TCOB In Africa

Not much time to get into detail, but here's a preliminary list of things we'll be doing in East Africa:

• Conducting Impact Studies for VEF to determine how grant recipients lives have changed following a VEF grant.
• Finding existing microfinancing organizations to partner with Kiva.
• Evaluating the VEF database interface to see why Country Officers in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda aren't putting information into the DB. I'll be training them on proper use of the interface and hopefully will be able to put together a solution for whatever problem it is that they're encountering.
• Explore the potential for a partnership between VEF and Kiva. Basically, VEF gives grants to the poorest of the poor, and the hope is that many of them have "graduated" to the point where they might be good candidates for Kiva loans.
• Take a look at what, if any, information sharing/collective learning occurs between entrepreneurs.

I know there's more I'm forgetting, and I'm sure we'll come up with more stuff next week, but that's a little sumpin sumpin for now.

Posted by flow Frazao on February 3, 2006 at 03:34 PM in Africa, Kiva/VEF | Permalink