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
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 11: 22
November, 2006
This is the most critical phase during which the basic
structures necessary for the operation of the entire system are set up by way
of a series of organizational workshops following the method introduced by the
Brazilian sociologist Clodomir Santos de Morais.
Refer to
schedules 1 and 2 for some
material and a bibliography on
Organisational Workshops.
The sequential order of the workshops is very
important. The first workshops are the ones setting up the Health
Clubs, which offer women a platform from which they can organise
themselves. After that, the tank
commissions, which are the heart of the system, can be established. The
third structure is the local money LETS
systems, followed by the micro-credit
system, then the gypsum
composite manufacturing units, the water
supply system, the recycling
system and, where applicable, the radio station and
other planned structures.
Within the project area, an interest-free,
inflation-free cooperative financial environment is created. Local economic
systems are created, from which financial leakage is discouraged and where
possible blocked, and the small amount of formal money available in the project
area stays there and is re-circulated locally. Financial leakage is caused
mainly by interest (up to 40% of the price of a typical industrial product is
in fact accumulated interest), all energy sources, including electricity supply
and fertilisers, not produced in the area, and health costs for medicines and
medical services imported into the
project area, often also into the host country. Articles on these
innovative cooperative local financial and economic structures.
Within each of these local economies:
a) Each LETS local money system in the project area
must have a zero balance with the others in the project area.
b) The LETS local money systems in a project area must
have a zero balance with LETS local money systems outside the project area.
c) The formal money system in the project area must
tend towards a zero balance with the formal money system within the host
country.
d) The foreign currency (formal money) balance between
the cost of items and services imported into the project area from outside the
host country and the value of items and services exported from the project area
outside the host country must be zero.
So long as these balances tend towards zero, it
is impossible for one local economic system to get rich at the cost of another.
The idea is to set up a patchwork quilt of these local economic structures in a
given country. Local development is then powerful, fully sustainable, and
decentralised. The local people (and especially women) are fully empowered and
manage their own decentralised structures.
So how are the local economic systems set up?
A number of simple, cooperative financial,
economic, social, and productive structures are created in each project area. The
order in which this is done is critical.
1) Cooperative
health clubs are set up. The health clubs are based on groups of about 40
families (200 people) based around what the Model calls tank commissions but
which could be called local development committees. The health clubs are
important because they constitute a platform enabling women to organise
themselves so that they can vote in block at meetings and participate fully in
the structures. The gender issue (the role of women in development) is
addressed this way as it is women who are expected to take most of the
responsibility for the projects. The initial costs of the health clubs are
covered by the project funds until the LETS local money systems are set up.
2) Once the women's health clubs are working,
the local
tank commissions or local development committees are set up. These are also
based on the same 40 families (200 people) . The people can decide how many
members the tank commissions will have, typically 3 or 5.The tank commission is
the heart of the project. Its functions are fully described in the Model and
draft projects and illustrated in diagrams. The cost of organising the tank
commissions (local development committees) is covered by the project until the
local money systems are set up and become operative.
3) Once the tank commissions have been formed, LETS local money
systems can be created. Poverty is often coupled with "lack of formal
money". If the people haven't got any formal money, they cannot buy goods
and services. Yet the absence of formal money does not mean they do not have goods
and services to transfer. The LETS local money systems give the people the
means of exchanging all goods and services produced within the project area.
The art then is to use technologies enabling most of the items and services
basic to local development to be built or executed with 100% local value added
in the project area, so that they can be produced, installed, maintained and
paid for within the LETS local money systems, without the need for formal
money. For instance, under the Model and the draft projects, the entire
integrated sanitation system can be built, installed, run and maintained
without a cent of formal money! The costs of running the LETS local money
systems are covered under the local money systems themselves.
4) Once the LETS local money systems are in
place, a distinction can be made between what can be done under the local money
systems and what cannot. At this point of time the cooperative interest-free
micro-credit structures are put in place. These recycle the users' monthly
contributions to the Cooperative Development Fund interest-free for credits for
sustainable productivity purposes, for the purpose of purchasing goods not
locally produced. The micro-credit systems will allow at least Euro 1500 of
interest-free micro-credit per family during the first ten years of each
project. Probably more, as the Euro 2600 is conservatively based on an average
two-year pay back time. The costs of running the micro-credit structures are
covered under the local money systems. Where local cooperative bank structures
willing to work within the local money systems do not exist, the project in
question will set one up.
5) Once the cooperative micro-credit structures
and the LETS local money systems are in place, the gypsum
composite factories can be set up. Amongst the priority items for
manufacture in these factories are products necessary for the water supply
project such as water tanks, well linings, water containers, etc. and even some
or all of the water pumps themselves, though work on the development of these
is still on-going. When capacity is available they can start making the planned
ecological sanitation systems, and other necessary items such as high
efficiency stoves.
6) Cooperative interest-free self-terminating
building society type structures can be set up at tank commission, well commission,
or central project level to finance the purchase of interest-free solar home
systems and other renewable energy structures of particular common interest to
the people in the project area.
The
following graphs can be downloaded from internet site www.flowman.nl or
transmitted as attachments to an a-mail message on request.
GRAPH SHOWING
DEVELOPMENT OF MICRO-LOANS .
THE INTEREST-FREE
LOAN CYCLE .
HOW THE ORIGINAL
SEED LOAN MONEY IS USED.
GRAPH SHOWING
TYPICAL QUARTERLY EXPENDITURE.
DETAILED TYPICAL
EXPENDITURE FIRST QUARTER.
DETAILED TYPICAL
EXPENDITURE SECOND QUARTER.
DETAILED
EXPENDITURE THIRD QUARTER.
Forward:
Circulation of funds.
Menu group 6 work files: The phases of project execution.
Main file for the project work file groups.
Complete index of the project work files.