The training has been organized by the joint project of the Cabinet of Ministers, Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the United Nations Development Programme “Support to Microfinance Sector Development” (SDMS project) and National Association of Microfinance Organizations and Credit Unions (NAMOCU).

The aim of the training has been to continue the initiative of the SDMS project and NAMOCU on enhancing the transparency of microfinance sector by facilitating increased number of MFIs reporting to the MIX Market Platform, and thereby addressing the challenging task of overcoming the deficit of accurate and reliable financial data on the performance of MFIs. In other words, the reason for addressing such data deficit is the fact that it is one of the most significant obstacles to establishing transparent national microfinance sector. Consequently, this situation very often limits the growth of investment in the sector by hindering information exchange between MFIs and potential investors or donor organizations worldwide, establishment of long-term relationships or use of other networking and cooperation opportunities between them.

The role of the training has included provision of justifications and capacity building for MFIs on increasing their transparency with regard to their financial and social performance by using a global electronic platform called the MIX Market (www.mixmarket.org). During the training the participants have been briefed on how the experts of the MIX Market collect data on microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide, review the data, and ensure it is accurate and up-to-date before making it available to private and public funds investing in MFIs, microfinance networks, raters and evaluators, as well as governmental or regulatory institutions. Particularly, participants have been informed on MIX Market operation principles, ensuring the double check of the collected data (including the results of an audit and ratings), and its standardization according to internationally accepted accounting and audit standards, thus enabling a more comprehensive intra-regional comparison and attracting investors or other various stakeholders.

It is necessary to note that during the short training, held on March 26, 2010, the MFI representatives were able to become acquainted with the basics of creating web-profiles for MFI, reporting on their financial performance, updating their information as well as benefiting from relevant databases and certain services of the MIX Market. On the contrary, the current training has provided participants with opportunity to learn more about various aspects of reporting on financial and social performance to the MIX Market, including new “MIX Data Collection Tool”, a consolidated format of reporting on financial and social performance, along with other recent changes and updates.

In this regard, the participants have been equipped with skills of reporting on social performance, implementing their social mission, objectives and strategies in practice, social performance management. Furthermore, they have been introduced with the concept of social performance pathway, social responsibility and customer protection principles, social audit, new 11 indicators for assessment of social performance (redefined by the MIX and Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) in result of survey conducted among MFIs worldwide), techniques to track down the outreach of the poverty and gender aspects in microfinance, the concept of social rating, approaches for its identification and benefits from its acquisition.

The training was conducted in an interactive manner, and the participants had the opportunity to work in MIX Market platform, as well as complete practical exercises on MFI profile creation, its updating, reporting to the MIX Market and other tools.