Here's a sad story from Kiva. One of my loans has defaulted. Looking at Kiva's explanation it seems like it's not the fault of the individual guy I lent to but the "field partner". Of course, Kiva don't themselves seem to know the full story and are investigating but it sounds to me like the field partner had been reliable for a couple of years but suddenly went bad? Maybe a change of personnel? Maybe a sudden economic crisis in Togo?

Kiva haven't done a terrible job in informing me, but there are more things I'd like to see from them. Firstly, more of an analysis of the situation in Togo. Particularly, is there some economic or political circumstance that's likely to have influenced this? Or is it looking more like corruption in the partner?

Secondly, although Kiva uses the web to make connections between the lenders and recipients of loans, they still act as gatekeeper. Is there no way to hear the voices of the borrowers in Togo about their experience with this field partner Could Kiva not at least have a "comment on this partner" option on the page which borrowers could use?