MFI Report

Development Workshop pioneered microfinance in Angola in 1996, growing from it’s earlier Women Enterprise Development programme and a series of research studies on the informal economy and survival strategies in the market place. DW scaled up its solidarity group lending practice from 1999 as the Sustainable Livelihoods Project (SLP) within the framework of DFID. In 2002, with USAID support and later the Mary Tidlund Trust, abranch of SLP was opened in Huambo project. By 2004 SLP has made loans of about $1.9 million to micro-entrepreneurs of which 2/3 are women. By the end of the year the SLP programme had grown to the largest in the country with 3,674 clients in Luanda and another 1007 in Huambo.

DW transformed SLP into a commercial MFI under new Angolan legislation. The new MFI -- KixiCredito -- was launched at a national micro-credit conference in November 2004. KixiCredito has overcome significant challenges regarding the post-war environment, displaced families, control of PAR and limiting its operating expenses. It had considerable portfolio growth in 2005 and aims to achieve financial sustainability in 2006. Cacher