Director,
T.E.(Terry)
Manning,
Schoener 50,
1771 ED
Wieringerwerf,
The
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 12:
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.