Yikes. An hour ago I gave a resounding endorsement to Kiva after Jessica's post (see Kiva - Loans that Change Lives)
Now I open my e-mail and find the following:
Beyond Good Intentions: A Film Series about Improving International Aid. The final film in the Beyond Good Intentions series has been released. Committed to "uncovering more innovative and effective approaches to international aid worldwide", the series follows filmmaker Tori Hogan around the world as she talks to aid workers and communities in eight countries. (The series caused quite a stir with its critique of microfinance and of Kiva in particular.) The ten episodes explore these topics: Disaster Relief, Faith-Based Aid, For-Profit Approaches, Higher Standards for Non-Profits, International Aid Workers, Micro-Lending, Peace Corps, Research in Development, Social Entrepreneurship, and Volunteering Abroad. http://news.gilbert.org/clickThru/redir/7047/809402/rms
I haven't seen article or film yet. If anyone knows more about the critique of Kiva, educate us!!
John C
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The video is worth the watch. The real question I believe the filmmaker is asking is "Is micro-lending a model that translates to many different situations or has it outgrown its initial model."
ReplyDeleteThe microlending model has been successful when the clients have been women with small businesses they run out of their homes, like sewing. I have read that when women get the loans the family and children benefit, whereas when the men in a family get the loans, the money tends to not trickle down to benefits for the children. Their focus is on things that may make the family seem more affluent, but doesn’t really improve the lives of the children. I have to find links to support that, because I cannot remember where I read that story.
The filmmaker highlighted problems such as high interest rates charged by Kiva local partners and brought up the issue of sustainability, the problem being that they are dependent upon donations. I have a conceptual problem with this complaint about non-profits. Many nonprofits cannot be sustainable and why should they be? If they are dealing with seemingly intractable problems, then they require a lot of funding. You can't charge the poor for food if you are trying to feed the starving. How can that ever become sustainable...
The filmmaker also noted that the success of the programs means the loan officers have upwards of 300 clients, so they are spread too thin to give financial advice. I'm not sure that is what the original microlending model had in mind and I’m not sure that means microlending doesn’t work -- it may simply mean the movement is outgrowing its original model and needs to be tweaked. Growing pains can affect any program – a program can sometimes be the victim of its own success when it can no longer handle the client base.
So yes, it seems like there is room for improvement in the microlending model and community, but I'm not sure this film supports the conclusion that it isn't a worthy model in at least some instances.
Carol Starmack
Found the quote about lending to women vs. men
ReplyDeletehttp://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/12/nobel_laureate_and_banker_to_the
Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering a microcredit program that helps hundreds of thousands of impoverished Bangladeshis—mostly women—by providing small unsecured loans, which are then repaid.
“Once we achieved that goal of fifty-fifty, then we saw money going to the family through women brought so much more benefit to the family compared to the benefit when you lend the money through men. Women took good care of the money. Women transferred the benefit to the children immediately, improved the household and going towards a better life for themselves in a long-term vision. Men were mostly to enjoy right now, not in a long-term way, in a kind of a readymade way, so that sort of thing. So we changed our policy: we started focusing on women. Today, we have seven-and-a-half million borrowers in Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. 97 percent are women.”