Kiva conducts regular, ongoing monitoring of all Lending Partners, but only posts status updates here in response to relevant, major changes at the partner.

Update as of October 31, 2024

Komaza’s total outstanding loan balance is currently in arrears, and the organization has entered receivership due to financial challenges that arose despite previous successful fundraising rounds. While Kiva's funding supported impactful tree planting and helped grow Komaza’s operations, our 10-year loan terms meant that the loan’s success was ultimately tied to Komaza's overall sustainability and growth as a company. A receiver manager is currently overseeing the sale of Komaza’s business and assets. Kiva will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide updates as new information becomes available regarding the sale process and its potential impacts on Kiva’s partnership with Komaza.

Partner Description:

KOMAZA is a social enterprise founded on converting Africa’s drylands into productive family farms in the eastern part of Kenya. The organization equips local farmers with the supplies and training they need to plant fast-growing trees on their unused land. This generates income for their families and creates a sustainable wood supply for local markets.

KOMAZA operates through village-based farmer networks, where it identifies interested farmer groups and offers them financing to purchase inputs and tools -- like seedlings and fertilizers. This enables farmers to turn unproductive land into valuable tree farms. They can then reinvest the profit they earn to start their own businesses, pay school fees for their children, or build better homes. To date, KOMAZA has supported the planting of over 4,600 tree farms run by families in rural Kenya.

Kenya's vast unmet demand for wood products presents an opportunity for farmers to plant their way out of poverty. By uniting growers and wood customers, KOMAZA helps farmers generate more income while breaking the cycle of environmental degradation.

Kiva lenders’ flexible, risk-tolerant capital enables KOMAZA to offer affordable financing to farmers, and to scale faster as an organization to impact more people.

A unique lending approach:

KOMAZA partners with each farmer to plant either 250 eucalyptus trees on three-quarters of an acre or 200 indigenous melia trees on one acre of their dry, degraded land. Once the trees are ready, the organization begins harvesting annually. It purchases all of the farmers’ trees and sells them as high-margin wood products, providing the farmer with new income and enabling KOMAZA to recover its costs.

The trees then grow back, yielding decades of harvests and life-changing income from a single planting. Since 2006, KOMAZA has planted over 1.5 million trees with more than 5,500 farmers.

Watch the story of Ruth and Raphael, KOMAZA farmers, and a video about the organization’s work in the field.

KOMAZA does not require any direct financial investment from farmers. This model allows the organization to target very poor farmers who do not have extra cash on hand to purchase inputs, but it also means that KOMAZA must secure upfront funding to finance tree farms. Kiva capital will address this need.

Kiva's current President, Premal Shah, is married to the President of KOMAZA, Ayesha Wagle. Premal was not involved with Kiva's decision to partner with KOMAZA, as he does not sit on Kiva's Investment Committee or make any decisions related to KOMAZA's funding on Kiva.

Media courtesy of KOMAZA.