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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

That's microcredits, isn't it? Definitely one of the bigger successes in supporting development in poor countries, all the more effective because they're loans that get paid back and can be loaned out again. But I'm not sure it's a great model for rebuilding after a disaster, which requires money that's not going to be paid back.

Or so it seems to me, at least. Maybe you know something I don't.

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Yep, microcredit is not a donation, so it will not work for desperate situations, but you cannot hire locals in desperate situation too. If you want to hire locals and use other locals to check the work, then situation must be controllable, and locals must be rational and accountable. Banking system must work at least. In these conditions, Kiva provides very good "result achieved"/"money spent" ratio.

However, it's your money, so you can just throw them (donate) at refuges[1] or somebody who need a housing[2], if you want that, but it's doesn't work well for local economy.

[1]: https://www.kiva.org/lend/refugees-and-i-d-ps [2]: https://www.kiva.org/lend?sector=10

Why can't money be paid back after a disaster?

I suppose it could, but do you want to? I thought the issue here was that people donate money to be spent on housing, not to be loaned on housing and then paid back.

Microcredits are great in the long run because lots of small improvements really add up. The problem with big disasters is that you need more than small improvements to fix the problem, and to expect all of that to be paid back saddles poor people (or a poor country) with a lot of debt.

At least, that's what it seems like to me, but I'm no expert on this. They seem like two very different cases that require different solutions.

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