Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSDT) Tanzania is a market development programme which seeks to influence how the financial market works for poor people, and thereby contribute to increased financial inclusion. It began operating in 2005. A budgeted USD 100 million had been allocated by FSDT by the end of 2015.
During 2016, Itad, in association with MicroSave, undertook an impact assessment of FSDT’s programme of work from 2005 to 2015. The purpose of this impact assessment was two-fold:
- Learning: To provide FSDT management with evidence of the impact of FSDT during 2005-15 and to assist FSDT’s highest governance body, the Project Investment Committee (PIC), in its planning, prioritisation and implementation of the current programme and future activities.
- Accountability: To provide FSDT’s donors with evidence of the impact of their funding and to help them prioritise future investments.
It is also envisaged that the results of the impact assessment will contribute to the broader global debate about assessing and measuring the impact of market development programmes in general and of financial sector development programmes in particular.
The evaluation looked beyond individual interventions to assess whether the programme’s impact adds up to more than the sum of its parts, taking into account synergies between interventions, and the collective and cumulative influence that FSDT’s body of work has had on the evolution and functioning of market systems for financial products. The findings are set alongside the counterfactual, asking the question: what would have happened had FSDT not been there?
