GiveWell Board member Tim Ogden asks, is Kiva reporting phantom payments? It’s hard to say for sure, but it seems that the answers is either (a) yes, they are or (b) no, but borrowers listed on Kiva’s website are not representative of the average borrowers visiting that MFI. The table below shows default rates for…
The GiveWell Blog
Month: October 2009
Maternal mortality: “Important” yes, “just needs funding” no
Change.org global health blog: we know how to avoid maternal mortality (it’s 1 in 47,600 in Ireland, but 1 in 7 in Niger), it’s just that “poor, uneducated women in Africa and Asia have never been a priority either in their own countries or to donor nations.” Kristof is demanding action and aid to help…
Two pictures of Kiva.org
From the donor-facing website: From a flyer for partner microfinance institutions (linked by GiveWell Board member Tim Ogden): Update: responding to criticism, Kiva has updated its donor-facing page.
Kiva and fungibility
David Roodman, whom we previously interviewed, has a very interesting post up about a specific microfinance vehicle, Kiva.org. Our existing report argues that donations through this sort of vehicle are likely “fungible,” and therefore better thought of (for impact purposes) as general support of organizations rather than as support of specific projects or people. Mr….
Cash as a benchmark?
Franck Wiebe, guest-blogging at Aid Watch, proposes: in the interest of aid effectiveness and as a starting point, donors could agree not to fund projects unless they can be demonstrated to be at least as good as a cash transfer. Is that too much to ask of aid? In concept, we think it’s a great…
Conversation with David Roodman about microfinance
David Roodman is a research fellow at the Center for Global Development and author of David Roodman’s Microfinance Open Book Blog, where he his sharing his notes on (and content of) a book on microfinance. We have consistently found his discussions to be evenhanded, thorough, and clear, especially in terms of what should and shouldn’t…