MAKAZI BORA DIARY: October 2010

21 October 2010

Decreased Average Loan Amount

As of the end of September 2010, the MAKAZI BORA program had disbursed a total of 379 home improvement loans and had 337 active clients. 81 home improvement loans were disbursed during the period of 1st July - 30th September 2010, with an average loan amount of 750,000 shillings (+/- $490). This average loan amount is slighlty lower than the previous average because MAKAZI BORA following some product feature changes in July. The maximum loan amount for first time borrowers was reduced from 1,500,000 shillings to 800,000 shillings. Repeat borrowers are now eligible for a maximum loan amount of 2,000,000 shillings for a second loan and 3,000,000 for a third loan. Most of MAKAZI BORA's active clients are still first time borrowers, resulting in the lower average.

In the first year of operations, the average loan period was consistently 16 months. With the decrease in the maximum loan amount for first time borrowers, the average loan period also decreased slightly in the last quarter to 14 months.

05 October 2010

New Home for MAKAZI BORA

MAKAZI BORA has a new home in Mbagala. The MAKAZI BORA office is now located on Kilwa Road across from the Rangi 3 Bus Terminal and above Akiba Commercial Bank. The new office gives MAKAZI BORA higher visibility and makes it more accessible to clients as promotion of the MAKAZI BORA home improvement loan continues in the Temeke Municipality of Dar es Salaam.

MAKAZI BORA has 362 active clients as at the end of September 2010. An update of our first year of operations has been posted as a link on side bar of this blog. Habitat for Humanity Tanzania is currently seeking capital to scale up its housing microfinance program in 2011.

MAKAZI BORA: A Housing Microfinance Program in Tanzania

Habitat for Humanity has been active in Tanzania since 1986. Up until 2008, it built low-cost houses at community-based projects across the country. The cost of each home was to be repaid into a revolving fund to build more houses. Repayment rates were very low and the annual average number of families served was less than 75. We felt we could do better.

In September 2008, the Board of Directors adopted housing finance for the poor as the organization’s core business. Out of this decision, a retail housing microfinance program called MAKAZI BORA was created as our entry point into the world of housing microfinance. MAKAZI BORA Diary is the story of how it develops - as it happens.

INCREMENTAL BUILDING

The photos below along the right column of our blog are of incremental building projects of people within the Mbagala Branch operating area, Temeke Municipality, Dar es Salaam. The houses would qualify for MAKAZI BORA home improvement loans, but all of the work seen was done prior to MAKAZI BORA being introduced to the area. They are examples of what people are doing on their own and projects to which an injection of affordable housing finance can add value and improve living conditions. Some of the houses in the photos belong to MAKAZI BORA applicants prior to receiving their loans. Others are simply houses viewed in the area.

People are already building.... Habitat is just helping them solve a finance gap to advance their own housing process with the MAKAZI BORA home improvement loan. In the absence of any realistic hope of formal housing assistance for the hundreds of thousands of households with low incomes in Temeke Municipality, we applaud and seek to support their individual efforts that are made with limited resources and using what is available locally in an effort to find housing solutions.