Microfinance Focus, January 31, 2012: Grameen Foundation has today announced the release of the Afghanistan Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI), based on Afghanistan's 2007/8 National Risk and Vulnerability Survey (NRVA). The PPI provides a practical way for pro-poor programs in Afghanistan to estimate and track the poverty rates of those they serve.

The PPI estimates the likelihood that a household has income below a national or international poverty line. It allows programs to: target services to poorer clients, calculate poverty levels of current clients, track changes in poverty levels over time and better focus market research.

Indicators in the PPI are based on data from Afghanistan's 2008 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Afghanistan. This is the best, most recent household survey available with income or expenditure data. The Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) conducted a basic field test during PPI development and provided translations for the documents below.

The latest version of the PPI for Afghanistan was created in January of 2012.  The PPI description and documents are based on or taken from The Progress out of Poverty Index®: A Simple Poverty Scorecard for Afghanistan by Mark Schreiner of Microfinance Risk Management.