The leading crowd-sourced microcredit platform, Kiva.org, has recently launched micro-lending in India. I am a big fan of Kiva and I am a personal lender on the platform having made more than 200 loans — see my Kiva lender page. But their micro-lending product for India is very different than what they offer for other countries.… Continue reading Kiva launches in India with poor product experience
Interesting personal experience article by Jitin Mitra on the status and impact of microfinance in India. As a result of the microfinance crisis in India, there has been a significant decline in the availability of microloans for poor Indian workers. While certain politicians gloat that they are protecting poor borrowers, Jitin notes that “the reality is… Continue reading Microfinance is more than a loan
I wish I had posted this closer to the announcement date, but I still think this will be helpful for people who care deeply about Unitus and microfinance/poverty alleviation… I am a board member of Unitus, a global poverty 501c3 charity which recently announced that it is redirecting its efforts from microfinance to new areas of reducing global… Continue reading Questions about Unitus changes
I was at an interesting Seattle Social Venture Partners event tonight for a discussion on philanthropy. Doug and Maggie Walker very openly shared their journey along the path of giving their time and money towards their passions. One of the words that seemed to keep jumping out at me tonight was the term “non-profit.” Some… Continue reading Why do we call them non-profits?
Earlier this month, I visited Myanmar (formerly Burma) and had the privilege of meeting with a wide variety of people from all walks of life. Earlier, I posted a summary of the current situation in Myanmar. I thought I would share some of my interactions to help paint a picture of current day Myanmar. Part… Continue reading Perspectives on Myanmar
I just returned from 7 days in Myanmar (formerly called Burma). I’m going to make a couple of posts on my learnings and thoughts. Part I: The Situation in Myanmar Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962 after becoming independent from the British Empire in 1948. Myanmar has made global headlines over the past… Continue reading The situation in Myanmar
With well over $1B donated so far to Haiti relief, the issue is not more donations, but effective deployment of existing donations. If the Indian Ocean tsunami of Dec 2004 is any lesson, nine months after well-meaning intentions, just 39% of the money promised had been spent. It was just not possible to spend the… Continue reading Haiti doesn’t need more donations
I thought that the change I voted for was going to prioritize a more rational and facts-based approach to addressing the major issues of our times. I thought that we actually were going to start to abandon our top-down, failed-from-the-start approaches to helping the poorest and to start “exploring” new approaches that might actually work.… Continue reading A Smarter Approach to Global Warming
Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus (see my previous post on Priorities for helping the world’s poor), posted an OpEd in today’s WSJ entitled “The View from Vanuatu on Climate Change“. Vanuatu politicians have been some of the most vocal proponents of carbon cuts to prevent global warming destructive impacts on his country. Rather than… Continue reading What poor people really want
There was an interesting article in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Journal called “A New Dawn” which featured too very different perspectives on climate change. One article by Ian McEwan focuses on how developed countries should focus our budgets on climate change and the second article by Bjorn Lomborg focuses on how we need… Continue reading Priorities for helping the world’s poor
Defeat Poverty 