Poverty Scorecards: Lessons from a Microlender in Bosnia‐Herzegovina

How poor are participants in development projects? This article analyzes how well a simple scorecard identifies poor clients at a microlender in Bosnia‐Herzegovina. The scorecard effectively ranks clients by the likelihood that they are poor by an absolute, expenditure‐based standard. The score tracks poverty more closely than loan size, microfinance's traditional poverty indicator. Overall, poverty scorecards are a simple, inexpensive way for microlenders—or any other development entity—to target the poor, track changes in poverty over time, manage poverty outreach, and report on clients' absolute poverty .