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Launch of the New Resources Library

Published on August 31, 2010

by Jordan Filko

You may have noticed that the Resources library on our website has been undergoing a metamorphosis over the past few weeks. The many educational tools, articles, presentations, videos and other materials created by MFTransparency have been looking for a home, and they are now finally moving in.
In addition to data collection, two of the major components of MFTransparency’s work around the world are education and training. At workshops, meetings and conferences, we are constantly offering the various stakeholder groups we work with materials that they can use to understand and implement transparent pricing. It is just as important to us to make pricing data available as it is to provide the information and skills that industry stakeholders need to properly understand and apply it. Although sooner or later we hope to visit every country with a microfinance market, for the meantime we have been working to get these materials on the website so that they are accessible to everyone.

The new Resources library organizes our many materials by topic, to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for and also to help related resources reinforce each other. For example, if you’re checking out our Calculating Transparent Prices Tool, you may find the paper The Challenge of Understanding Pricing of Microloans to be a useful explanation of some of the concepts that you’re noticing. So far our resources are organized into the following categories: Understanding Interest Rates, Need for Transparency, Independent Study Course and The MFT Approach. We will be adding new sections in the coming weeks on topics such as responsible finance, policy for transparency, the price curve, the cost curve and financial literacy.

On each separate page we have organized the resources into sections by format, including tools, presentations, videos, papers and blog posts. Each resource is also color-coded depending on its level of complexity, where green indicates basic information, yellow intermediate and red more advanced. We’ve also highlighted certain items that we’ve gotten especially positive feedback on. These highlighted resources are a good place to start if you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for.

Each resource is accompanied by some introductory text. Before you dive into any one item you can use this description to determine which resources are of most interest or value to you. Some of these provide a basic overview of the content covered, while others go a bit more in-depth about how to use the resource profiled, such as the Calculating Transparent Prices Tool, which requires some explanation.

At the bottom of each page of the Resources library you’ll find a request for suggestions. We are happy to receive all feedback, both about what we’re doing right and how this page might be more helpful to you. If there is something you’d like to see published that you can’t find, or if you have questions about any of the topics covered in any of the resources, please feel free to let us know. An important part of moving the industry towards transparency is facilitating dialogue, and we hope our new Resources library does just that. Please continue to check back as we add new sections and new resources.

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