Oh, how slow you are, Kenya

[flexagon]

I had definitely been wondering why only two of my Kiva loans have had payments made on them. It's because the other three, the three that were to Kenya through the Women`s Economic Empowerment Consort, just got disbursed. This includes one from July. What, do they do it quarterly or something? Oh, how slow you are, Kenya!

Microfinance obviously is not a good hobby for the really impatient. On the other hand, I too have had to wait a few months or weeks for important paperwork to happen... college applications, grad school applications, various legal contracts, and yeah, loan applications. I guess it's unfair to ask third-world economic progress to be any faster. Oh, how slow you are, world.

Comments

[webrat.livejournal.com]

So, what, Kiva sits on the money for 3 months and then distributes them after they've made interest on sitting on the money or something?

[flexagon]

No, in that the delay isn't Kiva; some loans I contributed to later than one of the Kenyan ones got disbursed first and have already had payments made on them by the borrowers. It's definitely the local microfinance institution in Kenya that's slow. However, the date of money transfer between Kiva and the loal MFI isn't told to me.

Yes, in that most Kiva loans are put together over the course of multiple donations. So between the time the first person puts $25 toward a loan and the time the loan is fully funded, Kiva is unavoidably sitting on some money. But I don't know what they could do about that.