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 12: 01
November 2006
Project applications under the Model for
self-financing, ecological, sustainable integrated development lead to the
general increase of quality of life in the project areas. They are therefore
more general in nature than traditional projects, and involve women's
leadership, productivity development, capacity building, and creation of social
security in the local communities.
A
project area will typically contain 50.000 to 70.000 inhabitants and might
coincide with all or a part of a given administrative district where the future
project coordinator is most active. There is nothing critical in the number,
which happens to coincide with the size of the ancient Greek City States. The
population must be large enough to support the various structures created under
the project, yet small enough for everyone to be able to directly participate
in the structures and associate with all the events there.
Within
each project area, an interest-free, inflation-free cooperative financial
environment is created. So what we do is create local economies where financial
leakage is blocked, and the small amount of formal money available stays in the
area 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), energy (all energy sources, including fertilisers, which
are not produced in the area), and health ( medicines imported into the project
area, often into the host country). There are articles on these financial aspects at
website www.flowman.nl.
Each of these local
economies must develop a zero trading balance:
a) Its local money systems
must have a zero balance amongst each other.
b) Its local money systems must have a zero balance with local money systems
outside the project area
c) Its formal money system must have a zero balance with the formal money
system within the host country
d) Its foreign currency cost of items imported into the project area from
outside the host country must be balanced to zero by the export of items from the
project area outside the host
country.
So how are the local
economies set up?
A number of structures are
created in the project area. The order in which this is done is critical.
1)
Health clubs are set up. The health
clubs are based on groups of about 40 families (200 people) based around
future tank commission (they could be also be called local development
committees) areas. 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. It is women who are
expected to take most of the responsibility for the projects. In many countries
local NGO's have already done a lot of work in this sector, and in some areas
there may already be a nucleus of active women available. The initial costs of
the health clubs are covered by the project funds until the local money systems
are set up.
2)
Once the women's groups are working, the local tank commissions (or
local development committees) are set up. These are based on about 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. It's
functions are fully described in the Model and illustrated in diagrams. The
cost of organising the tank commissions is covered by the project until the
local money systems are set up.
3)
Once the tank commissions (or local development committees) have been formed, local money systems can be created.
Poverty is often coupled with "lack of formal money". If the people
haven't got any dollars or other 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 local money systems give the people the means of
transferring all goods and services produced within the project area. The art
then is to use technologies enabling most of the items basic to local
development to be built with up to 100% local value added in the project area,
so that they can be produced, installed, maintained and paid for within the
local money systems, without the need for a single cent of formal money. Under
the Model, the entire sanitation system can be built, installed, run and
maintained without one cent of formal money! The costs of running the local
money systems are covered under the local money systems themselves.
4)
Once the local money systems are in place, a distinction can be made between
what can be done within the local money systems and what can't. At that time
the interest-free micro-credit
structures are put in place. These recycle the users' monthly contributions
interest-free for credits for productivity purposes, for the purpose of
purchasing goods which cannot be locally produced. The systems will allow at
least Euro 1500 of interest-free micro-credit per family during the first ten
years of the 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. Existing local NGO's may
already have their own, or access to, local cooperative development bank
structures.
5)
Once the micro-credit systems and the local money systems are in place, the gypsum composite production
factories can be set up. Amongst the priority items for manufacture in
these factories are products necessary for the water supply project, water
tanks, well linings, water containers, etc. and, later, even some or all of the
water pumps themselves. When production capacity is available the production
units can start making the sanitary systems and other items such as high
efficiency stoves.
6)
Interest-free self-terminating building society type structures can be set up
at tank commission or other level to finance the purchase of interest-free
solar home systems and other structures of common interest.
Apart
from structures basic to an improved quality of life, such as hygiene education
at home and in the schools, water supply, sanitation in the homes at schools
and in clinics, solar lighting for study purposes, solar refrigeration for
medicines in clinics, improved cooking stoves etc, the Model does not list all
of the initiatives which could take place, as these are as varied as the minds
and wishes of the people.
However,
any services the local people may consider of special importance can be
included in the project and itemised in the budget. Some examples are the
setting up of a local radio station, setting up local milk shops for the
pasteurisation and distribution of milk, the creation of cooperative storage
facilities for food, the creation of a seed bank, the draining and
re-structuring of market squares and bus centres, all of which may require
formal money funds. Other local initiatives, for instance, creating sports
clubs, theatre groups, local consultants offices, communications centres, plant
nurseries, and reforestation would be carried out under the local money and
interest-free micro-credit systems.
Project
applications directly mobilise about 10% of the adult population and the
remaining 90% indirectly. Unemployment in the project area should be eliminated
within three or four years. The financial structures are fully described in the
Model and in specific papers written.
Of particular interest are:
a) The application of the compensation principle whereby savings in one sector
of a project cover the costs in other areas and
b) The new possibilities offered under the Kyoto treaty for the sale of CER
reduction certificates.
Under
the compensation principle, the monthly contributions of users are covered by
savings on some of their current expenditure. For instance, where families now
spend a large slice of their income for wood for cooking or for drinking water
or medicines, these costs will be eliminated or reduced under the project,
releasing formal money for other uses. Wood will not be used. It will be
replaced by mini-briquettes made under the local money systems. The supply of
drinking water and the maintenance of structures are already covered under the
monthly contributions. General increases in living conditions (hygiene
education, clean drinking water, sanitation, elimination of smoke, better
drainage, a more varied diet) should lead to less illness and less need to buy
medicines.
Some
applications under integrated projects under the Model reduce CO2 emissions.
The main one is through the use of high efficiency stoves, others are the
substitution of kerosene burning by solar home systems, and of some pumping
systems by solar or advanced hand pumping technologies. They therefore qualify
for the issue of CER certificates under the Tokyo treaty, which can be sold to
industrialized countries. The value of these certificates could be enough to
pay for the project. The catch is that the procedures under the treaty for
relatively small scale carbon-saving projects are still clumsy and expensive.
What
about the project structures?
An
NGO (which may already be in place and well respected, with good working
relations with national and international agencies and with a network of local
NGO's) fronts for a given project application. It will nominate a project
coordinator, who, during the project, may not be a member of the NGO. They are
counterparts - the Project Coordinator is the executive (government), while the
NGO is the controller (Parliament). Structures
for auditing are set out in the Model.
A
project application is prepared by answering the questionnaire form list of information needed, in
English. This information can be supplied within a couple of hours by the
future project coordinator, who should originate in the project area and
therefore know the area well. The coordinator will then be able to prepare a
first draft of a detailed project which can then be modified and varied as
required by the people.
The
project application is then adopted by the NGO and submitted by the NGO for
financing under a country programme with one of the host country's aid
partners, the UNDP or UNICEF. Since the projects meet all possible development
priorities, financing in the form of an interest-free loan is not expected to
be a major problem. Financing by way of a grant makes even more rapid local
integrated development possible over the medium term.
List of drawings and graphs.
Typical list of maps.
List of abbreviations used.
Documents for funding
applications.