African Clean Energy (ACE)

Approved to post Kiva loans from: Lesotho, Uganda, Kenya, Cambodia

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: August 15, 2018

Kiva granted ACE a grace period on payments owed to Kiva lenders since they were not allowed to fundraise between April and July due to high delinquency. ACE has remained in contact with Kiva as they worked to improve their credit processes and has been allowed to resume fundraising.

Partner Description:

African Clean Energy (ACE) is a family-owned social enterprise, which manufactures and sells innovative cookstoves in Lesotho, Uganda, and Cambodia. The company designs highly efficient cookstoves that burn smokelessly and use about 50-70% less fuel than traditional cookstoves. The solar-charged cookstoves also feature a unique USB port for charging phones and running LED lamps.

ACE cookstoves are regarded as one of the highest quality cookstoves on the market, which reduce emissions enough to yield health benefits.

A unique lending approach:

Kiva funding would allow ACE to expand its existing loan program for customers to purchase cookstoves in Lesotho, Uganda, and Cambodia.

Repayment Performance on Kiva

	This Lending Partner	All Kiva Partners
Start Date On Kiva	Jul 20, 2015	Oct 12, 2005
Total Loans	$2,316,925	$1,999,972,715
Amount of raised Inactive loans	$0	$557,650
Number of raised Inactive loans	0	203
Amount of Paying Back Loans	$442,500	$153,956,230
Number of Paying Back Loans	3,436	181,893
Amount of Ended Loans	$1,874,425	$1,810,017,340
Number of Ended Loans	10,092	2,432,231
Delinquency Rate	65.36%	11.50%
Amount in Arrears	$144,181	$10,715,938
Outstanding Portfolio	$220,585	$93,157,824
Number of Loans Delinquent	2,749	46,269
Default Rate	8.96%	1.84%
Amount of Ended Loans Defaulted	$167,967	$33,278,852
Number of Ended Loans Defaulted	1,908	87,208
Currency Exchange Loss Rate	0.69%	0.48%
Amount of Currency Exchange Loss	$16,016	$12,335,694
Refund Rate	0.02%	0.54%
Amount of Refunded Loans	$475	$10,873,075
Number of Refunded Loans	2	9,630

Loan Characteristics On Kiva

	This Lending Partner	All Kiva Partners
Loans to Women Borrowers	62.31%	78.34%
Average Loan Size	$103	$392
Average Individual Loan Size	$113	$587
Average Group Loan Size	$461	$1,903
Average number of borrowers per group	4.9	8.3
Average GDP per capita (PPP) in local country	$2,200	$5,595
Average Loan Size / GDP per capita (PPP)	4.70%	7.01%
Average Time to Fund a Loan	0.54 days	9.02 days
Average Dollars Raised Per Day Per Loan	$190.07	$43.51
Average Loan Term	12.81 months	11.48 months

Journaling Performance on Kiva

	This Lending Partner	All Kiva Partners
Total Journals	4,200	1,199,432
Journaling Rate	23.57%	42.11%
Average Number of Comments Per Journal	0.00	0.02
Average Number of Recommendations Per Journal	0.00	0.56

Borrowing Cost Comparison (based on 2017 data)

	This Lending Partner	Median for MFI's in Country	All Kiva Partners
Average Cost to Borrower	0% APR	N/A	26.87% PY
Profitability (return on assets)	-126.34%	N/A	-2.44%
Average Loan Size (% of per capita income)	N/A	N/A	0.00%

Country Fast Facts

Country:: Lesotho
Capital:: Maseru
Official Language:: Sesotho (official), English (official), Zulu, Xhosa
Population:: 1,942,008
Avg Annual Income:: $2,200
Labor Force:: agriculture: 86%, industry and services: 14%
Population Below Poverty Line:: 49.00%
Literacy Rate:: 89.60%
Infant Mortality Rate (per 1000):: 50.48 deaths
Life Expectancy:: 52.65 years