What to know about this Lending Partner
Status update — August 2, 2018
Kiva and UpEnergy have agreed to end their partnership after 5 years and $71,175 in loans raised. This decision was made due to the challenges UpEnergy faced in managing a credit program. UpEnergy joined Kiva as an experimental partner in 2013 with the purpose of financing its rural distribution of cookstoves through community-based organizations and retailers in Uganda. Between April 2013 and October 2016, 26 entrepreneurs received Kiva loans to increase their cookstove inventory or lease tricycles to deliver cookstoves in remote areas. However, despite their best efforts to help borrowers successfully repay, 10 defaulted a portion of their loans and UpEnergy did not have the bandwidth or experience to continue managing a credit program. We thank UpEnergy for the years of collaboration and wish them success in their future endeavors.
Partner Description:
UpEnergy is a social enterprise that aims to fight poverty, improve people’s health, and protect forests by making clean energy technologies available to more people in the developing world.
Founded in 2010, the organization works to increase access to clean cookstoves in Uganda, Rwanda and Central America. Additionally, it partners with technology manufactures and local partners on the ground to deliver water purification equipment and solar lights to underserved households at affordable prices.
Kiva loans are used to help UpEnergy expand distribution of its cookstoves through community-based organizations and retailers in Uganda. With this flexible, zero-interest capital, UpEnergy extends in-kind loans to organizations and retailers to purchase inventory for distribution in rural areas.
In Uganda, over 96% of rural households collect firewood for cooking and heating and use traditional three stone fires that are inefficient and extremely polluting. This dependency on wood for cooking fuel -- coupled with inefficient cooking methods -- has contributed significantly to respiratory disease and the country’s alarming deforestation rate. Between 1990 and 2005, Uganda has lost 26.3% of its forest cover, and has a current deforestation rate of over 2% per year.
UpEnergy’s impact:
UpEnergy sources cookstoves and provides in-country infrastructure for warehousing, sales, and distribution throughout Uganda via its local network. It develops strong partnerships with local retailers, community organizations, NGOs, and governments to promote distribution of its products.
UpEnergy currently sells 1,000 cookstoves per month, and projects distribution of 60,000 cookstoves per year by 2015. Along with cookstove acquisition and distribution, UpEnergy captures carbon credit revenues through each end-consumer’s use of the stove.
A client cooking beans on her new cookstove.
Carbon credit revenues enable UpEnergy to sell cookstoves at subsidized prices, even though the per-stove costs of manufacturing and materials, importation, warehousing, and transport can be up to three times the retail price. This makes clean cookstoves a more affordable and attractive option for the people who need them most.
Image courtesy of UpEnergy.