Kixi-Credito Angola and Financial Literacy 
Friday, July 11, 2008, 10:21 PM - The Solidarity Economy & Microfinance


Development Workshop pioneered microfinance in Angola in 1996, growing from it’s earlier Women Enterprise Development programme and a series of research studies on the informal economy and survival strategies in the market place. DW scaled up its solidarity group lending practice from 1999 as the Sustainable Livelihoods Project (SLP) within the framework of DFID. In 2002, with USAID support and later the Mary Tidlund Trust, abranch of SLP was opened in Huambo project. By 2004 SLP has made loans of about $1.9 million to micro-entrepreneurs of which 2/3 are women. By the end of the year the SLP programme had grown to the largest in the country with 3,674 clients in Luanda and another 1007 in Huambo.

DW transformed SLP into a commercial MFI under new Angolan legislation. The new MFI -- KixiCredito -- was launched at a national micro-credit conference in November 2004. KixiCredito has overcome significant challenges regarding the post-war environment, displaced families, control of PAR and limiting its operating expenses. It had considerable portfolio growth in 2005 and is now fully self-sustaining. It has also launched new products including an innovative housing loan.

Through the Coady International Institute, I worked with KixiCredito staff to develop financial literacy training for clients. Financial literacy helps the households to sort through what can be a maze of financial services, understand how to choose and make best use of them and plan for the future. This includes helping to build an awareness about advocacy and policy issues that affect the self-employed. I am happy to share these training materials in Portuguese.

http://www.mixmarket.org/en/demand/dema ... p?ett=1801





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