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 11:
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 1500 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.
List of drawings and
graphs.
Typical list of maps.
List of key
words.
List of
abbreviations used.
Documents for
funding applications.
