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 - January 20, 2020

Kiva has reactivated fundraising for new loans for BRAC Sierra Leone. Following operational issues discovered during a routine onsite audit, BRAC Sierra Leone management conducted satisfactory retraining with branch staff, which was confirmed by a follow-up onsite audit conducted by Kiva.

Status Update - July 4, 2019

Kiva is temporarily pausing fundraising for new loans to BRAC Sierra Leone as a result of operational issues that came to light during routine onsite monitoring. Kiva is working with BRAC Sierra Leone to resolve these issues.

Status update - January 10, 2017

Following resumption of BRAC SL’s Kiva program in August 2016, Kiva continues to monitor progress of their fundraising activity as well as repayment of the amount owed to Kiva lenders. Since resuming fundraising, BRAC SL has cumulatively raised over $57,000, most of which has been used to repay overdue balances due to lenders, bringing down the outstanding overdue amount to $152,271, as of the end of December 2016. This is part of a phased repayment plan that Kiva agreed with BRAC SL upon resumption of their fundraising on the Kiva platform. Following this progress and our assessment of liquidity needs at BRAC SL, we have agreed to allow BRAC SL to repay the remaining overdue amount gradually through June 2017. Kiva will continue to monitor BRAC SL’s fundraising progress to ensure that BRAC SL continues to make progress on their repayment plan each month. We thank lenders for their patience and hope they’ll continue to support BRAC SL borrowers in the future.

Status update — August 30, 2016

As of August 25, BRAC SL's partnership has been unpaused and this organization is now able to resume fundraising on the Kiva platform.

Status update - July 7, 2016 

Kiva and BRAC Sierra Leone have come to an agreement regarding a repayment plan for the amount owed to Kiva lenders, taking into considering BRAC SL’s liquidity situation following the Ebola crisis of 2014. In June, BRAC SL successfully made the first installment of this repayment plan in the amount of $100k to Kiva, and these funds have been settled out to lenders. 

BRAC SL will begin fundraising for new loans on Kiva in July 2016, given their compliance with the agreed upon repayment plan. The decision also follows a positive assessment from an onsite monitoring visit by Kiva staff, who visited the institution in May 2016. From the visit, Kiva ascertained that BRAC SL’s lending program is now fully back on track and requires additional funding to meet rising demand for capital, in particular from their clients whose businesses were severely affected by the economic crisis arising from Ebola epidemic. 

With resumption of Kiva funding, Kiva expects that the cumulative amount collected by BRAC SL from Kiva borrowers during the inactive period will be repaid in full over the course of 2016, through Kiva’s net billing system. Any balance due, but not raised in the fundraising for new loans, will be repaid by BRAC SL in December of 2016. 

We thank lenders for their patience and support of BRAC Sierra Leone  and other West African partners affected by this crisis, and hope they’ll continue to support BRAC SL  borrowers in the future. 

Status update - February 1, 2016

As of January 2016, Kiva has finalized with the reconciliation exercise whose goal was to determine the status of all outstanding Kiva loans in the books of BRAC SL. Based on this information, we have been able to determine loans that have been fully repaid by borrowers to BRAC SL or were rescheduled and borrowers continue to pay their installments. Unfortunately, a number of loans were identified as irrecoverable and have already been written off by BRAC SL and will therefore be defaulted on Kiva and respective lenders updated accordingly.

For the amount of repayment already collected by BRAC SL but yet to remitted back to Kiva lenders, we are currently in discussion with BRAC SL to agree on an acceptable repayment plan considering the financial needs and cash flow position of the organization. The amount will likely be paid in tranches but we hope to finalize on these discussions in the near future and expect to receive the initial repayments soon. More update will be posted once the repayment plan has finally been agreed upon.

Status update - August 6, 2015

The repayment grace period for Lending Partners affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa concluded at the end of May 2015. Kiva has started the process of establishing the status of all outstanding Kiva loans made through these partners. The goal is to identify the actual amounts repaid by Kiva borrowers to the partner during the grace period, identify loans that have since become delinquent and require rescheduling of original repayment terms, as well as those that will be defaulted or written off. Once Kiva has more complete information on the status of the Lending Partner's portfolio we'll provide that information here.

Status update - March 10, 2015

Kiva is extending the existing grace period for Lending Partners impacted by the Ebola outbreak until the end of May 2015. This will allow the partners time to carry out comprehensive audits of their operations, and to share information with Kiva on outstanding loans and their plans going forward.

BRAC Sierra Leone operates in one of the countries in West Africa that was most affected by the Ebola outbreak. As a result, BRAC Sierra Leone has been closed since September of last year, but the organization plans to resume microfinance activities in March 2015. As BRAC starts recovering loan payments they will update Kiva on the status of all outstanding loans. The organization hopes to resume posting new loans to Kiva in April. 

Status update - October 23, 2014

BRAC Sierra Leone operates in Sierra Leone, one of the countries in West Africa currently experiencing an Ebola outbreak. This epidemic is the largest in history, claiming thousands of lives and having a deep impact on the national economy. BRAC Sierra Leone has temporarily stopped funding on Kiva as they respond to this crisis. Learn more about the epidemic here.

Kiva has allowed BRAC Sierra Leone a 4-month grace period for repayments until the end of 2014, at which time we will reevaluate the situation. The Kiva team is in regular communication with BRAC Sierra Leone and will provide an update when they resume funding on Kiva.

Partner description:

BRAC was founded in Bangladesh in 1972 as a small-scale relief project to help the country overcome the devastation of the liberation war and aid in the resettlement of refugees returning from India. BRAC has subsequently acted as a pioneer and catalyst for change, taking a holistic development approach to attacking poverty and empowering people in over 9 countries around the world.

BRAC achieves rapid change through a ground-up approach that focuses on building scale and recognizing both the social and economic needs of its client base. BRAC started working in Sierra Leone in 2008, and began providing microfinance services in June 2009. BRAC Sierra Leone also offers extensive training and capacity building programs in the areas of health, poultry and livestock, agriculture, human rights and legal services. It operates more than 43 branches in all four regions of Sierra Leone, and by the end of 2009, BRAC’s services reached over a quarter of a million Sierra Leoneans.

In Sierra Leone, women are especially affected by poverty, and BRAC has found that empowering women can bring about positive changes in their families and communities. Thus, over 99% of BRAC’s loan recipients in Sierra Leone are women.

One of BRAC Sierra Leone’s microfinance programs, the small enterprise loan, targets both male and female entrepreneurs who seek to expand small businesses and have limited access to capital. These small business entrepreneurs would otherwise have very limited access to the formal financial system, as they are too large for microloans but insufficient collateral for commercial banks. The ultimate goal of the small enterprise loan is to generate employment opportunities.

BRAC’s Vision:

Our vision is of a just, enlightened, healthy and democratic world free from hunger, poverty, environmental degradation and all forms of exploitation based on age, sex, and ethnicity.

BRAC’s Mission:

To work with people whose lives are dominated by extreme poverty, illiteracy, disease, and other disadvantages. With a holistic approach, we strive to bring about positive changes in the quality of life of people who are poor.

BRAC achieves its mission by:

• Working with the poor, especially women and children;

• Engaging in multifaceted development interventions;

• Striving  the promote positive changes in quality of life;

• Working towards attaining socially, financially, and environmentally sustainable programs;

• Actively promoting human rights, human dignity, and gender equity;

• Helping to shape national and global policies on poverty reduction and social progress;

• Fostering the development of human potential;

• Offering professional development opportunities to our staff;

• Encouraging commitment to the goals and values of our organization

A note about BRAC Sierra Leone's portfolio yield:

We care deeply about the cost that Kiva borrowers pay for their loans, which is why fair pricing is a core part of our initial due diligence process for Lending Partners. With Kiva's 0% capital, many of our Lending Partners are also able to add additional value to their loans by reducing interest rates, offering non-financial services or creating new loan products.

For partners with reported portfolio yields or average APRs higher than 50%, Kiva takes steps to check that the high rates are justified by the impact of the loans. Kiva also verifies that the partner is not generating unreasonable profits or paying inflated salaries, and that the partner’s elevated operating costs are justified by its operating environment and/or the design of its loan products. 

We seek to support loans that don’t impose an unjustifiable cost burden on hardworking borrowers. We nevertheless recognize that in order to reach vulnerable and excluded people with high-impact products and services, some of our partners incur high costs that necessitate charging higher-than-average costs to borrowers in order to allow for sustainability and scale. 

Factors that drive up the costs that this partner organization charges its borrowers include:

• They operate in Sierra Leone, which is classified as a fragile situation by the World Bank. This can greatly increase the cost of safely delivering financial services to borrowers. 
• They provide more than just cash to many of their borrowers, including costly wraparound services such as healthcare, financial or business training, agricultural extension services, insurance or access to education.
• They’re based in an area with a high cost of living and doing business. This is often due to the high demand and low supply of adequate housing and goods.
• This partner is working in a country where doing business is difficult and costly due to regulatory, procedural and governance issues.
• They work extensively in rural areas, which requires their employees to engage in costly travel to find and serve their clients.
• They operate in an area with a limited or poorly functioning banking system. This makes it difficult to access funding locally, and makes it more challenging to send and receive payments on loans from outside the country.