IQI continues its successful social impact fund at Wakibi in 2022

December 20 2021 - News

After a fruitful year, IQI has decided to continue its strategic partnership with the Dutch microfinancing platform Wakibi throughout 2022. The partnership, that started in January 2021 with an investment of €4,000, is growing steadily and providing more and more micro credit loans to global entrepreneurs. IQI chose to support sustainable projects in the agriculture sector, as this is an important aspect for us in realizing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Increasing our social impact

Since our last update, in May 2021, the social impact of our fund has increased further from €5,050 to €8,225. This has enabled us to expand from supporting 15 to 23 agricultural projects in 9 different countries across South and Central America, Africa, and Central and South East Asia. Money from microloans that have been paid off are directly used to issue new microloans – thereby increasing our social impact more and more.

Insights into the projects

As we would like to give our partners and customers insight into the projects we have supported so far, we would like to introduce a few of them:

• Teresa represents a group of farmers in the Alego District in Kenya. Between the 17 farmers in Teresa’s group, a total of 6.75 acres of land will be planted using the maize seeds and fertilizer received with the microloan. The group will also receive a total of three solar lights. With the profits from the coming harvesting season, Teresa, a mother to eight children, plans to send her children to school.
• Marcos Mauricio from Costa Rica has worked in livestock projects for 15 years. He used his microloan to buy a cow that is lactating, enabling him to set up his own business and have a fixed income. By increasing his sales of products to dairy processors in the area, he can improve his income and achieve a better quality of life for himself and his family.
• Gulkayir from Kyrgyzstan has been engaged in animal husbandry since 2010. She applied for a loan for the purchase of dairy cows to further develop her farm, increase sales of organic milk and income from livestock breeding to support her family. Gulkayir, a mother of two, plans to invest the income from the loan in the further development of her business.

Investing in sustainable agricultural projects

Of the projects supported, 79% is run by individuals and 21% by groups of people. Of them, approximately two thirds are female and one third male entrepreneurs. By investing in their sustainable agricultural projects, our social impact fund has helped to improve the lives of 115 people.

Progress of our activities in 2022

For IQI, as a socially responsible company, this is a wonderful opportunity to empower people in less developed countries to improve their lives and at the same time make real impact in a sustainable way. In the spring and fall of 2022 we will report again on the progress of our activities.