Challenge
Limited access to financial services restricts economic growth and quality of life in emerging markets. When individuals and small businesses cannot obtain loans, it makes it difficult to start or grow a business. Throughout the developing world, almost one-third of adults do not have access to traditional banking services. Women and people living in rural areas are particularly challenged to access financing.
Solution and Impact
A $10 million loan has helped Kiva Microfunds support almost 100,000 microloans to developing country borrowers across 30 countries. With women comprising more than three quarters of borrowers, the project advances DFC’s 2X Women’s Initiative to support projects that economically empower women.
"This partnership has helped us establish a new model for addressing poverty and empowering individuals around the world. It illustrates that development finance can mobilize more resources toward the challenges our platform addresses."
- Kiva President and Co-Founder Premal Shah
Kiva was established as a platform to connect individuals lending as little as $25 with low-income entrepreneurs and students around the world who provide a description of their borrowing needs. Some of the individuals who obtained loans through the Kiva platform include a woman in Honduras who used a loan to expand her food business, and a mother in Kenya who borrowed to purchase a cow so she could earn enough income from the sale of milk to send her two children to school.
The development finance loan enabled Kiva to significantly extend its impact and provide loans that otherwise would not have been fully funded. Skoll Foundation also supported the project with philanthropic capital.