Shereef’s Kiva Blog

Kiva’s stated mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. The statement, fraught with vague nuance, runs through my head as I do borrower visits and judgmentally examine their lives, homes and dreams. Specifically, I compare their circumstances to my own imagined definition of the poverty Kiva strives to alleviate – and the two do not necessarily coincide.

I have walked down the dusty desert streets of the towns surrounding Chiclayo, through the unpaved dirt that separates the run-down homes connected by a spider web of tenuous cables and wires. But as soon as I enter the home of a lender all the expectations and stereotypes shatter. In my mind, the poor do not own dining room furniture and flat screen TVs.

So, what if we succeed? What if we alleviate poverty? If everyone were to start accumulating limitless material wealth it would defy my other privileged belief in the need to shift to sustainable consumption practices. On the other hand though, it would be hypocritical at best to suggest that other people do not have the same right to consume as I do.

Time-out. The experience I had (see the pictures of Kiva borrower Cruz below) is by no means universal but definitely forces me to step out of my own prejudgments and adjust to reality. The whole question of, “is the goal [of development] to level the playing filed or to move to a new field,” is still premature, and built on a partially false conflation.

I do think that more wealth leads on one level to more stuff but not that much more. Strictly conflating levels of material accumulation with degree of poverty is an error. Poverty is more nuanced. Here in Peru, and in many countries, the distance that separates the middle class from the poor is minimal, but the distance between middle class and the rich stretches immeasurably.

My experience so far has led me to believe that instability is what defines poverty. The means by which people accumulate wealth are tenuous and lead them to make instant material decisions instead of more long-term savings – they do not feel secure in the long term. And that is one of the reasons I sincerely believe in the mission of organizations like Kiva and EDPYME Alternativa: they do not just provide loans and services, but re-enfranchise the marginalized who then begin to trust in circumstance and plan a better future for themselves and their children.

Please feel free to leave comments below – it would be great to see a discussion going on the pitfalls of understanding poverty and directing development.

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09.04.09 - what if we succeed?

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