News

Meet Musa Kiggundu Muwanga, one of the Ugandan entrepreneurs on PlusPlus. The director of Frutrac gives us an update about his company, the impact they make and new opportunities that are opening up to them. And they have the PlusPlus investors to thank for it.

Palm oil has a negative image. Large-scale plantations, for which rain forests are cut down and farmers are kicked off their land, created a bad reputation. But it does not have to be like that! Sustainably produced palm oil, with attention for biodiversity and the environment, offers enormous opportunities for poverty stricken small-scale farmers to build a better life. Michel Riemersma, Solidaridad’s Policy Advisor on Palm Oil, explains why palm oil doesn't have to be a bad thing...

Abeza Josée is a maize farmer in the southern part of Rwanda, who, for a long time, considered her farming to be just for survival. After joining a farmer savings group her life changed. With the loans she received, she was able to invest in her crops and increase her yields. The extra profit she reinvested in land. Now, Josée is a businesswoman, with 4 times the land size she once had and with her own tailor business. For women like Josée, access to finance is a key to success. CLECAM, a new project on PlusPlus, provides them with this.

PlusPlus has something new. This month you can lend money to 250 farmers via a local microcredit partner. An indirect loan, so to speak. Why is this different from a direct loan? And what are the advantages and disadvantages? Our CEO Peter Heijen explains....

Female entrepreneurship has been growing steep in the past decade. This is very important to close the worldwide gender gap. Entrepreneurship and business ownership empowers women all over the world to strengthen their position. This is even more true in developing countries where the position of females is generally even worse than in developed countries. More than enough reason to contribute to female entrepreneurship and female business ownership in emerging markets!

Poverty and injustice are important themes for Major Wietse Kooistra. They determine most of the choices this investor makes. "The things I do have to be right in both the heart and the head," he says. That applies to his job, but also to the financial decisions he makes. "A loan to PlusPlus is not guaranteed, but it is a reliable investment. The transparency and sustainability really appeal to me."

Humphrey Mburu, the managing director and founder of Kenyan enterprise Sereni Fries was one of the very first investees on the PlusPlus platform. During an interview in May 2022, he explained that thanks to the PlusPlus loans this past year and a half, they were able to scale. Now, they are about to outgrow PlusPlus. And that’s a positive development.

Great news! About 1.5 year after PlusPlus was launched, we have reached our first million. An amazing amount, which our investors (that's you) have jointly lent to entrepreneurs in developing countries to make an impact. And we are extremely proud of that....

When it comes to the environmental and social challenges we’re globally facing, there are different kinds of solutions for those who want to use their money to do some good. In this blog post we’ll elaborate on two effective methods and explain their main differences: donating to charity and impact investing.

Central America is a region in itself. Sandwiched between two oceans, it forms a bridge between two continents. The countries in this region have a lot to offer. Our colleague in Nicaragua, Lucette Martinez, explains what makes Central America special and what opportunities there are for small agricultural businesses.