Originally Posted by
jbcarioca
In retrospect I should not have said anything about those issues because my answers are long and boring, for most people anyway.
In fact, you know much more than do I about the situation in Cambodia. You have influenced my opinions there also. I went to Cambodia to see some of the institutions for myself. The ones I saw were not Kiva partners, BTW. As you comment in a previous post here there is active competition between microlenders, and plentiful availability of loans, but no functioning credit bureau or any other systematic method of information exchange. Those factors make any microlending operation, no matter how good, subject to uncontrollable risks. because I want my money to go to the greatest need with as few exogenous risks as possible. Because of that supply in Cambodia I don't think anybodt needs my money too.
Kenya mirrors the Cambodia situation, but with some crucial differences, primarily driven by domestic 'political' issues IMO. There are some excellent lenders there too, but the competition and 'political' issues interfere. I have been there several times, but prefer to lend where the benefits are less questionable.
Microlending is difficult in any circumstances. IMO Kiva is doing a stellar job of managing the risks and meeting the needs. The Kiva partner information and updates is superb. Thus far, by careful looking at the partner, the borrower and the country conditions I have been very, very lucky. Of the 158 loans I have outstanding now not one is delinquent and only one has ever been delinquent. I do not expect to be so fortunate always, but I greatly respect the quality of information provided by Kiva. Some people do not care about that. I do. I think that microlending only works when the borrower and partner develop the administrative and financial discipline to assume and service their debt prudently. It is for that reason that I never lend money for personal consumption, rarely for house furnishing and seldom for other personal purposes. If the loan is not intended to generate income it will be a burden, not a help IMO.
For both Cambodia and Kenya there are other forms of charity which are preferable from my point of view. Both countries need serious help, and both have wounds that are mostly self-inflicted. That is true of much of the world, but in many places it is less full of people trying to help.
Finally, I am not a fan, philosophically, of microlending as a system in highly developed credit markets. It would take pages to explain why, but that is why the US is not on my lending list.
I hope that helps explain. I know it does not do a complete job of explaining. Other people will have different priorities than do I, and that is as it should be.
Thanks for the explanation. I would like to say that from my point of view, having worked with some of these organizations, I do not think any of Kiva's partners in Cambodia are unreliable. In fact, Cambodia has one of the highest country repayment rates on Kiva. It's fair enough if you don't want to lend to Cambodian borrowers for other reasons, but reliability and repayments are not an issue here the way they are in other places. I'd also add that having a country-wide credit bureau isn't a common thing in many developing countries, and that to not make loans to places that don't have one would be leaving out many of the borrowers that need the loans the most.
I understand that especially for those people who are putting large amounts of money into Kiva, it makes sense to pay attention to where you are putting it. That said, even if you just randomly make loans on Kiva without doing any research, you're likely to get a repayment rate of over 98% as long as you spread your loans out to different geographic areas. I think worrying about this, particularly for people that are new to Kiva or who aren't investing thousands of dollars, doesn't make a lot of sense.