#### 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 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 01: 16 February, 2007

####

POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF AN INNOVATIVE MODEL FOR SELF-FINANCING ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABLE INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT FOR THE WORLD’S POOR

By T.E.Manning*

A model for self-financing ecological sustainable integrated development for the world’s poor (referred to in the rest of this article as “the Model”) has been presented. The Model is in the public domain. It can be downloaded from website http://www.flowman.nl/, which is controlled in the public interest by the Dutch NGO Stichting Bakens Verzet in Amsterdam. Interested parties can use the Model to draft their own sustainable integrated development projects free of charge and to apply for seed financing for them.

The Model has far-reaching policy implications in many sectors. This paper describes some of them. The Model weaves social, financial, service and productive structures together into a single tightly-knit development fabric. The fibres of the fabric are carefully interlinked, so there are several possible ways of making an analysis of its effects on national and international development policies. Anthropological, economic, financial, political, social, and service- and production-oriented paths can all be followed.

An anthropological approach is used for this particular paper. The development of social groupings of humans, in particular over the last 11.000 years is used as the basis for the choice of administrative levels for project applications under the Model. About 11.000 years ago, nomadic bands of dozens of hunter-gatherers (mostly defined as “extended families” or “clans”) started producing food and forming village groups. (Diamond J., Guns, germs, and steel, Vintage, London, 1998). Diamond refers to the village groups as “tribes” comprising several extended families with an upper limit of “a few hundred” where “everyone knows everyone else by name and relationships” (Ibid. p.271). Prof. Robin Dunbar of Liverpool University suggests that the size of the human brain is linked to social practices developed to bind small groups of 150+ members together. (Grooming, gossip, and the evolution of language, Faber and Faber, London, 1996).

Even today, many rural villages, especially African villages, typically have populations of “a few hundred” people. Even larger villages with populations of a few thousand tend to be formed of clusters of smaller settlements each with “a few hundred” inhabitants. (See detailed lists of villages for draft projects at website http://www.flowman.nl/, and in particular the detailed population distribution maps for the Koulikoro project in Mali).

The basic administrative level used in the Model is usually called a tank commission. It can also be called a local development commission. The tank commissions each represent 40-50 families grouped around a decentralised clean drinking water tank. The number of people served by each tank is usually between 200-350. This corresponds to Diamond’s “tribes” with an “upper limit of a few hundred”(op.cit.). The members of the tank commissions are expected to be mostly women. Health clubs are first set up in each tank commission area to make sure the women there can organise themselves and participate actively in the election and administration processes. The people in each tank commission area decide how many tank commission members they want to choose. The commissions will usually have 3 –7 members. They have many important tasks. They are the real hub of the many project structures. An active role for women at this level goes a long way towards addressing the so-called “gender problem”. Tank commissions also choose a representative to the intermediate administrative level, called well commissions. These in turn choose central committees at project management level. Women’s deep and direct involvement in project planning, execution, and management is therefore actively promoted at all project levels.

Figure 1 illustrates the main tasks of each tank (or local development) commission:

(Fig. 1)

Illustration of the tasks of tank comissions.

The second, or intermediate, administrative level provided for in the Model is the well commission. It can also be called an area development commission. The well commissions are the equivalent of Jared Diamond’s “chiefdoms” with “several thousand” inhabitants where “for any person [living there] the vast majority of other people…. were neither closely related by blood or marriage nor known by name.” (op.cit. p.273). They developed some 7500 years ago as a result of higher population densities made possible by the local cultivation of food. Leadership institutions (“chiefdoms”) are believed to have evolved to create ways of resolving conflicts naturally arising amongst inhabitants not directly bound to each other by blood or marriage. Of special interest to integrated development projects in the modern world is that the first systems for the collection and re-distribution of wealth and the first forms of division of labour were established in this phase. “The most distinctive economic features of chiefdoms was their shift from reliance solely on the reciprocal exchanges characteristics of bands and tribes……..[to] an additional new system termed a redistributive economy.” (op.cit. p.275).

(Fig. 2)

Illustration of the tasks of the well commissions.

The well commissions provided for in the Model typically represent about 2000-2500 inhabitants. This population base supports some modern essential services, too. A typical working area for general practitioners in industrialised countries is 1 doctor to 2000-2500 inhabitants. In the Netherlands this was 1 to 2347 on 1st January 2006 (J.Muysken et al, Cijfers uit de registratie van huisartsen – peiling 2006, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), Utrecht, 2006.) Well commission areas can also support a secondary education structure for pupils from the 2-4 primary schools in their area. (Notes on education policies, below). Project structures at this level include a transactions clearance structure for the local money systems, and a structure for the manufacture of mini-briquettes for high efficiency cooking stoves used in the area.

Each well commission has a member nominated by each tank commission it serves. The number of members will therefore vary from one commission to another, usually between 5 and 9. Each well commission chooses intermediate level micro-credits and local money transactions registration coordinators. It also chooses representatives to the central structures management committee, and to the central committees running the local money systems, the Cooperative Local Development Fund, and where applicable, the Cooperative Health and Education funds. As women are expected to have a majority at tank commission level, they can be expected to nominate female representatives to the well commissions. Women should therefore be well represented, usually with a majority, at this intermediate level too.

The third, or project level administrative structure provided in the Model represents all 50.000-70.000 inhabitants living in a given project area. Jared Diamond refers to this level as “states”, with “over 50.000” inhabitants. (op cit. p. 268). Individuals in each project area must be able to associate with and actively participate in the organs running the project structures. The project area must be “comprehensible” to them. The average size of the ancient Greek city state is believed to have been about 40 km across, so that a leader could walk from the city centre (at the centre of the state) to the farthest point of the state and return home the same day. The total presumed average population was up to 100.000. The average size of a city or “polis” is thought not to have exceeded 20.000, though a few individual centres may have attained a population of 50.000. (C.A.Doxiadis, The ancient Greek City and the City of the Present, Ekistic, vol.18, no. 108, 1964, pp.346-364)

At the same time, the population in the area must be large enough to offer a market supporting specialisation of productive activities and services. It must also be able to provide a variety of productive activities and services wide enough to meet the basic needs for a good quality of life for all in the project area. “We may thus define the optimum number of the population [of an ideal state] as “the greatest surveyable number required for achieving a life of self-sufficiency”” (Artistotle, Politics, Book VII, Chapter IV, tr. E. Barker , Oxford University Press, London, 1948).

The choice made in the Model in favour of local economy systems with an average of 50.000 to 70.000 inhabitants is therefore anything but new. However, there is nothing critical or mystical in the number. Individual project areas may have fewer or more inhabitants depending on population densities, and geographic, cultural and ethnic aspects including language, and in particular on the preferences expressed by the local population. Project areas in developing countries today are seldom as densely populated as Greece at the time of the ancient City States. The population of Greece is believed at that time to have reached 7-9 million (Dioxiadis, op.cit.). Some project areas under the Model may therefore be larger than areas covered by the Greek city states, especially where they include regional or national nature reserves.

Third level project management structures are formed by representatives nominated at well commission level. They include central committees for any one or more project structures, for the Cooperative Local Development Fund, for the Local Money system, and where applicable, for Cooperative Health and Education Funds. Since each well commission nominates a member to each central committee, the number of members will vary from project to project, but will usually be about 35. The central committees, which can be viewed as “parliaments”, meet once a year or more frequently if necessary. They choose management teams, which can be viewed as “governments”. The management teams are expected to be small, with 3-7 members including administrative staff.

Each of the three administrative levels described has its own clearly defined tasks, including the election of those at the next level above that it will have to answer to.

Fig. 3

Chart illustrating the administrative chain.

Figure 4 gives a summary of common tasking at each of the three levels. The list is not intended to be complete. The Model provides for the provision of basic social, financial, productive and service structures necessary to a good quality of life for all. The same structures also open the way to countless other activities and initiatives which are as varied as the minds of those conceiving them. No attempt is made even to imagine them.

Fig. 4

Model for self-financing ecological sustainable integrated development.

Tank commissions. | Well commissions. | Project level.
Health clubs/hygiene education. | Management of well sites. | Supervision and statistics.
Drinking water.Drinking water. | Water supply back-up. | Maintenance & statistics.
Family sanitation. | Washing places. | Training for housewives.
Rainwater harvesting. | Water sampling. | Water testing.
Local money assistants. | Registration local money transactions | Local money statistics, Inter-project relations.
Collection of contributions. |  | Conflict resolution.
Collection of loan repayments. |  | Conflict resolution.
About 60% of micro-credit grants. | About 25% of micro-credit grants. | About 15% of grants.
First-level social safety net. | Second level social safety net. | Project-level safety net.
Production bio-mass for local use. | Production of mini-briquettes. | Statistics.
Nurse | Doctor. | Local hsopital.
Primary school. | Secondary school. | Trade schools, propadeuse for University.
Lighting for study purposes. |  |
Radio-telephone communications (work for blind) |  | Local radio station.
Sports clubs. | Intermediate facilities. | Project level competition.
Theatres, cultural groups. | Physical Facilities. | Cultural circuits.
Personal food storage facility. | Cooperative food storage. | Export/import cooperatives.

The Model applies in principle both to poor urban and rural areas in both developing and industrialised countries. However, preference is given to the execution of pilot projects in rural areas in developing countries. (See further under “Demographic Development Policies” below.)

Policy consequences

Project execution under the Model has many, far-reaching, policy implications in many sectors and at all levels. At the same time, it must be stressed that the Model does not claim to offer solutions to all the problems developing countries face. Projects under the Model cannot act as substitutes for state obligations. Some areas of activity mentioned below, such as curative health and general education issues, are not directly addressed in the Model at all. Other sectors, such as large-scale public works, defence and security, fall outside the scope of local economic development and are not even mentioned below. However, the Model provides for the creation of local social, financial, service and productive structures. These structures can be used to promote the gradual development of some services, taken for granted in industrialised countries, that people in poor countries do not even dare to dream of. Self-financed where necessary, and at a surprisingly low cost. In those cases, the following notes set out where they might want to go, and how they could get there. It may take many years, even decades, for them to arrive.

In short, the Model addresses some problems basic to a good quality of life for all in the project area, and solves them directly. It can contribute actively to solving other problems over a longer term. Finally, there are some areas outside local economic development where it has little or no direct influence at all. Notwithstanding first impressions some readers may have, the following descriptions are not idealistic. The Model does not restate known development problems. It offers concrete down-to-earth solutions to them. The paradigms and the concepts presented are mostly so simple and obvious they should be viewed by most people as an expression of plain common sense. The common sense of the ordinary man or woman in the street. No university degrees are needed to understand them. None were required to develop them. No special expertise is needed to put them into practice. They enable the world’s poorest to design, execute, run, maintain and pay for their own development within the framework of open, cooperative, interest-free, inflation-free economic environments where genuine competition is free to flourish

If the solutions to world-wide poverty alleviation issues really are so simple, some readers may wonder why they have not been applied before. That is a very good question. The answers to it go to the heart and the nature of the currently dominating economic system. But they do not fall within the scope of this paper.

Demographic development policies

Centralisation of power through the dumping of vast numbers of people in mega-slums in unsustainable, uneconomic, ultra-vulnerable mega-cities in developing countries is unnecessary, foolish, and ethically unacceptable. In our times, it is politely called “urbanisation”. Contrary to what we are sometimes led to believe, it is relatively easy to control vast, poor, unorganised, disconnected, disinherited, urban masses both individually and collectively deprived of any means of providing for even their own most basic requirements. Civil disorder may sometimes break out, but seldom has permanent effect. “Popular riot, insurrection, or demonstration is an almost universal urban phenomenon, and as we now know, it occurs even today in the affluent megalopolis of the developed world. On the other hand the fear of such riot is intermittent. It may be taken for granted as a fact of urban existence, as in most pre-industrial cities, or as the kind of unrest which periodically flares up and subsides without producing any major effect on the structure of power.” (E.J. Hobsbawm, Cities and insurrections, Global Urban Development Magazine, vol.1, no.1, May 2005.) One of the purposes of the Model is to counter this “urbanisation” by ensuring that people in rural areas attain a good quality of life there with a full range of basic structures and services and employment opportunities. Once a good quality of life in rural areas has become reality, the Model can be applied in poor urban communities, where its principles are just as effective. The Model is in principle applicable to poverty alleviation in depressed rural and urban areas in industrialised countries as well.

Empowerment of women

The important role played by women in structures at the three administrative levels has already been described. The Model enables women to play an active (leading) role in local development issues. They are structurally freed from the drudgery of having to fetch water and firewood and, with their children, from the dangers of smoke (air pollution in and around their homes), water-borne diseases, and diet insufficiencies. Financial structures such as local money system, interest-free micro-credits, and cooperative buying groups put at their disposal greatly expand their freedom to take productivity initiatives for which local and project level markets are created. Their formal money budget possibilities are extended. They and their children will have (with time) a better chance of structural medical care and formal education, including hygiene education. They will all without exception enjoy the benefits of drinking water, sanitation, and waste recycling facilities.

Employment and income

Tank commission members, like all other persons active for the project, are fully paid for their work under the local money systems set up as part of project execution. Self-financing sustainable integrated development projects under the Model will usually have 200-250 tank commission areas. This leads to the creation of 1000-2000 jobs some of which will be full-time and others part-time according to the decisions independently taken by the people living in each area. Projects under the model typically create up to 4000 jobs and give direct employment to about 10% of the adult population. The remaining 90% of the adult population is free to use the local money and interest-free micro-credit structures created by the project for the purposes of productivity increase. At least Euro 1500 in interest-free micro-credit finance is made available to each family for productivity increase in each ten year period. Unemployment in project areas should be eliminated within a period of 4-5 years, though speed of adoption and use of the structures will never be uniform. It will vary greatly from one project area to another and from one zone to another within each project area. It will be “spotted” and irregular. Much depends on the leadership qualities of those (especially women) chosen to take responsibility for activities at the various levels. One well-led tank commission will set an example for the others in a well-commission area. One ably-led well commission will set an example for others in the project area.

Financial policies

Projects set up cooperative, interest-free, inflation-free, local financial environments, within which private initiative and genuine competition are free to flourish. Basic financial instruments created include local money systems and interest-free cooperative micro-credit structures paid for and run by the people themselves. These basic financial instruments can be supplemented as required by self-financed self-terminating special purpose buying cooperatives at tank commission, well commission and project level and by local interest-free cooperative banking and insurance facilities. All formal money financial structures are operated within the framework of the local money systems set up, so not only are they interest-free, but the services are usually supplied without any formal money cost to users as well. Formal money costs for interest and services traditionally connected with financial products are retained in the project areas. Local populations make small monthly formal money contributions into their Cooperative Local Development Fund. These contributions are used for multiple recycling in the form of interest-free micro-credits for productivity purposes. The local financial environments created during project execution operate in parallel and in harmony with existing formal money structures. The local systems do not substitute the formal money ones. Except for products and services provided for project execution, users are always free to choose whether to conduct a transaction under the local money systems or under the traditional formal money system. The local money structures are all identically time-based. They interact with each other to form a patchwork quilt of cooperative interlinked local economy systems. Cooperation between systems is always on a zero balance basis, to avoid all risk of financial leakage from one project area to another. (Model, complete index, section 5.21 – Interest-free cooperative money structures); (Model, complete index, section 5.22 – Interest-free cooperative micro-credit structures). The network of powerful interlinked local economy systems forms in turn a strong, independent, national economy in host countries.

Social security policies

Few developing countries are known for their efficient social security schemes in support of the poor, the sick, the elderly and the handicapped. More often than not, the sick have to pay in cash on the spot for medical help. If they (or their families) are unable to pay, they cannot get access to the services. In many countries, parents of schoolchildren have to pay relatively high school fees and for school books and school uniforms. Sometimes they even have to pay teachers’ wages where education ministries fail to fulfil their duty to do so. This means that poorer families are often unable to send their children, especially their daughters, to school. Project applications under the Model can make a powerful contribution to social solidarity in developing countries, as they set up a three-tiered social safety network for the weakest members of society, both for their obligations under the local money systems and for their formal money contributions to their formal money Cooperative Local Development Fund.

Control and ownership of local project structures

Management and ownership of all tank commission level structures set up during project execution are vested by the project in the “local tank commission for the time being”. Physical service structures vested in them include drinking water and lighting facilities and project structures provided in schools and clinics situated in their tank commission area. The tank commissions also manage the operation at tank commission level of the local money, interest-free micro-credit and waste recycling systems set up during project execution. They are responsible for the collection of the monthly contributions paid by each inhabitant into the Cooperative Local Development Fund and for the operation of the social security or safety nets set up for the poor, the sick, the aged, and the handicapped. They organise the election of representatives to intermediate level (well-commission) structures and of local money transaction specialists. Physical and administrative structures run by the tank commissions can also be extended to activities in the health and education sectors, as described below, and to interest-free cooperative purchasing and investment initiatives. Similarly, intermediate structures are vested by the project in the “well commission for the time being”. Project-level structures are vested by the project in the “central committee for the time being”. The social safety nets set up, together with strong local social control and extended guarantee structures built into micro-credit loan agreements should reduce defaults in the payment of contributions. Default rates for loans made by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank were less than two percent notwithstanding interest rates up to 18%. (M.Yunus, Banker to the Poor, Public Affairs, New York 2003). Micro-credit loans under the Model are interest-free and free from all formal money costs, as they are managed under the local money systems set up.

Complementary interests

A qualifying feature of the activities of the tank commissions and of all other structures set up under the Model is that they fit in with, and operate in harmony and in parallel with existing political, financial, and administrative structures. For instance, the local money systems set up are operated in parallel with the existing formal money system in the project’s host country. Except for transactions carried out for the project itself, users are always free to choose whether to conduct a transaction under the local money or the formal money system. Tank and well commission members and management may also be members of statutory or voluntary local development agencies or organisations. In some cases, the formation of the tank commissions (independently of or together with intermediate and project level structures) may be helpful in creating and running, free of charge, local development organs foreseen in national legislation. For instance, in the case of Togo, the Village Development Committees (CVD), which are mostly inoperative and lack adequate finance, could be built into project structures foreseen by the Model. The administration of the Togodogo Reserve (Yoto District, Togo) can offer work opportunities to local people under the local money system to help achieve sustainable management of the Reserve for which no formal money funds are currently available.

Traditional leadership and land ownership structures

Project structures are not intended to interfere with the power and recognition of traditional, elected and non-elected, institutions such as village heads, chiefs, religious leaders, mayors, town councils, health boards, water boards, tax department, police commissioners, or members of parliament. The tasks carried out by the project structures are all new ones, created by the people themselves (including mentioned local leaders as individuals) within the framework of each integrated development project. As the quality of life in each project area increases as a result of project execution, the status of the traditional institutions is expected to grow. For the tax department, for instance, a taxation base will be created over time where none existed before. Traditional leaders are free to take advantage of project structures for the management of communal property. Management of communally owned tribal land and natural mineral and renewable income resources can be brought free of charge under the financial structures created by the project, so that costs and benefits can be equitably distributed amongst the owner populations. For instance, income from the sale of sustainably harvested wood from communally owned forests or from the use by community members or nomads of communally owned land for grazing can be distributed amongst the communal owners using the financial instruments set up by the project. The cost of protecting natural resources such as flora and fauna can be brought under the local money systems and divided amongst community members to supplement the limited formal money resources available at national and regional level.

Millennium development goals

Project applications under the Model provide complete structures for full, high quality coverage for drinking water, sanitation, waste recycling, smoke eradication and other services for 100% of the population, without exclusion, in the project areas. The global formal money cost does not exceed Euro 100 per inhabitant. Of this, 25% is provided directly by the inhabitants themselves, in the form of work done for project execution fully paid under the local money systems set up and “converted” into formal money at the rate of Euro 3 per working day of eight hours. The remaining 75% is initially supplied by external support agencies in the form of seed finance. If the seed finance is in the form of a grant, monthly contributions paid by inhabitants into their Cooperative Local Development Fund continue to be recycled interest-free for micro-credits after the close of the first period of ten years. If the seed finance is in the form of an interest-free ten year loan, the contributions paid by inhabitants during the first period of ten years are sufficient to repay the seed capital at the close of the first period of ten years. The amount in the Cooperative Local Development Fund in that case drops temporarily back towards zero. Since the inhabitants continue to make their monthly contributions after seed loan repayment , the capital in the Cooperative Local development Fund builds up again over the second period of ten years to cover the cost of replacement of capital goods after twenty years. The difference between a grant and an interest-free seed loan therefore becomes operative only after ten years. In the first case, the flux of funds for interest-free micro-credits is not interrupted; in the other the fund available for micro-credits has to build up again during the second ten year cycle as it did during the first one. Where part of seed funds is made available by way of grant, the rest may be by way of soft (low interest) loans, including loans from private sources. Condition for this is that the total sum to be repaid by the population at the close of the first ten years’ period does not exceed the total initial seed capital. On this basis, a country such as Togo with a population of 4.500.000 can be “developed” by 2015 for a total seed capital investment of Euro 337.500.000, some or all of which can be repaid by the local populations at the close of the first ten years’ period.

Health policies

The Model addresses preventive medicine related issues by supplying health clubs and hygiene education courses in schools, clean drinking water, sanitation facilities, waste recycling, smoke elimination, better diets and drainage of stagnant waters. While it is not intended to substitute for the duties of national and regional governments with respect to remedial health care, it is structured to help provide local supplementary services in some cases. Tank commission areas (about 200 people) provide an ideal work terrain for a qualified nurse. Suitable premises can be built under the local money systems by the community for nurses willing to work within the local money structures in so far as they do not receive formal money salaries. The cost of basic equipment and materials can be cooperatively covered at tank commission, well commission, or project level by small monthly formal money contributions paid into a Cooperative Health Fund. The same considerations apply to structures for doctors. Well commission areas each serving about 2000 inhabitants form an ideal work terrain for doctors’ practices (J.Muysken et al, op.cit.) and for other professions such as dentists and physiotherapists. Project areas with 50.000-70.000 inhabitants can support local hospitals, preferably at a central point of the project area. Once the financial structures for cooperative local economic development have been set up as a normal part of project execution, basic health care structures can be provided at little or no extra cost to financially hard-pressed government ministries. (Model, complete index, section 5.62 - Health aspects). Project structures provide a natural framework for middle- and long-term development in the health sector.

Education policies

Some improvements in education structures, like those for curative health care, can also be covered under project applications. Single tank commission areas will often be too small to support a primary school on their own, as an ideal primary school population of perhaps eighteen pupils for each grade is required. (V. Wilson, Does small really make a difference?, Scottish Council for Research and Education (SCRE) Report 107, Glasgow, 2002). Assuming six grades, a primary school population of 120-150 would be needed. These requirements can be met by groups of two or three tank commission areas working together. Simple locally constructed, centrally located buildings (with clean drinking water, eco-sanitation and photovoltaic lighting facilities) and locally built school furniture can be supplied by the local populations under the local money systems set up by the projects. Teachers, especially teachers originating in the project area, willing to work within the local money structures can be paid by the residents in so far as they do not receive (regular) formal money salaries from education authorities. Similarly, well commission areas are ideally sized to provide a secondary education structure to pupils from the 2-4 primary schools in their area. With classes of 18 pupils, they would need to have 350-450 pupils to provide coverage for the various subjects studied. Project areas serving 50.000 to 70.000 are ideally sized to provide further education in trades and perhaps a first year preparatory course (propedeuse) for university studies for which students would subsequently need to go to larger centres. (Model, complete index, section 5.63 Education).

Policies for sports and culture

The financial and social structures set up under the Model make it possible for individuals and groups to get cultural and sporting groups off the ground. The Model does not attempt to list or regulate all of the initiatives which could take place, as these are as varied as the minds and wishes of the people. They include sports, coaching and training activities in general, theatre, music, local arts and folklore groups. Basic facilities can be provided under a combination of the local money systems and interest-free micro-credit structures. Sports competitions can be organised amongst clubs in a given project area, and amongst inter-linked project areas. Cultural circuits can be formed, almost “automatically”, for theatre, dance and music groups, providing them in many cases with full time work.

Energy, environment and conservation policies

All initiatives taken under the Model are directed towards zero net energy use, so as to avoid financial leakage from project areas and wastage of resources. Energy used must be in the form of renewable energy originating in the project areas themselves, so that they can be produced and paid for under the local money systems set up. By way of example, the distributed drinking water systems are powered by solar photovoltaic panels. Locally produced high-efficiency stoves are fuelled by locally produced mini-briquettes made from locally grown crops and waste products. Public transport facilities may be driven by bio-fuels produced locally on a small scale. Local production is necessarily environmentally neutral and is always intended in the first place for local consumption. Communities in project areas usually request cooperative food storage facilities coupled with traditional food conservation practices such as solar drying and storage in the form of edible oils. National level and regional environmental and conservation agencies can receive job-creating support from the local money systems. An example is the protection and sustainable exploitation of the Togodo National Reserve already described above, where the Reserve could participate as a member of the local money system, and use the services of local inhabitants as wardens and for forest maintenance and services in exchange for sustainable low level local exploitation of timber, hunting and fishing rights. (Model, Yoto Nord-Est 10 project).

Wieringerwerf, Netherlands, 14th February 2007.

# *The author

Terry Manning is a 64 year old New Zealand lawyer. Resident in Italy for 25 years, he was involved with the development of innovative pumping technologies for the world’s poor and in particular the spring rebound inertia hand pump technology and the solar submersible horizontal axis piston pump technology. For family reasons, he has been living in the Netherlands since 1993. His observations of the world of development (“the aid industry”) were such that he decided it had to be possible for even the poorest to self-finance their own basic integrated development. After many years’ self-financed work, he succeeded in moulding an original combination of social, financial, productive and service instruments into a Model for self-financing ecological sustainable integrated development suitable for general application in rural and poor urban areas throughout the world. The Model enables interested parties to draft their own integrated development projects free of charge and to apply for seed financing for them.

Terry Manning has placed his work in the public domain, under the control of the Dutch NGO “Stichting Bakens Verzet” which means “Another way”. His address is Schoener 50, 1771 ED Wieringerwerf, Netherlands, tel. 0031-227-604128l; e-mail: bakensverzet@xs4all.nl

Model Homepage.

Complete index of the Model.

Typical list of graphs and drawings.
List of abbreviations used.
Documents for fuunding applications.

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