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
and
"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,
“Poverty is created scarcity”
Wahu Kaara, point 8 of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, 58th
annual NGO Conference, United Nations,
01.01 PROJECT BACKGROUND
An innovative project
for self-financing sustainable integrated development for the Kiogoro area in
the Kisii Central District of the
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 using the
financial structures created, 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.
Development of basic services such as hygiene
education, clean drinking water supply, sanitation, elimination of smoke
hazards, and waste recycling are fundamental to healthy life. The duty to
assist the poor to meet such basic life needs by 2015 is set out in the
Millennium Development Goals. It warrants top priority within the framework of
foreign aid programmes for the benefit of the poor in developing
countries, and therefore in Kenya.
Development of basic services and local production
facilities in the project area is traditionally hindered by a chronic lack of
formal money. The little formal money in the project area leaks out from the
local economy to national, or more often, international, havens. That is why
the people in the Kiogoro area in
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 high efficiency cooking 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 a ten-year
interest-free loan, an important part of all loan repayments and expenditure
under the project will be funded by savings made through the introduction of
energy efficient stoves and growing bio-mass for mini-briquettes for fuel. The
project could in theory also qualify for tradable carbon dioxide emission
reduction (CER) certificates under the Kyoto Treaty, if a facility is set up to
enable smaller projects to be clustered to offset the high compliance costs
currently imposed by the 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 Kiogoro division is one of the six administrative
division of the Kisii central district. It is divided into five locations, and
six sub-locations.and comprises 50 communities for a total of about 80.000
inhabitants. They live in about 8000 extended family households. They have no
sanitation, inadequate 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.
In the project area there at present just 17 boreholes, and about 62
wells, most of which concentrated in just a few localities. Piped schemes are
too expensive for the area because they are diesel operated. Some farmers have
sunk their own private shallow wells The
average amount of drinking water currently available is only
Of
the 50 localities in the project area, 10 have wells, 7 have boreholes, and 33
have neither wells nor boreholes. The presence of wells in at least 20% of the
villages indicates that the water table in those villages is not very deep, so
that new water sources for the project could probably be hand-dug rather than
drilled. Where no wells are present, it is thought that boreholes will need to
be drilled. Water is expected to be
found at depths between 40 and
The average distance from the homesteads to the water source is about
The people have generally no
private sanitation facilities.
Toilet structures (mostly in the towns) are made by use of locally
available materials such as bricks, wood and stones. They mostly take the form
of the VIP-ventilated improved pit latrine. Urine and excreta are disposed in
the same latrine. The cost of building one of these VIP latrines is €135 per
latrine. People use leaves, papers and water to clean their bottoms. There are
no specific cultural taboos concerning urine and excreta. Customs related to
privacy have, however, to be observed at all times. This means that one should
not be seen disposing of waste.
Rural areas in the project area in general lack proper latrines
altogether.
Cooking is the most
energy intensive activity in the project area.
Cooking is currently done over an open fire, leading to intense air
pollution both inside the houses and in the community.
Fuels used for cooking are wood and petroleum products such as kerosene
and gas. Of these wood fuel is the predominant fuel in both rural and urban
areas, and it is very expensive. The cost of a bundle of wood for fuel is € 1.35. Kerosene costs € 0.35 per litre and a bag of charcoal € 3,30.
All staple foods are cooked usually by women. Each meal takes between 30
minutes and 1 hour to prepare, depending on the available fuel and the type of
foodstuffs. Large parts of meagre family incomes are therefore spent on fuel
for cooking. The unsustainable use of wood leads to de-forestation and erosion,
air pollution and health hazards. Moreover, the traditional cooking methods used
are inefficient.
Rubbish in the
project area is mostly domestic. The amount reflects the size of the family.
Rubbish is put in a compost pit and later used as farm manure. In rural areas
there are therefore no costs involved. In urban areas rubbish is collected by
the sewerage department for disposal by the municipal council. A fee for
rubbish collection up to €13,50 per
month is charged.
Rubbish in the project area which is not disposed of properly poses a
health hazard and allows flies, rats and other pests to breed. It also causes
bad smells.
The project includes setting up local recycling centres to add value to
waste products. 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.
Forward: 01.02 Executive summary.