KickStart International is getting an extra boost with a US$2 million loan from Citi – the bank’s first-ever in the social enterprise sector.
The announcement coming from Citi Microfinance and Citi Commercial Bank said that the Skoll Foundation will be providing support on this collaborative initiative.
KickStart International, a non-profit social enterprise which designs, manufactures, and sells high quality, low-cost irrigation pumps for use by smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, will use the loan as working capital to specifically support smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, where farm yields are among the world’s lowest.
The World Bank estimates that 65 percent of Africa’s labour force is employed by the agriculture industry, but farming accounts for only 32 percent of gross domestic product. KickStart hopes to lift millions of people in Africa out of poverty by providing simple money-making tools to smallholder farmers so that they can build profitable family enterprises.
KickStart’s best selling items are their human-powered irrigation pumps. It estimates that a farming family’s income increases $700 per year after owning a pump. The Citi loan will expand production and distribution of the human-powered water pumps.