MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: USAID Gives $2.5m for Design of Kiva Invest in Women Fund (K-IWF) from Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative

The US Agency for International Development (AID) recently gave USD 2.5 million from the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative to US-based nonprofit Kiva to develop the Kiva Invest in Women Fund (K-IWF). Kiva plans for this investment vehicle to mobilize USD 100 million for women entrepreneurs as part of Kiva Capital, the NGOs “asset management subsidiary offering impact-first investment vehicles.” As groundwork for the fund, Kiva Capital will use the money to: 1) identify “missing elements of investment capital” for women-led firms in Africa and Latin America; 2) execute a “global investor listening tour” on the topic of “investing in women for both the social and financial returns;” and 3) create “an impact framework and a shared learnings platform.”

Kiva’s Director of Impact, Goldie Chow, holds, “We know that investing in women’s economic empowerment can boost country-level GDP and is vital for achieving the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals, but critical funding gaps were thwarting progress even before the COVID-19 crisis. Scaling investment in women entrepreneurs is not only the next step in building pathways to prosperity for women but also crucial for country-level recovery and resilience.”

Founded in the US in 2005, Kiva is known for its crowdfunding platform that allows users to lend as little as USD 25 to microfinance institutions (MFIs) to backfill loans that the MFIs have made to low-income borrowers. In 2019, Kiva funded 205,000 loans in 67 countries, serving 385,000 borrowers, 80 percent of whom are women. The NGO has total assets of USD 29.3 million as of 2019.

W-GDP was established by the office of the US President in 2019 to promote the economic empowerment of women through financing, training, mentorship, education and policy advocacy. The initiative has a total allocation of USD 300 million for the fiscal years 2018 through 2020, reaching 12 million women.

USAID is a government agency that provides international economic and humanitarian assistance. It invests in areas such as economic growth, agriculture, trade, health, democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance. In the 2018 fiscal year, USAID reported USD 20 billion in disbursals in 139 countries.

By Jessica McLeod, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Businesswire news release
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200706005103/en/

Kiva homepage
https://www.kiva.org

USAID homepage
https://www.usaid.gov/

W-GDP
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wgdp/

W-GDP Annual Report 2019-2020
whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/WGDP-2019-Annual-Report-02102020.pdf

Kiva 2019 Annual Report
https://assets.brandfolder.com/q992sc-74m62o-5fi0fy/v/15887655/original/Kiva%202019%20Annual%20Report.pdf

“USAID investments and illustrative results”
https://results.usaid.gov/results

Previous MicroCapital article on Kiva
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-sierra-leone-launching-national-digital-identity-platform-in-partnership-with-kiva-rippleworks-uncdf-undp/

Previous MicroCapital article on USAID
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-usaid-guarantee-15m-agricultural-lending-cambodias-amk-microfinance-institution-lolc-rma-financial-services/

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