Lending for Education in Africa Partnership

LEAP (the ‘Lending for Education in Africa Partnership’) is a social lending fund that provides affordable finance to youth from low and middle-income backgrounds in East Africa who are pursuing their higher education and cannot fully cover the cost of their higher education through conventional loans, bursaries, scholarships or other means. In addition to its tailormade loans, LEAP also offers its LEAP Fellows career readiness and financial literacy training, and forges partnerships to create pathways to gainful employment for its supported students. LEAP is managed by a dedicated team at Volta Capital, in partnership with the Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS), InHive, Equity Group Foundation (EGF), and Lundin Foundation. LEAP has been active since late 2017 and has over 800 Fellows enrolled in its programme as of 30 September 2020, across 5 Kenyan universities and 3 TVET institutions . Central to LEAP’s business model is the revolving nature of its social lending fund, whereby loan repayments from its LEAP Fellows are re-deployed for future cohorts of Fellows over time. At the same time, the LEAP fund leverages concessionary funding by blending it with additional private sector impact investments, as it scales and proves the sustainability of its business model.