Lift Above Poverty Organization

• Regular loan (RL), obtained by LAPO members through their groups as capital for entrepreneurship. Loan tenor is 32 weeks and equal amount of repayments with interest are paid weekly at group meetings.

• Festival Business Loan (FBL), which enables the clients to fund business activities during festive periods. The average loan size of FBL is US$200 and has benefited clients by ensuring them with high returns.

• Farming Loan, developed exclusively for food crop farmers, in which the disbursement and repayment schedules follow the pattern of activities in farming cycle.

• Credit-for-shares, allowing the poor to acquire and manage shares or stocks in profitable companies.

• Asset loans, which are designed for clients to invest in the acquisition of income generating assets such as commercial transportation and household appliances.

There are also different types of savings programs for capital accumulation:

• Regular savings. Clients make mandatory weekly deposits into their savings accounts at group meetings which serve as funds for investment in capital accumulation. Withdrawal is only allowed at termination of relationship with LAPO.

• Voluntary savings, which are similarly introduced in order to aid clients with capital investment. Clients are motivated to set aside surplus funds, and so generate more funds by earning competitive interest rates on the balances.

Moreover, LAPO has set up a few subsidiaries to help tackle poverty in Nigeria. LAPO Agricultural and Rural Development Initiative (LARDI) was established to improve the lives of the rural poor in Nigeria. It helps to generate youth employment, to promote infrastructural development, to facilitate farmer’s access to capital and physical inputs such as credit, storing and processing facilities, to acquire information on relevant farming issues and to improve the farmers and rural households’ health.[3] Micro Investment Support Services (MISS) was set up to provide microcredit services to the poor Nigerian for income generating purposes.[4] Academy for Microfinance and Enterprise Development (AMED) was established to provide training and technical services to LAPO Group and other microfinance institutions.[5]