FOUNDED in 2005, Kiva is a non-profit organisation headquartered in San Francisco, where a group of inspiring and motivated people work tirelessly toward the mission of connecting people through lending to alleviate poverty.
Through the website, kiva.org, Kiva allows anyone to lend as little as $US25 ($F51) to an entrepreneur who needs a loan.
I first learnt about the Kiva Fellows Program four years ago through a magazine article about a Kiva volunteer working with local microfinance institutions in the Philippines.
I remember being impressed by Kiva’s model which leverages technology to connect lenders with borrowers by partnering with existing microfinance institutions, rather than competing with them.
By partnering with microfinance institutions in the same country as the entrepreneur, Kiva focuses on reaching borrowers who may otherwise be considered “unbankable” by formal financial institutions due to factors such as no collateral, no credit history, transaction size, geographical location and illiteracy.
With $US25 ($F51), I made my first loan in 2012 through kiva.org, to Rebecca in Peru — a mother of five, who needed $775 to buy organic fertilisers for her banana plantation.
The loan was financed by 28 other lenders, like myself, from all over the world. We were able to read Rebecca’s personal story, as well as detailed facts about why she needed a loan, how much money, over what period of time she would pay it back, and information about the Field Partner that would locally disburse the funds.
I remember Rebecca’s photo on her profile, with her banana plantation in the background — a sight that reminded me of Fiji’s farmers. My first loan to Rebecca was made possible by Kiva’s Field Partner, Microfinance Prisma Peru.
Prisma Peru is one of the biggest microfinance NGOs in Peru with over 15 offices spread across 12 regions.
Kiva partnered with them because of their extensive geographic coverage and their well-known ability to reach very poor and rural clients, while providing good customer service. 55 per cent of their clients live in rural areas, 29 per cent are below the Peruvian poverty line and 8 per cent are below the Peruvian extreme poverty line.
Rebecca repaid her loan within 11 months, and I was able to re-lend the original $25 to Carmen, a bakery owner in Honduras. Over the years, the same $25 has financed four different loans across the developing world. Since 2005, 1.5 million people around the world have lent over $US870million ($F1.8m) to 2.1 million entrepreneurs in 83 countries.
With a repayment rate of 97.1 per cent, a new Kiva loan is made every 2 minutes. Four years ago, when I first learnt about the Kiva Fellowship Program, I decided to pencil a Kiva Fellowship into my five-year plan with the motivation of learning more about Kiva so that I could, hopefully, play a role in connecting Kiva lenders to borrowers back home, in Fiji.
With the Reserve Bank of Fiji forming the National Financial Inclusion Taskforce (NFIT) in 2010, there has been a clear focus on microfinance through working groups covering legislation, policy review and skills training.
It is my personal belief that a Kiva Field Partnership in Fiji paired with the NFIT initiatives would bring us one step closer to alleviating poverty in our rural and outer island populations.
I believe everybody deserves equal opportunity above all things; and access to financial services in the form of microfinance is an excellent tool to empower people to build better futures for themselves and their families.
Of the 83 countries with a Kiva presence, only two are our neighbouring Pacific Islands — Samoa and the Solomon Islands. Kiva lender’s have funded $US8m ($F16m) in loans to entrepreneurs in Samoa over a 10 year Field Partnership with SPBD Samoa and $154,000 in the Solomon Islands through SPBD Solomon Islands over a more recent 1.5 year Field Partnership.
I had the pleasure of connecting with Mark McDonagh, Kiva portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific to discuss his view on Kiva’s role in the Pacific. Originally from Ireland, Mark also served as a Kiva Fellow in 2015 with a placement in Armenia.
After an opening proclamation that some of the world’s best rugby talent comes from Fiji, I knew Kiva’s Pacific portfolio was in good hands.
About the writer:
Born and raised in Suva, Priya attended Gospel Primary School and Yat Sen Secondary School before moving to New Zealand for university. She has taken a career break from Deloitte New Zealand to serve as a Kiva Fellow in Kyrgyzstan. Priya is the founder and CEO of Mentor Me Fiji Foundation, a social enterprise that works with the children of Dilkusha Home to foster academic development and economic prosperity. She has written this article as a guest columnist. All views and opinions expressed in this article are her own, free from representation of Kiva. If you are interested in learning more about Kiva, please visit www.kiva.org.
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