Greetings from Togo! I am Jessica Chervin, and I have just completed a placement as a Kiva Fellow at Microfund Togo. This was the last of my three placements at Kiva Field Partners that serve borrowers in West Africa. In my nine months in the field, the clients of Microfund Togo showed me most clearly how an excellent savings product is complementary to – and equally important as – any loan.
Meet Nadège Patalaki, a reseller of West African textiles. Not long after receiving her loan, she was in a motorbike accident in which she injured her leg. This injury put her out of commission for three months, and she had to give up the space in which she’d set up her boutique. Additionally, as the city of Lomé is currently renovating the buildings that comprise the Grand Marché, many merchants have been displaced to the outskirts of the area, where they have far less exposure to prospective customers. An additional drag on Nadège’s business has been the depreciation of the Ghanaian cedi against the CFA (a currency pegged to the euro and used by 8 West African countries, including Togo). As a result, the Ghanaian customers who used to come on large shopping trips to Lomé are no longer coming.
Nadège Patalaki at work
But Microfund Togo has a loan product that makes these setbacks manageable. Every day, a Microfund Togo employee visits Nadège at her boutique across the street from the beach to collect a small portion of her loan repayment. At the same time, Nadège gives the Microfund Togo employee a couple of hundred CFA (100 CFA = US$0.23) to be deposited into her savings account. Every day, Nadège expands her reserve, ensuring that she will always have funds in case of an emergency and – of particular importance in Africa – that her funds will be stored in a safe place.
Achille Marcos, a Kiva borrower whom I met in Aného, has taken this savings system a step further. Achille runs a very successful motor fuel business. Since receiving his Kiva loan, he has seen his profits soar, increasing by a staggering 250%. In fact, in absolute terms, Achille was recording the highest daily profit any Kiva borrower I’ve met. He also seems to be a conscientious saver. When Microfund Togo visits Achille each day, he makes savings deposits not only into an account for himself, but into an account for one of his children as well – and very soon, he plans to open savings accounts for each of his other two children. He hopes that these accounts will provide the funds necessary for his children to pursue higher education when they are of age. Achille Marcos could not afford a formal education, but he is one of the most responsible and forward-looking people I have ever met.
Achille Marcos proudly displays daily deposit cards for his savings accounts
At many microfinance institutions, a savings history is a prerequisite for taking out a loan. By treating savings collections as they do loan collections for customers who utilize this service, Microfund Togo emphasizes the importance of saving, enables its clients to actively save for their futures, and – in the case of clients like Achille Marcos – to save for those of their children, too! Now, if only we could import a bit of this thinking back in my home country of the United States!
You can view currently fundraising loans from Microfund Togo at http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=22&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_te=mj.
Jessica Chervin
Kiva Fellow, Microfund Togo
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