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 November 2025

Komaza has now completed its receivership process and has ceased operations. As noted in our previous update, Komaza had been facing significant financial challenges despite earlier fundraising success. The long revenue cycles of forestry, rising operating costs, climate-related delays in timber harvests, and the difficulty of servicing thousands of smallholder farmers across widespread dryland regions ultimately prevented the company from becoming financially sustainable and ultimately led to its bankruptcy. After several attempts to restructure, the business was unable to recover, and the loans made through this partnership will not be repaid.

While Komaza was unable to meet its repayment obligations, Kiva lenders played an important role in supporting its work. Through this partnership, 1,294 smallholder farmers planted trees, improved soil and land conditions, and built long-term livelihood opportunities in regions heavily affected by climate stress. Many of these trees will continue to provide environmental and economic benefits for years to come.

Komaza was part of an early Kiva pilot, and we have learned a great deal from this experience—particularly about the risks faced by enterprises working with smallholder farmers in long-maturity sectors such as forestry. Since these loans were made, Kiva has significantly strengthened our risk management practices and refined how we evaluate business models with extended revenue cycles. These lessons continue to shape how we structure loans and assess future partners.

Kiva will maintain this page for transparency and historical reference, and we remain grateful to lenders whose funds supported meaningful impact for nearly 1,300 farming families despite the enterprise’s ultimate closure.

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.