Kiva: Money isn't everything, but it helps - especially in health

In health care we readily appreciate, but still need reminding of the link between wealth - health and poverty. The Black Report and the review some 25 years later is writ large in many student essays, reports and policy aspirations including the latest Labour government.

What we do forget is economics as a problem not just in peoples health, but in establishing a business. Despite the creativity and innovation an entrepreneur can demonstrate, venture capital companies will say "Great idea! Come back when you've got your first sales". This was noted on this week's The Bottom Line on BBC Radio 4.

If it's a real chicken and egg dilemma for innovators in the UK and developed nations, then imagine how difficult it is in countries like Somalia, Uganda, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tajikistan, Senegal, and Tanzania, ...?

For people with the aspirations of starting a business that initial, start-up finance is critical not to developing some 21st century technology prototype, but business ventures that we often take for granted in our developed towns and cities clothes, consmetics, food production and sales.

Kiva.org is a great idea. David my old boss brought them to my attention, but now it's time to hop on board.



If you are new to Kiva there is a short video about how a small loan from people like us can help entrepreneurs gain an opportunity they might not otherwise have.


A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
Kivaworld provides a world map so you can readily understand the scope of Kiva and the basics of the way it operates: fund raising, funded, in repayment, paid.

Health and medicine feature in the projects and in the groups of lending teams which you can also join. There are other agencies who ally microfinance with health protection. Health and microfinance already boast a prolonged debate and literature.

I am joining the Kiva community this weekend. Microfinance can make a huge difference to individual lives and now Kiva and its worldwide supporters are creating their own records as revealed on the Kiva blog.

Sometimes it is not enough to just 'maintain a link' as always it's about making a difference. ...
https://www.freedomfromhunger.org/
Matt Flannery, Kiva and the Birth of Person-to-Person Microfinance, Innovations, Winter/Spring 2007, 2, 1-2, 31-56. (doi:10.1162/itgg.2007.2.1-2.31).

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/itgg