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Mustard seeds and micro loans

Good article in The Christian Science Monitor on the role parachurch organizations are playing in putting Rwanda back together by arranging small (micro) loans to needy locals. According to the story,

nearly 1 in 5 of small-business borrowers [in Rwanda] receives loans from religiously oriented lending programs. The 1994 genocide, which took the lives of up to 800,000 Rwandans, kept many international lenders from working in Rwanda. Even after the genocide, political uncertainty and violence in neighboring Congo and Burundi have continually threatened the sustainability of business ventures.

Into this void has stepped the Christian micro-enterprise development (CMED) industry. World Relief, for example, a Christian organization based in the US, specializes in small-business lending in post-conflict regions. World Relief has helped start microfinance programs in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and Cambodia, among other places. Its Rwandan affiliate opened in 1996 and has grown into the largest microfinance institution in the country.