MAPLE Microfinance, an initiative of the University’s International Business and Economics Club, is launching a microfinance project in Northern Uganda. Currently, there are two students in-country with Professor Ron Severson to get the lending institution off its feet.
What I’m stoked about, however, is that those two students (whom I’ve never met) are blogging about their experiences, and the developments in the program:
It will be sweet to see how their team progresses, and how we might be able to work together in the fall.
For the first step in this year’s project, we’ve decided it would be a good idea to create short, one page or less “Country Summaries” for the countries we’re most interested in working with (Peru, Haiti, and India). The goal is to determine which of the four types of projects (microfinance, education, water/sanitation, and decentralised energy) we’re considering would be the best candidate for an in-depth “Project Proposal” to come in the next few weeks.
A very basic introduction to issues within each country, we think, should include:
- Political stability
- Which regions (or states) of the country are in most need
- Poverty rate
- Average income
- Literacy rate (and/or telecommunications infrastructure)
- Access to improved water and sanitation
- Who has access to reliable electricity and who does not
Based off of those basic facts, and other anecdotal knowledge, we should also brainstorm how we especially would help advance:
- Microfinance
- Education
- Water/Sanitation
- Decentralised Energy
Critical to this as well is the need to find potential partners both within the country and in the United States to collaborate with at all stages of the project.
Considering the desire for brevity, is there anything else we should include in these summaries?