Social impact measurement can range from the qualitative (“narrative-based”) to the quantitative (“numbers-based”), depending on what makes sense for the particular context. Social impact guidance for India’s National Resettlement and Rehabilitation policy was released in August 2010, and lays out what should be measured, why, and provides guidance as to how.
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In Gujarat, here actually seems to be the “yes we can” feeling. Despite the race riots of 2002, Modi’s popularity among the liberal minded youth and Muslims is noteworthy. The fact that so much of this youth, whilst educated in the West, have chosen to move back to be part of the Gujarat growth story is testament to his tenure.

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The challenge of reaching the ‘unconnected’ rural and peri-urban regions in LEDCs to boost unique mobile users has long since been underway. There are two profound issues behind the lower than desired growth of new mobile acquisitions. These are the slow increase in liquidity, whether through rises in individuals’ incomes or supporting credit facilities, and the much slower proliferation of power infrastructure relative to that for telecommunication.
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In the upcoming years, developing countries will continue to account for an increasing proportion of global growth. Moreover, the higher education sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in Asian markets. Pakistan is a country of around 180 million people and with 70 % of the population under 30 years of age, it has a lot to offer in terms of human talent. However, the current political and economic situation of the country has limited the number of opportunities available to youth.
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Why has measuring Social Return on Investment (SROI) been so inconsistent, despite the concept being used across many different organisations? As part of our academic research, we interviewed many key practitioners and stakeholders in 2012 to obtain a better insight into the challenges and present advances in SROI measurement. This blog presents a summary of their views.
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Measuring social impact is far from a straightforward task that gets result that can be easily compared with similar assessments. Ambiguity in regulations, inconsistency in defining parameters, arbitrary assumptions and uncertainty over time scales hamper robust and comparable assessments.
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At the conference nicknamed the ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was conceptualised, with the aim of mitigating adverse anthropogenic interference on global climate. The UNFCCC splits 195 countries into different groups containing respectively more and less economically developed countries. Group constituents were determined in 1992, and since then the world has changed, but the groupings have not kept apace.
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Pakistan is home to numerous microenterprises, which will continue to serve as a pipeline for policy-makers and investors. The development community in Pakistan has tried to address the challenge of inefficient funding to smaller enterprises at the base of the pyramid by creating microfinance lending instruments.
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My task was to put a number of on the value of all the volunteering activities that happened as a direct result of Sewa Day 2011. But then how do you measure the value of providing company to pensioners at a community centre? What about the impact of organising fun activities for terminally ill children in a hospital ward? That’s where the challenge lay.
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