Challenges and cash shortages for entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe

Lendwithcare's Microfinance Advisor Teresa Hall has been visiting our microfinance partner in Zimbabwe, Thrive Microfinance. While there, she has had the opportunity to meet with Lendwithcare entrepreneurs, and to learn more about how the current economic situation has been affecting their lives and businesses:

"I have been in Zimbabwe visiting our microfinance partner Thrive. I have had the opportunity to meet and speak with women entrepreneurs supported by Lendwithcare.

Street vendor in Chitunwiza

We should uphold the True Spirit of Islamic Finance

This blog was written by Dr Ajaz Ahmed Khan, Senior Microfinance Advisor at Lendwithcare, CARE International UK. It was first published in the True Banking online magazine, and has been reproduced here with their permission.

Guest blog | Design is Political interview with Head of Lendwithcare Tracey Horner

This microfinance platform is helping some of the world's poorest people

This interview was originally posted on the Design is Political website here and has been reproduced here with their permission.

©Peter Caton

Lendwithcare helps people work their way out of poverty. The online platform allows users to make microloans (as small as £15) to those in some of the poorest parts of the world, who invest in building their businesses and improving their lives. We caught up with Tracey Horner, the woman behind the project, to find out more…

Guest blog | Zimbabwean micro-entrepreneurs face additional challenges

Lendwithcare lenders have supported so far over 1,200 Zimbabwean micro-entrepreneurs through our partner Thrive Microfinance. Henry Bartram, Managing Director, explains how Lendwithcare loans are still making the difference for entrepreneurs despite the country’s difficult economic situation. He also shares his concerns with us about the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe and its impact on the micro-entrepreneurs.

Guest blog | How hands forge human connections

This blog has been reposted with permission from Michelle Nicol.

Originally posted here.

One hand belongs to a project manager from a prestigious international law firm. The other to an 81-year-old villager and survivor of the most brutal, insidious civil war.

We are in Cambodia. We have cycled from Paksé in nearby Laos, to a small village community near Battambang to see the difference that CARE International is making to people’s lives through its micro-finance initiative Lendwithcare.

Guest blog | Who are you and what do you care about?

This blog has been posted here with permission from Michelle Nicol.
Originally posted here.

I visited Laos and Cambodia recently to find out more about the charity Lendwithcare, who help some of the world’s poorest people work their way out of poverty.

Building resilience among microentrepreneurs in the Philippines

This blog was written by Dr Ajaz Ahmed Khan, senior microfinance advisor at Lendwithcare. It was first published on the Virgin Unite website for Global Entrepreneurship week and has been reproduced here with their permission.

This year for Global Entrepreneurship Week we will be sharing inspirational stories of how entrepreneurs can provide a shining light of hope in even the darkest of situations.

The Philippines ranks third in the list of countries in the world where a natural disaster is most likely to occur, after the Pacific islands of Vanuatu and Tonga. Although it is also prone to earthquakes, flooding and droughts, it is typhoons that strike the Philippines most frequently. The state weather bureau PAGASA estimates that, on average, eight or nine typhoons or tropical storms make landfall in the Philippines each year, with another nine or ten entering Philippine waters.

Photo ©Peter Caton

Guest blog | Laurie Lee: Recycled loans recycling plastic

Lendwithcare began supporting entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe, through Microfinance Institution Thrive, one year ago. I was able to visit the country recently and met some of the entrepreneurs that I - and 80 of you - had supported in June 2016. I met the Nokutenda group, which comprises four women entrepreneurs all running different businesses. By being part of a group they are able to support each other with practical advice and friendship.

I met three of them and showed them how Lendwithcare works. I was able to show them their profile on the Lendwithcare website, under “My Loans”, and show them all of the lenders who had contributed to their loan.

Guest Blog | Lend Me Your Ears

This post was written by Tim Bishop and originally posted on his Definitely Maybe blog. It has been reposted here with permission.

Hoa Binh Province

Christmas is coming and there’s no stopping it. Even here in Saigon the Vietnamese have started to embrace what has become an indulgent festival of consumption, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

And, at this time every year, people like me pen blogs like this one, instigated to push a perspective your way. People like me who (you’ll soon enough not be surprised to read) have just spent half my week up in rural Vietnam, meeting local communities.

So, what’s the perspective I’m peddling ? Well, no doubt by the end of this post I will have worked it out…

Better evidence means less poverty

The primary purpose of Lendwithcare is to help poor people to improve their lives through supporting them to access loans for their businesses. Do we actually have any evidence that this is happening? Certainly, we have a great deal of anecdotal evidence – in addition to the periodic updates that we receive from some of the microentrepreneurs that we have funded, each year my colleagues and I also visit and speak with hundreds of individuals and groups who Lendwithcare supports in 11 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Although we do come across some persons for whom nothing much seems to have changed, more often than not they explain to us how access to loans over an extended period of time has enabled them to develop their businesses, stabilise or increase their incomes, increased their self-confidence, self-esteem and economic independence, make improvements to their homes, and sometimes as a result even spend more money in areas such as their children’s education and the health of their families.

However, this approach is not particularly scientific – there are often other important reasons aside from improved access to loans why their lives have improved, it might be that we are simply meeting the more ‘successful’ microentrepreneurs, people are simply being polite, or they are telling us what they think we want to hear.

Ghulam Raza interviewing an entrepreneur at Akhuvat

The Right Type of Microfinance

Nyangu Sakala, who was supported by a loan from Lendwithcare

In recent years there’s been a steady stream of media articles questioning the benefits of microfinance, with some critics even arguing that not only does microfinance not benefit the poor, it actually makes them poorer. How should those of us involved in supporting the access of poor people to financial services respond? Is what we are doing actually helping the poor? Is the criticism of microfinance justified? Here are some personal thoughts.

Impressions from a first time visit to Pakistan

Most cities have them ... In fact most towns, villages and neighbourhoods do too. The lofty saying that marks that particular place out from all the rest. London’s is the famous Samuel Johnson quote that says "those that are tired of London are tired of life." So it was not surprising when I visited the cultural heart of Pakistan a couple of weeks ago, Lahore, that I was informed by many proud Lahoris that I could now count myself amongst the ranks of those lucky enough to say they have truly lived. As the famous Punjabi quote goes, those who have not seen Lahore have not been born.

Shakeel, Joana and I outside the Lahore Cultural Museum

Tackling gender inequality in Pakistan | The Akhuwat clothes bank initiative

Following his recent trip to Pakistan, Dr Ajaz Ahmed Khan tells us about a very interesting project implemented by our MFI partner AKHUWAT.

Guriya, who works in the Clothes Bank

Transgender persons, or khwaja siras as they are often referred to in Pakistan, routinely face a high level of discrimination in access to health, housing, education and employment as well as ridicule, intimidation and the threat of physical violence. Most khwaja siras are forced to live at the margins of society and earn an income by dancing at ceremonies such as weddings and births, and most commonly from begging. In an almost unprecedented example of positive discrimination Dr Amjad Saqib, the founder and executive director of Akhuwat, Lendwithcare’s partner in Pakistan, decided when he established a clothes bank in May of last year to only employ khwaja siras to sort, repair, clean and pack the clothes. Such regular employment opportunities are almost unheard of for transgender persons. Akhuwat now employs six full-time khwaja siras, namely Naghma, Naina, Guriya, Faisal, Moshin Deedar and Guru Taj, in the clothes bank which is based in Akhuwat’s head office in Lahore.

Lendwithcare News: The launch of our new and improved Lendwithcare website

From early April (assuming everything goes to plan!), when you visit the Lendwithcare website you will be presented with the new and hugely improved version of the site.

Screenshot of the 'new visitor' homepage

The initial motivation behind making changes to the current website was to make it a lot easier for lenders to use on mobile devices. We noticed that over 50% of our lenders were accessing the website either on their mobile phone or tablet and yet the current website made it very difficult for them to read about our entrepreneurs, make loans or purchase gift vouchers. However, as the project developed (and after some market research among lenders) it became obvious that we also needed to use this opportunity to enhance some of the site’s features to improve user experience for both new people coming to the site and for existing lenders.

Diary from the field - cycling from Vietnam to Cambodia

Head of Lendwithcare, Tracey Horner, has embarked on a challenge of a lifetime. For the past seven days Tracey, along with ten other CARE supporters, has cycled from Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam to Battambang in Cambodia (a gruelling 460km) to raise vital funds for CARE's poverty-fighting programmes. 

Before peddling off into the Mekong Tracey met with one of Lendwithcare's newest microfinance partners, MACDI, who are based in northern Vietnam. 

What follows is her diary from the first six days.

Promoting solar power in Pakistan

The city of Lahore is renowned as the literary, educational and cultural heart of Pakistan and has a long history of beautiful architecture dating in particular from the Mughal period with buildings such as the Badshahi Masjid and the Shahi Qila or Lahore Fort.

Shakeel and Rehan from Akhuwat on the roof  where the solar panels are located

How to increase investment in micro-enterprises (and get your money back)

This blog was orginally posted on CARE Insights.

Today CARE has submitted written evidence to the International Development Committee (IDC) of the House of Commons on our peer-to-peer lending network, Lendwithcare. (For a snappier and more entertaining overview of Lendwithcare, see our new Christmas animation above.) The IDC is currently looking at jobs and livelihoods and is interested to understand more about the role that a relatively new way of funding micro-enterprises can play in generating growth and jobs in developing countries.

Eid Mubarak | Celebrations & Charity from Pakistan

© Akhuwat 2014

عيد مبارك, Eid Mubarak and blessed celebration to all of Lendwithcare’s entrepreneurs, partners and lenders across the world this Eid al-Fitr. For those of you who didn’t know Eid al-Fitr, the festival of the breaking of the fast, occurred on Monday (or yesterday for some countries) and marked the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan with a day of celebrations held across the Muslim world. The festival, which is viewed much like Christmas for Christians or Holi for Hindus, is one of the largest in the Islamic calendar and comes as the culmination to a month spent fasting, praying and giving gifts to fellow Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This year’s Eid al-Fitr is also of special significance to those of us here at Lendwithcare as it marks the end of our first year offering Islamic loans to entrepreneurs in Pakistan through our partner Akhuwat. To commemorate this year’s Eid al-Fitr and the amazing work Akhuwat preforms across Pakistan we asked their Chief Credit Officer Shahzad Akram to tell us how our entrepreneurs in Pakistan normally spend Eid al-Fitr and just what Akhuwat will be doing themselves to celebrate the day.

Is peer-to-peer (P2P) lending an efficient way to support microfinance?

The Lendwithcare.org Homepage

Peer-to-peer (P2P) micro-lending platforms, such as lendwithcare, have become a popular method of supporting small businesses in developing countries. Local microfinance institutions (MFIs) select borrowers and appraise their loan applications, which if approved, are financed by the P2P platform. Lendwithcare was established in 2010 and to date some 17,000 individual lenders have financed loans to more than 8,000 borrowers across ten countries.  Our experience over the past four years is that as their loans are repaid, lenders invariably re-lend; rather than withdraw their money. While lendwithcare has proven to be very popular with supporters, is it an efficient way for MFIs to access funding?

Finalists for Lendwithcare Grassroots Entrepreneur Awards announced!

Public voting has closed for the 2014 Lendwithcare Grassroots Entrepreneur Awards and the ten most popular entrepreneurs, featured below, have been passed to our expert judging panel to pick an overall winner.

The standard of entrants has been extremely high. Every one of the 33 nominees is inspiring and has demonstrated an incredible level of enterprise and entrepreneurialism, often in the most challenging circumstances. The Lendwithcare Grassroots Awards recognises the most innovative and determined small businesspeople in poor communities in the developing world. The Awards celebrate creativity, enterprise and innovation, and prioritises social values and poverty alleviation.

It’s now down to our able panel of high profile names from across the business world to come to a final decision. Alastair Stewart, Deborah Meaden, Levi Roots, Nick Hewer, Richard Reed, Sir Stuart Rose, have a difficult decision on their hands!