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STICHTING BAKENS VERZET

1018 AM AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

Director,

T.E.(Terry) Manning,

Schoener 50,

1771 ED Wieringerwerf,

The Netherlands.

Tel: 0031-227-604128

Homepage: http://www.flowman.nl

E-mail: (nameatendofline)@xs4all.nl : bakensverzet

 


MODEL (PROJECT) FOR SUSTAINABLE SELF-FINANCING INTEGRATED RURAL AND POOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT FOR THE WORLD'S POOR

Incorporating innovative social, financial, economic, local administrative and productive structures, numerous renewable energy applications, with an important role for women in poverty alleviation in rural and poor urban environments.

 


 

"Money is not the key that opens the gates of the market but the bolt that bars them"

 

Gesell, Silvio The Natural Economic Order

Revised English edition, Peter Owen, London 1958, page 228

 


 

Edition 12: 01 November 2006

 


 

01.01 PROJECT BACKGROUND

 

An innovative project for self-financing sustainable integrated development for (rural and poor urban areas) in (host country) is presented.  It enables even the poorest in the project area to finance their own development. It covers a complete range of basic social, financial, service and productivity structures.

The project assists the inhabitants of the project area to set up a series of social, financial and productive structures in that sequence. The structures are created, run, maintained, owned and paid for by the people. They do not substitute existing formal political and financial structures, but operate peacefully in parallel and in harmony with them.

Social structures include the formation of a platform to ensure women’s participation at all project levels and local, intermediate, and project level project management systems. A multi-tier fail-safe social security system is set up and jobs are created, indicatively,  for about (10%) of the adult population in the project area.

Financial structures create an interest-free, inflation-free cooperative financial environment in the project area. They are based on a three tier financial package in favour of sustainable local economic development, comprising:

a) an interest-free ten year formal currency (grant or seed loan) of  (Euro 100) per user.
b) an interest-free rotating micro-credit system for the purchase of capital items not produced locally but required for productivity purposes.
c) LETS local money systems to enable unlimited trading of local goods and services within the project area.

Basic service structures created include Hygiene Education courses for women and in schools; distributed drinking water supply; sanitation; collection and recycling of organic and non-organic solid waste; high efficiency cookers and bio-mass to fuel them; solar lighting for study purposes; water and sanitation in schools; and water, sanitation, solar refrigeration and lighting in clinics. The project fully covers the gender issue and the rights of women as basic parties to achieving internationally agreed goals for sustainable rural and poor urban development and poverty alleviation. 

Innovative technologies, including many applications of renewable energy, enabling items needed for most basic services to be made in low cost labour intensive local production units with up to 100% local value added, including water tanks, well-linings, toilet systems, high efficiency cookers, are recommended. Other sustainable technologies and services such as small-scale bio-mass plants, milk shops for pasteurisation and distribution of local milk, food storage facilities especially for food for local consumption, a local radio station,  and similar can be added to project facilities in accordance with the indications and preferences of the local people. Improved basic schooling can be developed under the micro-credit system (for their formal money content) and the local money systems (for their local content) as required by the users.  Water supply services are extended in a later phase to supplementary rainwater harvesting  for personal non-potable applications.

 

Basic services such as hygiene education, clean drinking water supply, sanitation, elimination of smoke hazards, and waste recycling are fundamental to healthy life. A third of the world's population still lacks access to clean drinking water. An even larger number of people lack reasonable sanitation. Supplying such basic life needs warrants top priority within the framework of foreign aid programmes for the benefit of the poor in developing countries.

 

Development of basic services and local production facilities in poorer urban and rural areas is traditionally hindered by a chronic lack of money. The little money in project areas is leaks from the local economy to national, or more often, international, havens. That is why the people of (name of project area) do not enjoy adequate hygiene education, sanitation or clean drinking water services.

 

Cooking is usually the most energy intensive activity in developing countries. Energy for cooking comes mostly from bio-mass sources, especially wood. Large parts of meagre family incomes are often spent on wood and charcoal for cooking. The wood comes from further and further away. Its unsustainable use leads to de-forestation and erosion. Moreover, traditional cooking methods are usually inefficient and cause smoke hazards in and around homes, killing more people, especially children, each year than water-borne and infectious diseases such as malaria put together. The project therefore introduces highly efficient stoves. They will be locally manufactured within local currency LETS systems set up early in the project. Bio-mass needed to fuel the stoves will also be locally produced and treated, without limiting the use of the natural fertilisers in local agricultural production. Locally manufactured solar cookers will also be introduced where daytime cooking does not contrast with local customs. Where seed capital is in the form of an interest-free loan, an important part of all loan repayments and expenditure under the project will be funded through the introduction of energy efficient stoves and growing bio-mass for mini-briquettes for fuel. The projects can in theory qualify for carbon dioxide emission reduction (CER) certificates under the Kyoto Treaty.

 

The project will permanently improve the quality of life and stimulate on-going local economic development of all of the people without exclusion who live in the beneficiary communities. It will establish local exchange trading (LETS) systems for the exchange of local goods and services and provide formal money seed funds to finance interest-free micro-credit loans for productivity increase.

 

The (name of project area) comprises (number) communities - (description) for a total of about (number) inhabitants. They live in about (10.000) households. They have no sanitation, drinking water supply, or hygiene education. The local authorities are the (Regional) Government of (project area), the Local Council of (project area), and the local Tax Department who all offer their full support to this project to improve the quality of life of all the inhabitants there.

 

The people in the communities concerned currently depend for their water supply on (description of current water sources). The water from these sources is contaminated and is usually consumed without further treatment for drinking, cooking and personal needs. Resulting diseases affect the quality of life and the productivity of the people. The way water is provided has other social implications too. The supply and management of water is usually the responsibility of women. They often have to go (many - number of) kilometres to fetch water. This takes a good deal of their time and effort which could otherwise be used to improve the living conditions of their families in other ways. Supply of readily accessible clean drinking water should improve the health of the whole population and ease the pressure of work on women.

 

As there are no sanitation facilities, the people of (the project area) urinate and defecate (description of current practices and basic knowledge of hygiene) The proposed hygiene training, sanitation, and drinking water systems must take the social structures of the communities into account. They must all be self-financing and remain financially viable and sustainable without the need for further formal seed money once the initial (interest free) formal currency loans have, where appropriate,  been repaid.

 

Cooking is currently done by (description of facilities). Fuel for cooking comes from (name of source). Each family typically uses (amount of fuel) per day (amount of fuel) per year. The typical cost of this fuel is (amount) per month, which is on an average (percentage) % of the total family income. The total consumption of (fuel) in the project area with ten thousand families is therefore (amount) m3 at a global cost at project level of (amount in Euros).

 

Non-organic solid waste disposal (common rubbish recycling) is a major problem in the project area. There, collection systems organised by the local authorities rarely work well if at all. The value of the rubbish collected is "exported" for recycling elsewhere or dumped to litter the country-side. The project includes establishing local recycling centres to add value to waste products. This saves present expenditure on waste collection, storage and disposal. It enables recycling of some materials within the local currency systems. Export of residual waste materials will provide formal currency income to repay micro-credit loans advanced to the recycling centres.

 

 


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