Report (Part 5): Sustainable Development Convention 2002

Track 5: Finance

Time: 31 October 2002, 11:00 Location: Salle A Chair: Mr. Peter Sissons Presenters/ Participants: Priscilla Daniel, Program Secretary, Ecumenical Church Loan Fund (ECLOF) Fair Trade, Fair Trade for Peasant Farmers
Frédéric de Senarclens, CEO, International Environmental Coordination Network (IECN)
Cholpon Dyikanova, Director, Community & Business Forum (CBF) KYRGYZ, Sustainable Development of Communities in the Kyrgyz Republic Reporter: Simon Hetherington (ICVolunteers) Languages: English Key words: Fair trade, peasant farmers, IECN, ECLOF, Kyrgyz, micro credit, micro finance

The moderator and chair Mr. Peter Sissons, a well-known newsreader and journalist from England asked for a brief description from each project leader. He introduced the morning Track 5 session by commenting on the popularity of micro credit and micro finance recently. What followed was in overview of each project outlining its aims and ambitions.

The chair Peter Sissons introduced the morning session by giving a brief introduction of each speaker in the track 5 session and proceeded to conduct the session from his capacity as a reporter. Each presenter was asked to give a brief description of their project, how far it had advanced, what the projects ambitions are and what do the presenters of the projects hope to gain from the convention. The replies were as follows;

Priscilla Daniel, ECLOF, gave a brief overview of the project, which is concerned with getting products from small farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America to consumers in Europe and North America. The ECLOF helps peasant farmers to link with their buyers. The loans given can range from to ,000 but the average is about 0. Each year the ECLOF gives millions of dollars worth of agricultural loans and estimates that it will have to raise million of additional lending capital in the next four years to meet growing demand for capital. The loans are given only to groups of farmers or cooperatives and never to single farmers, it is done this way so that the farmers have to form relationships with one another creating mutual interests and facilitating better negotiating power. The project is well advanced and hopes to be able to unite peasant farmers and give them more control over their produce by being able to negotiate better prices. The hope of the convention is that the project will receive more finance and create new partners.

Frédéric de Senarclens, CEO, IECN, commenced by outlining the fundamental principle of the IECN, which is that the transfer of environmentally sound technologies and knowledge is crucial to enabling the developing world to grow their economies. The purpose of the project is to interact between businesses and governments due to their lack of knowledge and the barriers that many small businesses face. The IECN aims to set up International Business Development Teams that will encourage the transfer of technologies to developing countries and economies in transition and hopes to seek partners and project opportunities in the environmental field. Due to the projects infancy the main purpose of the convention for this project is to get finance but also partners.

Cholpon Dyikanova, Director, CBF, first explained where Kyrgyz Republic is and then talked about the landscape of the country, which holds 3% of the worlds fauna and 2% of the worlds flora. She then talked about the countries main branch of industry, which is mining and is needed to develop the economy after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, mining is one of the most destructive industries to the environment and harmful to the people living close by. In Kyrgyz today more than 50% of the population lives under the poverty level and expectations are great for this project. The aim of the project is to promote sustainable development in mining communities through a micro-credit program and bring increased cooperation between the many communities. Again, the emphasis was on gaining new partners and finance from the convention.