The internal learning system: Assessing impact while addressing participant and program learning needs

Abstract: Professor Noponen will describe economic and social empowerment outcomes in Indian microfinance and livelihoods NGOs using a participatory impact assessment and planning system that she created called the "Internal Learning System" (ILS). The medium of ILS is pictorial impact diaries that are an empowering tool for poor, mostly illiterate participants and village groups to track and analyze changes in their lives and to use the understanding to alter their strategies as they participate in the economy and interact with actors and institutions in the wider community. NGO field organizers use the system to better understand members lives - their changing status and needs so that they can adjust their organizing strategies. Program managers at field team and headquarter levels benefit from the internal learning by staff and participants to "improve" program processes and enhance empowerment outcomes, while also using it to meet additional impact assessment objectives including "external proving" to funders that the program is having its intended impact.