South Pacific Business Development Foundation (SPBD) is a charitable, Samoan-based, microfinance organization dedicated to providing poor women with a great opportunity for self-employment. It is a partner of Grameen Trust. Members are provided with unsecured credit, training and motivation, for starting very small businesses based around existing livelihood skills. In just under four years of operation, SPBD has helped over 2,600 such persons. Until November last year USD 1.14 million equivalent has been disbursed as micro loans with delinquency rate of less than one percent.

Reaching New Loan
On November 6th, 2003, SPBD approved and disbursed a loan of ST$1,000 (about US$330) to Mrs. Vaitoelau Muaau of Vavau village. Total loan disbursements since its creation, amounted to over ST$3,000,000! It has subsequently also gone over the US$1.0 million dollar threshold.

SPBD is proud to disburse this new loan to Mrs. Muaau, one of the 38 low-income women in Vavau that SPBD is currently serving. She started a food processing business and a taro plantation with our first small business loan of ST$750 last year, and she was able to increase her weekly household income by 30% in one year. She is now ready for a new ST$1,000 loan to expand her businesses and buy new building materials to improve her house.

Commercial Funding Milestone

SPBD has secured two ST$100,000 loans (about US$30,000 ) each, from ANZ Bank Samoa and Westpac Bank Samoa, based on partial collateral support from New York-based Deutsche Bank Microcredit Development Fund.This is the first time that SPBD has secured a local currency loan on commercial terms. The loans will help finance the expansion of SPBD lending activities into several new villages across the Samoan island of Upolu.

Editor’s note: Samoa has been hit by a severe cyclonic storm. Help is urgently needed. See Bulletin Board appeal.