Kiva 2

I am happy to report that I got clarification about how Kiva works. My friend Lander reports below on how a user's contribution is allocated:

"A user's contribution does not go directly to the loan applicant. The user is actually making a 0% interest loan to a local MFI, which in turn makes a loan at its standard interest rates to the loan applicant. Since money is fungible, the MFI sometimes makes a loan with its own resources andthen allocates the loan as a "Kiva" loan once it receives Kiva funds"

Additionally, I recently met up with another international development enthusiast living here in Boston, Molly Zeff. She pointed me on to an interesting development site. The website is Kickstart which is a technology hub for BOP ventures. Their most popular item is a water pump. I remember back in college reading about a similar program sponsored by a large development agency. The program was a resounding failure mostly because if the pumps broke down, then it was very difficult to bring in replacement parts. The question is, how does kickstart solve the distribution and maintenance issues?