NGO
Another Way (Stichting Bakens Verzet), 1018 AM
01. E-course :
Diploma in Integrated Development (Dip. Int. Dev)
Edition
01: 01 December, 2009
Study points
: 06 points out of 18.
Minimum study
time : 186 hours out of 504
The points
are awarded only on passing the consolidated exam for Section B :
Solutions to the Problems.
Fifth block : How
the third block structures solve specific problems.
Study points : 02 points out of 18
Minimum study time : 54 hours out of 504
The
points are awarded only on passing the consolidated exam for Section B :
Solutions to the Problems.
Fifth block : How
the third block structures solve specific problems.
Section 9: Political implications. [5
hours]
02.00 Hours First part.
02.00 Hours Second part.
01.00 Report.
Section 9: Political implications. [5
hours]
First part. (At least 2 hours)
Introduction
The Model has far-reaching policy implications in many sectors. This
paper describes some of them. The Model weaves social, financial, service and
productive structures together into a single tightly-knit development fabric.
The fibres of the fabric are carefully interlinked, so there are several
possible ways of making an analysis of its effects on national and
international development policies.
Project structures were
analysed in sections 1 : Anthropological justification of
the three project levels and 2 :
Division of tasks of the third block Solutions to the problems.
The Model
applies in principle both to poor urban and rural areas in both developing and
industrialised countries. However, preference is given to the execution of
pilot projects in rural areas in developing countries.
Policy consequences
“The analysis in chapters V to VIII has shown that
macroeconomic policies, focused on keeping inflation and fiscal deficits under
control, and economic liberalization ostensibly to enhance the efficiency of
markets and national comparative advantage, have not reduced poverty. Instead,
they have often reduced growth and increased inequality.” Rethinking Poverty : Report on
the World Social Situation 2010, United Nations Department of
Social and Economic Affairs, New York 2009 (ISBN
978-92-1-130278-3), p. 155. This lengthy report offers a critical analysis of dominating neo-liberal development policies. While
it shows a search for alternative approaches is on-going, the proposals made in
Chapter IX – Rethinking Poverty Reducton Interventions (pp. 151-160) fail to provide
a practical holistic approach to development issues. The emphasis placed on
structural development including social and solidarity aspects is incorporated
in the Model for Integrated Development.
It must be stressed that the Model does not claim to offer solutions to
all the problems developing countries face. Projects under the Model cannot act
as substitutes for state obligations. Some areas of activity mentioned below,
such as curative health and general education issues, are not directly
addressed in the Model at all. Other sectors, such as large-scale public works,
defence and security, fall outside the scope of local economic development and
are not even mentioned below. However, the Model provides for the creation of
local social, financial, service and productive structures. These structures
can be used to promote the gradual development
of some services, taken for granted in industrialised countries, that
people in poor countries do not even dare to dream of. Self-financed where
necessary, and at a surprisingly low
cost. In those cases, the following notes set out where they might want to go,
and how they could get there. It may take many years, even decades, for them to
arrive.
In short, the Model addresses some problems basic to a good quality of
life for all in the project area, and
solves them directly. It can contribute
actively to solving other problems over a longer term. Finally, there are some
areas outside local economic development where it has little or no direct
influence at all. Notwithstanding first
impressions some readers may have, the following descriptions are not
idealistic. The Model does not restate known development problems. It offers
concrete down-to-earth solutions to them. The paradigms and the concepts
presented are mostly so simple and obvious they should be viewed by most people
as an expression of plain common sense. The common sense of the ordinary man or
woman in the street. No university degrees are needed to understand them. None
were required to develop them. No special expertise is needed to put them into
practice. They enable the world’s poorest to design, execute, run, maintain and
pay for their own development within the framework of open, cooperative,
interest-free, inflation-free economic environments where genuine competition
is free to flourish
If the solutions to world-wide poverty alleviation issues really are so simple,
some readers may wonder why they have not been applied before. That is a very
good question. The answers to it go to the heart and the nature of the
currently dominating economic system. But they do not fall within the scope of
this paper.
Demographic development policies
Centralisation of power through the dumping of vast numbers of people in
mega-slums in unsustainable, uneconomic, ultra-vulnerable mega-cities in
developing countries is unnecessary,
foolish, and ethically unacceptable. In our times, it is politely called
“urbanisation”. Contrary to what we are sometimes led to believe, it is
relatively easy to control vast, poor, unorganised, disconnected, disinherited,
urban masses both individually and collectively deprived of any means of
providing for even their own most basic requirements. Civil disorder may
sometimes break out, but seldom has permanent effect. “Popular riot, insurrection, or
demonstration is an almost universal urban phenomenon, and as we now know, it
occurs even today in the affluent megalopolis of the developed world. On the
other hand the fear of such riot is intermittent. It may be taken for granted
as a fact of urban existence, as in most pre-industrial cities, or as the kind
of unrest which periodically flares up and subsides without producing any major
effect on the structure of power.” (E.J. Hobsbawm, Cities
and insurrections, Global Urban Development Magazine, vol.1, no.1, May 2005.) One of the purposes of the Model is to
counter this “urbanisation” by ensuring that people in rural areas attain a
good quality of life there with a full range of basic structures and services
and occupational opportunities. Once a good quality of life in rural areas has
become reality, the Model can be applied in poor urban communities, where its
principles are just as effective. The Model is in principle applicable to
poverty reduction in depressed rural and urban areas in industrialised
countries as well.
The structures created under integrated development projects do not
support the employer-employee relationship (See for example the analysis of
the Millennium
Goal 8 Targets 12 - 18 : Set up a
global partnership for development.) . Support is given to cooperatives, to
family initiatives, and to individual initiatives. «Traditional » employer-employee
jobs continue exactly as before under the formal money system. They are not directly
affected by the execution of integrated
development projects.
1. Opinion.
Give a
one-page opinion on the exclusion of the employer-employee relationship from
integrated development projects..
Empowerment of women
Women play an important role in all structures at the three
administrative levels foreseen in the Model. The Model enables women to play an
active (leading) role in local development issues. They are structurally freed
from the drudgery of having to fetch water and firewood and, with their
children, from the dangers of smoke (air pollution in and around their homes),
water-borne diseases, and diet insufficiencies. Financial structures such as
local money system, interest-free micro-credits, and cooperative buying groups
put at their disposal greatly expand their freedom to take productivity
initiatives for which local and project level markets are created. Their formal
money budget possibilities are extended. They and their children will have
(with time) a better chance of structural medical care and formal education,
including hygiene education. They will all without exception enjoy the benefits
of drinking water, sanitation, and waste recycling facilities.
2. Research.
For detailed information on the
relationship between the Model and women’s rights refer to Section 1: Gender of this block 5 of the
course. Several analyses were made there. Give a one-page summary of them.
Employment
and income
Tank commission members, like all other persons active for the projects,
are fully paid for their work under the local money systems set up as part of
project execution. Self-financing sustainable integrated development projects
under the Model will usually have 200-250 tank commission areas. This leads to
the creation of 1000-2000 jobs some of which will be full-time and others
part-time according to the decisions independently taken by the people living
in each area. Projects under the model
typically create up to 4000 jobs and give direct employment to about 10% of the
adult population. The remaining 90% of the adult population is free to use the
local money and interest-free micro-credit structures created by the project
for the purposes of productivity
increase. At least Euro
3. Opinion.
Consult 07. Outline for national plans in the anthropological analysis of the three level of structures
in the third block : solutions to the problems Suppose your country has
introduced a complete network of local integrated development projects under
the Model. Give a one-page summary of consequences on national economic policy.
Financial
policies
Projects set up cooperative, interest-free, inflation-free, local
financial environments, within which private initiative and genuine competition
are free to flourish. Basic financial instruments created include local money systems
and interest-free cooperative micro-credit structures paid for and run by the
people themselves. These basic financial instruments can be supplemented as
required by self-financed self-terminating special purpose buying cooperatives
at tank commission, well commission and project level and by local
interest-free cooperative banking and insurance facilities. All formal money
financial structures are operated within the framework of the local money
systems set up, so not only are they interest-free, but the services are
usually supplied without any formal money cost to users as well. Formal money
costs for interest and services traditionally connected with financial products
are retained in the project areas. Local populations make small monthly formal
money contributions into their Cooperative Local Development Fund. These
contributions are used for multiple recycling in the form of interest-free
micro-credits for productivity purposes. The local financial environments
created during project execution operate in parallel and in harmony with
existing formal money structures. The local systems do not substitute the
formal money ones. Except for products and services provided for project
execution, users are always free to choose whether to conduct a transaction
under the local money systems or under the traditional formal money system. The
local money structures are all identically time-based. They interact with each
other to form a patchwork quilt of cooperative interlinked local economy
systems. Cooperation between systems is always on a zero balance basis, to
avoid all risk of financial leakage from one project area to another. The
network of powerful interlinked local economy systems forms in turn a strong,
independent, national economy in host countries.
Read
section 04.14
Application of taxes on local money system transactions of the
Model.
At a
certain point, following some years of moratorium granted by the Ministry of
Finance for each project, the Ministry may require payment of taxes on
professional transactions carried out under the local money system.
See Page 56 Tax briefing, Page
57 Tax briefing (Exchange & Mart/ Lets & Business), et Page 58 LETS & income tax in annexe 09.17 Information package provided by LETS-LINK U.K. of
the Model. For more information see : LETS Link UK archives,
accessed 12/2009.
4. Opinion.
In connection with local taxes, the
local Council and other local administrative structures could become members of
the local money system(s) in their area. Local taxes could be paid in local
money,and used for the execution of local activities. At state (national) level
problems can arise. Formal money taxes can be required for goods and services
paid under local money systems. On one page, explain how you would try to
resolve this problem.
Social
security policies
Few developing countries are known for their efficient social security
schemes in support of the poor, the sick, the elderly and the handicapped. More
often than not, the sick have to pay in
cash on the spot for medical help. If they (or their families) are unable to
pay, they cannot get access to the services. In many countries, parents of
schoolchildren have to pay relatively high school fees and for school books and
school uniforms. Sometimes they even have to pay teachers’ wages where education
ministries fail to fulfil their duty to do so. This means that poorer families
are often unable to send their children, especially their daughters, to school.
Project applications under the Model can make a powerful contribution to social
solidarity in developing countries, as they set up a three-tiered social safety
network for the weakest members of society, both for their obligations under
the local money systems and for their formal money contributions to their
formal money Cooperative Local Development Fund.
During your work
on 5. The three levels of social security in section 2 the social structures of the
fourth block the
structures to be created an analysis was made of the
relationship between the Model and social security structures. Integrated
development projects will have a profound impact on the existential conditions of
the populations served. In principle, pension payments, health costs, etc
remain the responsibility of the state and/or the region and/or thee local
authority responsible, just as they already are. Obviously, where there is in
practice no social coverage at all, the payment of state contributions is not
anticipated.
5.
Opinion.
Outline on one page what social security
contributions might be expected in case of the execution of an integrated development project in your
chosen area.
Control
and ownership of local project structures
Management and ownership of all tank commission level structures set up
during project execution are vested by the project in the “local tank
commission for the time being”. Physical service structures vested in them
include drinking water and lighting facilities and project structures provided
in schools and clinics situated in their tank commission area. The tank
commissions also manage the operation at tank commission level of the local
money, interest-free micro-credit and waste recycling systems set up during
project execution. They are responsible
for the collection of the monthly contributions paid by each inhabitant into
the Cooperative Local Development Fund and for the operation of the social
security or safety nets set up for the poor, the sick, the aged, and the
handicapped. They organise the election of representatives to intermediate
level (well-commission) structures and of local money transaction specialists.
Physical and administrative structures run by the tank commissions can also be
extended to activities in the health and education sectors, as described below,
and to interest-free cooperative purchasing and investment initiatives.
Similarly, intermediate structures are vested by the project in the “well commission
for the time being”. Project-level structures are vested by the project in the
“central committee for the time being”. The social safety nets set up, together
with strong local social control and extended guarantee structures built into
micro-credit loan agreements should reduce defaults in the payment of
contributions. Default rates for loans made by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad
Yunus’s Grameen Bank were less than two
percent notwithstanding interest rates up to 18%. (M.Yunus, Banker to the Poor,
Public Affairs, New York 2003). Micro-credit loans under the Model are
interest-free and free from all formal money costs, as they are managed under
the local money systems set up.
For
a summary of Yunus’ book, see Banker to the Poor, The Economist, Get
Abstract, 2007
6.
Opinion.
Provide a one-page summary of the consequences deriving from the ownership by
the local populations of their own social, financial, and service structures.
◄ Fifth block : Section 9: Policy implications.
◄ Fifth
block : How fourth block structures solve specific problems.
◄ Main index for the Diploma in Integrated Development (Dip.Int.Dev.).
"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,
This
work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Non-commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Licence