International
The Story of a loan in Cameroon
Our friends at the African Development Bank created this video about Alice Mbullah, a woman in Cameroon who has been able to grow his fishing business with the help of a small loan.
As the film tells us, more than 100,000 entrepreneurs in Cameroon received loans to support their farming and fishing business and more than 70% of the fishing entrepreneurs are women.
These businesses have helped these women send their children to school and improve their positions in society.
This is just one of a series of short videos the Africa Development Bank is creating and that we’ll be posting here on the ONE Blog.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
23/12/2009 at 11:57 am
Development aid money is necessary and usefull in many cases, but thsi is even better. It gives the people in African and other countries (f. ex. India) the chance to help themselves without making them dependant from donations.
26/12/2009 at 11:07 am
A video like this shows that giving aid and educating people is helpfull. Many people keep saying that giving aid is difficult because they don’t know where their money goes. And that they feel that it is not making a difference. It’s important that many people can see videos like this one to show that people can realy make a difference in developing countries. Not just by donating money, but by giving their voice or opinions and knowledge. I hope that people who will be watching the football in South Africa in 2010 will get to see these videos as well. As millions will be watching the tournament arround the world.
26/12/2009 at 12:31 pm
I agree with you, CJH Weir. It is always good when money goes straight to a project, straight to the people who need it. We have always been working that way (in Peru, Tanzania and Morocco). We gathered donations and went straight by ourselves to a project and place and bought the materials and needed goods and used them or gave them to the people. Without giving it to Red Cross, Caritas etc. For we often saw that when we gave it to those organisations, part of the money was used for their administration, and donations were sold f. ex. by Caritas instead of being given to people in need or to projects.
I had seen that first in Live Aid when money was directly used and brought straight to the starving people, the organisation of that aid had ben directly and quickly. Me and my friends have always acted in the same way.
So later it is also easier to show the donators where their money went and what was done with it and how it helped, each penny and cent.
The given example makes it possibe that people help themselves and show us how things can be improved in their countries.
04/01/2010 at 8:16 pm
The progress made by the people, especially the women in the third world countries with the small loans made to them. I have travelled in my countries in Africa and Latin America and am convinced that organizations like Kiva.org really work. Thank you all who are lending to help make this world a better world.
27/08/2010 at 9:22 pm
Martina, while I agree that too much focus on administrative costs can squander donated funds, I would like to add that contributing to overhead costs doesn’t necessarily hamper the goal of reaching out to more people in need. Countries where microloans are working to alleviate poverty are often the ones that lack the infrastructure needed to provide financial services to the poorest of the poor- especially those living in the remotest regions of the country where the infrastructure is not only inaccessible to the poor but completely nonexistent. Therefore, if we want to place our money where it counts the most, we must not overlook the long-term benefit of contributing to overhead expenditures. Check out: http://www.bridgespan.org/nonprofit-overhead-costs-2008.aspx.
What is needed by NGOs is better efficiency- there is no doubt there. Arman, while I also love the work of Kiva, let’s think about the extra cost it takes to repeatedly exchange one’s $25 loan into another currency and then back again when repaid. Efficiency is catch 22. Regarding marketing costs alone, you either have the marketing and therefore lots of donors or lack the marketing and consequently lack lots of donors.