TEECs Microfinance is a duly registered microfinance agency operating in Malawi and a member of the Malawi Microfinance Network.

It was established in 2013 by Tools for Enterprise & Education Consultants (TEECs) Limited, an entrepreneurship, economic and education development firm registered in Malawi. Two years prior to the establishment of TEECs Microfinance, TEECs Limited had been working with the Gates Foundation through Water for People under a program called Sanitation as a Business (SAAB) whose objective was to encourage private sector participation in sanitation in Malawi's peri urban areas starting with the city of Blantyre and then Lilongwe.

TEECS Limited, though the work with Water for People and later Water Aid in Lilongwe, established that there exists a large untapped market for sanitation products and services in the peri urban areas of Malawi.

The sanitation sector in the two cities is weak and underdeveloped. 76% of the people live in low income areas in Blantyre, for example. These low income areas of the cities are characterized by ever-increasing housing density, poor water drainage, poor feeder roads and a network of narrow paths. These characteristics make it impossible to lay sewer lines and the households use pit latrines for human excreta.

The economic status of people in these areas, however, limits their ability to access good pit latrines, and as a result, most households do not even have a basic pit latrine. In Blantyre alone the situation on the ground indicates that an estimated 300, 000 households from the low income areas have no access to any form of latrine. An estimated 450, 000 households of those with access, use pit latrines with poor life expectancy and poor levels of hygiene. Estimated 370, 000 households share a latrine with other households.

In terms of use of latrines, it is estimated that average number of users per latrine is 6.1 people. 16% of the population in low income areas share a latrine between 9-11 people, 12% share between 12-14 people and 24% share a latrine with more than 15 people. The situation creates shorter transmission routes for diseases.

Epidemics, such as Cholera, in these areas are more frequent and spread more rapidly. There is an obvious lack of dignity and privacy for the daily process of removing individual human waste.

Despite the need, the households are unable to pay for the modern pit latrines without external financial support. Traditional banks and microfinance institutes in Malawi view sanitation as highly risky and therefore do not offer sector specific products and TMF was established to help meet that gap.

Moreover, most low income household owners do not have enough financial or asset security to use as collateral for commercial bank loans; their incomes are not sufficient enough to convince banks that they are credit worthy. The main purpose of TMF is to serve private sector sanitation companies and sanitation consumers at household level by offering water and sanitation loans of the economically active bottom of the pyramid customers. The seed capital used to establish TMF came from the personal savings of two directors of TEECS Limited, Louis and Towera Jalakasi. Coming from personal savings the capital is too little to show impact or even start to scale up. To ensure sustainability of the water and sanitation loans also TMF offers regular traditional loan products to individuals, groups and entrepreneurs. These loan products, however, have a higher interest rate which is aimed at increasing income that helps subsidise the serving of water and sanitation loans.   To learn more about TEECs Microfinance, contact us at tmf@teecs.net

Mrs Banda from Baluti Low Income Area, Blantyre a beneficiary of a latrine loan from TMF