There is growing attention to enhance the quality of SHGs and their Federations through third party feedback and Quality Assessment (rating), which is critically important to the sustainability of the SHG movement as it strengthens the operations of SHGs and SHG Federations.

Working towards common acceptance and widespread adoption of quality operating standards for SMFIs, APMAS has developed a Quality Assessment rating tool is called GRADES to assess the SHG federations and to upgrading of SHGs measuring through CRI+ tool (critical rating index). The QA team has also developed a rating system for assessment of thrift and credit cooperatives called Co-opRATE, which was developed in collaboration with the Co-operative Development Foundation (CDF), Andhra Pradesh.

The Quality Assessment (QA) Services initiated by APMAS has performed over 333 assessments (rating) since inception. Ratings have also been undertaken in the states of Orissa, Tamil Nadu, and Maharastra. The QA team's rating experience within and outside of Andhra Pradesh for financial institutions like FWWB, SIDBI, BASIX, and promoting agencies like SERP (World Bank funded organization), DRDA, NGOs and other funding agencies like CARE has enabled APMAS to develop specialized knowledge of the sector the State. This way, APMAS can focus on the institutional and financial performance of the SMFIs and provide insight, which has been found useful by the clients to improve their capacity for sustainability.

APMAS, through its Quality Assessments of SHG federations realizes the need for skilled financial professionals throughout the State. To develop the professionals' skills, in order to support SHGs and SHG federations in a more effective way, APMAS is offering National and state-level Financial Management Courses (FMC).

QA Summary