According to the 2016 Taking on Inequality Report by the World Bank Group, the most recent estimates indicate that 10.7 percent of the world’s population lived on less than US$1.90 a day, compared to 12.4 percent in 2012. Whilst that number is thankfully trending downwards, (down from 35 percent in 1990), 10 percent of 7 billion is still an enormous number of people living from hand to mouth. Many of those individuals are women and children. Thankfully, there are organisations like Kiva, that have built businesses with a mission to connect people through alternative lending models as a means to alleviate poverty.
Kiva created a business model and built an infrastructure that connects lenders to borrowers which supports those borrowers to create a better future for themselves, their families and their communities.