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

Status Update — April 13, 2020:

Impact Carbon was a Kiva partner starting from October 2013 and to date lent $1,604,350 in clean water systems to schools across Uganda. Throughout the partnership with Kiva, Impact Carbon faced a number of challenges making their lending program financially viable and after an intensive and sustained two-year collection effort, Impact Carbon and Kiva decided to default on accounts for 329 schools in the Impact Carbon portfolio. Despite their best efforts, the significant financial challenges facing these schools and the weak legal system in Uganda combined to create a context that made collection impossible for these accounts.

During the partnership with Kiva, Impact Carbon pioneered a new lower-cost approach to provide safe drinking water systems to schools that does not require a loan or any type of lending model. This new strategy has now led to over 15,000 schools across three countries getting safe drinking water systems (Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria). We are proud to report this ensures that more than 7,500,000 children have safe water every day, and we expect this number to continue to grow exponentially. Without these initial loans on Kiva, Impact Carbon would never have been able to start providing safe drinking water systems to schools and to identify ways to overcome market barriers to scaling these safe drinking water solutions for schools. Kiva’s lender’s invaluable support has helped to deliver on the human right to safe drinking water to students in Uganda and to prove a model which is now expanding throughout Africa.  

We thank Impact Carbon for their partnership over the past 6 years and wish them success in their future endeavors.


Partner Description:

Impact Carbon is a non-profit organization that focuses on building sustainable business models to increase the distribution of clean energy technologies. The organization seeks to deliver measureable social and environmental impact, while demonstrating commercial viability and scale.

For more than a decade, Impact Carbon has worked to bring clean technologies (improved cookstoves, safe water technologies) to millions of people affected by energy poverty. By actively partnering with enterprises and employing a market-based approach, Impact Carbon’s technical and financial assistance has delivered over 450,000 improved household cookstoves in Uganda reaching over 2.5m Ugandans with clean energy solutions.
 
Globally, Impact Carbon has been involved with the development of more than 15 carbon assets for household and community energy technologies.
 
Impact Carbon leverages carbon finance to fund their projects. Funds come from the sale of carbon credits generated by quantifying the greenhouse gas emission reductions generated from their projects, as well as other impact investments. Impact Carbon's work improves health, reduces poverty, and improves local environments, while mitigating climate change.

Kiva lenders’ funds are used to expand two types of loans to the clients, mainly: a) energy and safe water loans for hospitals and schools and b) loans for safe vendor kiosks to help a greater number of people improve their livelihoods.
 
A unique lending approach:

The clean cookstove and safe water loans for hospitals and schools allow urban hospitals and schools in central and southwest Uganda to purchase efficient cookstoves and water treatment systems. This also helps facilitate access to nutritious meals and safe water during the day, reduces the burden of fuel costs for the institutions, and teaches students, patients and staff healthy sanitation practices.

Stoves are built by local entrepreneurs using locally-sourced materials, providing additional economic benefits and job creation opportunities. The safe water technologies are distributed and installed by local partners, contributing to market sector development. The hospital or school repays the loans, usually from significant fuel savings that translate to additional income for the institutions. These income savings will be diverted to repay the loan and eventually fund other vital expenditures, such as new classrooms.
 
The Loan for safe water vendor kiosks helps water vendors establish a water kiosk, including product purchase and installation, staff salaries, and monitoring and evaluation. The safe water kiosks provide the community with a series of low-cost services including water purification using daily doses of chlorine, washing of containers used to transport water, and selling improved water storage containers.

In addition, the kiosks create job opportunities for the employees that staff and support the operation. A loan will be repaid through a combination of carbon credit revenues and a vendor’s sales revenues.