.
• Set and promote industry standards in financial performance and performance monitoring.
• Promote awareness of new developments in financial products and management in microfinance institutions (MFIs).

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Savings-Led Financial Services Working Group

The Savings-Led Financial Services Working Group (SLWG) aims to conduct focused discussions and produce publications that address a variety of themes within the field of savings-led financial service provision. Current projects include collecting useful, practical resources in a library database to make savings-led microfinance documents easily available to a wide range or practitioners and thus contribute to knowledge sharing across the sector.

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Enterprise Development Community of Practice

The Value Initiative

To advance urban value chain development and help millions of people work their way out of poverty.

Our work: By 2008, for the first time in history, over half of the world’s population will live in cities. One in three urban residents currently lives in a slum—a billion people, a sixth of the world’s population. How can the resources of today’s cities be harnessed to reduce poverty?

How can you get involved? Learning grants have already been awarded, but we hope you will join our network on the Enterprise Development Exchange and learn with us about critical issues in enterprise development.

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Market Facilitation Initiative

Partnering with the Livelihoods Network, the SEEP Network has established the Market Facilitation Initiative (MaFI) to assist practitioners working in Pro-Poor Market Development to move from market assessments and program design to implementation by advancing practical principles, techniques, and tools.

Currently, there is a wide body of resources on how to conduct market research and program design for market development programs; however, there is far less available on the “how” in terms of program implementation.  MaFI members have created three Working Groups--Subsidies, Linkages (horizontal, vertical), and Capacity Building--to focus their efforts on establishing good practices for market facilitation.

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Social Enterprise Working Group (2008)

In 2008, The SEEP Network and Virtue Ventures collaborated to develop a methodology and global network for social enterprise as a part of the Value Initiative. Social Enterprise Working Group (SEWG) pursued the following objectives:

• Summarize social enterprise’s (SE) benefits, synergies, value added, and risks, related to other poverty alleviation practices.
• Frame issues in a structure that lays the foundation for social enterprise methodology for poverty alleviation.
• Illustrate framework by capturing stories and examples of existing social enterprises among SEEP members and other practitioners in the field.

Determine if the SEWG should be an ongoing concern of The SEEP Network; if members are interested in pursuing this topic, please contact Erin Lauer, Lauer@seepnetwork.org.

Value Chains and the Marginalized--Getting Beyond the Economics of the Value Chain (2003-2005)

This working group was intended for SEEP Network members working in value chain development, especially those targeting the poor in challenging environments (post conflict, post disaster, in remote rural areas), and with vulnerable populations (women, HIV & AIDS affected households). 

Currently SEEP members interested in these topics can join MaFI, HAMED, or ERS as well as participate in the learning going on with the Value Initiative.

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PLP in BDS Market Assessment (2002–04)

This practitioner learning program (PLP) supported the innovative strategies and efforts of business development services (BDS) facilitators as they conduct and use market assessments to design targeted interventions that help create wealth in poor communities and promote economic growth by linking microenterprises to productive markets.

Associations Community of Practice

Metrics for Measuring Network Success

Microfinance associations and networks are powerful agents with enormous reach. However, their crucial role has often not been recognized because associations lack a commonly accepted definition of success. To fill this substantial gap, the SEEP Network is launching a working group to engage associations in an unprecedented and collaborative global effort to define what it means to be a successful microfinance association. At the end of this project, networks around the world will be able to: 

• Articulate their success to stakeholders including members, donors, and investors.
• Benchmark their performance against other microfinance networks and associations.
• Coordinate action with other networks in pursuit of improvement.

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Cross-Cutting Themes

Economic Recovery Standards

The Economic Recovery Standards were spearheaded by the SEEP Network and written by a dedicated group of 35 practitioners from 25 development organizations, facilitated by Tracy Gerstle (CHF International and CARE),  lead facilitator, and Laura Meissner (SEEP Network), co-facilitator. The Standards address strategies and interventions designed to promote enterprises, employment, and cash flow and asset management among affected enterprises and livelihoods in environments affected by conflict or disaster. The Standards include two overall sections on Common Standards and Assessments & Analysis, plus four distinct technical areas: financial services, assets interventions, employment creation, and enterprise development. 

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PLP in Youth and Workforce Development

This initiative aims to identify, encourage, and disseminate replicable strategies for using market-driven program design to improve youth employment success and for measuring the effectiveness of these strategies.

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PLP in Building Alliances to Serve HIV & AIDS Impacted Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa (BASICS)

This initiative aims to identify and promote successful strategies for microfinance and enterprise development programs to partner with local community-based organizations to better serve clients affected by HIV & AIDs.

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HIV & AIDS and Microenterprise Development Working Group

The HIV & AIDS and Microenterprise Development (HAMED) Working Group seeks to help SEEP Network members carry out their missions more effectively in the face of the HIV & AIDS pandemic through integrated programming.
HAMED will accomplish its mission by taking the following actions:

• Identify and document promising interventions to mitigate the economic impacts of HIV & AIDS on clients and their families.
• Improve communication and understanding of the impacts of HIV & AIDS on microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their clients.
• Encourage cross-sectoral communication and multi-sectoral linkages and partnerships.
• Putting to practice The SEEP Network Guidelines for Microenterprise Development in HIV and AIDS-Impacted Communities: Supporting Economic Security and Health, a publication from HAMED that speaks to three audiences involved in integrated programming: HIV and Public Health Professionals, Microenterprise Development Practitioners, and Policy Makers (Donors, Strategic Planners and Advocates).

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Poverty Outreach Working Group

The Poverty Outreach Working Group (POWG) is a learning community for SEEP Network members who are interested in effectively reaching very poor people and providing them with sustainable microfinance and enterprise development services that help them move out of poverty. The POWG also aims to facilitate knowledge sharing with other SEEP Network working groups and practitioners worldwide who are interested in this topic.

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Social Performance Working Group

The SEEP Network Social Performance Working Group (SPWG) advances the frontiers of knowledge and practice among microfinance institutions (MFIs) in all areas of client assessment, but especially in the areas of impact assessment, impact monitoring, market research, and social performance. SPWG is accomplishing its objectives with the following actions:

• Exchanging ideas, experiences, and other information related to client assessment with working group members, other SEEP Network members, SEEP affiliates, and the microfinance community at large.
• Developing, testing, and refining client assessment and social performance measurement tools and systems that are practitioner-friendly and that inform management decisions.
• Promoting client-centered practices that enhance social and economic impact.

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Consumer Protection Working Group – not active

The Consumer Protection Working Group (CPWG) seeks to increase the transparency of microfinance institution (MFI) policies regarding consumer protection.

• Increase the number of institutions with progressive consumer protection practices in the MFI industry around the world.
• Explore links with Business Development Services (BDS) on consumer protection issues.
• Promote consumer orientation among private voluntary organizations.

If members are interested in pursuing this topic, please contact Erin Lauer, Lauer@seepnetwork.org.

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PLP in Poverty Assessment Tools Field Testing (2003–04)

Participants in this program field tested poverty assessment tools that hold promise for potential replication in diverse settings and institutions. These field tests sought to complement USAID’s Accelerated Microenterprise Advancement Project (AMAP) effort to test rigorous, practitioner-oriented client poverty assessment tools and criteria for certifying them.

PLP in Rural and Agricultural Finance and Food Security (RAFFS)

The SEEP Practitioner Learning Program (PLP) on Rural and Agricultural Finance and Food Security (RAFFS) is an action learning project that will focus on approaches to, and the interconnection of, rural and agricultural finance (RAF) and household well-being, including food security.  The envisioned impact of this PLP is that rural households and enterprises will have increasing options for finance that serve their needs and contribute to a vibrant rural economy both on and off the farm, ultimately improving the standard of living for rural households.

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PLP in Youth Financial Services (YFS)

The SEEP Practitioner Learning Program (PLP) is an action learning project that will bring together key stakeholders to explore innovations in youth financial services to help  microfinance and microenterprise institutions better respond to the growing need for appropriate and accessible products for young people (ages 12-24 inclusive). The PLP will focus on achieving scale with youth financial services, exploring viable models and seeking to understand critical stages organizations must move through to achieve scale. The envisioned impact of this PLP is to expand the number of youth clients served by appropriate financial services, and improve the quality and breadth of service provision to youth. 

The goal of the Practitioner Learning Program: Reaching Scale in Youth Financial Services is that, through peer learning, microfinance practitioners will be better able to serve large numbers of young people with innovative, demand-driven financial services.

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