GreenMicrofinancing

 GreenMicrofinance's Clean Technology expert, Kathleen Robbins, is known to many of you from her GMf blog posts about her work with jatropha in Haiti, as well as her reports from Bali, Vietnam and other locations her important work takes her.  Her passion has not gone unnoticed!  She is one of the recipient's of ConcernUSA's Brigid Award, which she will receive at their annual event this winter in Chicago.  Concern USA is part of Concern International, founded in Ireland in response to Biafra's famine in the 70's.  (For baby boomer like myself, this was a terrible, longterm crisis which motivated many young people to political action,  like Darfur is today. )  Concern International's mission is "targeting extreme poverty through effective programs" and they now operate in 28 countries around the world, both delivering help in the many global disasters which disproportionately effective the world's poorest, as well as providing programs to address the root causes of extreme poverty.

The award is presented annually to three outstanding women, honoring them for demonstrating justice, generosity and compassion in their lives and work.  " Brigid, a fifth century Irish woman, dedicated her life to helping the poor and the sick. She was a protector of the environment, a promoter of peace and reconciliation, a defender of equality, and an advocate of the less fortunate."  Kathleen (are you of Irish descent, Kathleen?) is being honored for her work in environmental issues and rural poverty.  Truly, her Jatropha project can address both ecology and poverty simultaneously.  We are so proud of you, Kathleen!

Wish we could all be there to see you receive this much deserved honor.

Photo by Pamoj - women extracting jatropha oil

For those who live in the industrialized world, our experience of a non-electrified existence is very limited.  For many of us, the normalcy of turning on light switches and plugging in appliances to do our work goes back 3 or 4 generations.  Electrical access is so ubiquitous as to be virtually invisible.  So extensive is our lack of attention to electricity that when we lose it in, say, a storm-related black-out, we are surprised at how many of our systems stop working.  Landlines, boilers, hot water, in addition to the obvious refrigeration/freezer system, garage doors, and traffic lights – you name it.  Without electricity modern life quickly is dismantled.  Candles, flashlights, crank radios, and neighbors suddenly appear.  But such outages are temporary; in a worst-case dismal scenario, maybe a few days.

In the developing world, the absence of electrification forces 1.8 billion people to make do without the blessings so many of us take for granted, because we have never known life without them.  It means long, hard hours of physical labor, performing tasks that take us moments.  It means lugging firewood or dung to burn and living with smoky air.  Or using kerosene lamps and buying and transporting the fuel for them in small, expensive amounts.  It means going to bed when it’s dark.  It means using precious fuel to boil water, just to purify it, since if there isn’t electricity, there’s likely not running water either.  It means doing chores during daylight, instead of attending school.  It means dependence on generators or expensive, single-use batteries, since it’s not possible to recharge batteries without electricity. 

The overall term for this grossly inequitable distribution of the world’s power sources is energy poverty.  It is one of many ways that the world’s poorest remain so, in a discouraging cycle of hard work not yielding any way out of marginal existence.  It is both an ethical issue as well as a win-win opportunity for entrepreneurial solutions.  In a world which is meeting its maximum carbon load as well as peak oil, the future for the 1.8 billion without access to energy is undeniably through alternative, renewable, clean energy technologies, jumpstarted by infusions of capital.  Since third world families consume such modest amounts of energy relative to the West, small inputs of micro-hydro, solar, biofuel, or micro-wind generated energy have the potential to provide a crucial toehold on the ladder up out of subsistence, bringing enhanced health and literacy along, too!

Let us join together to not just solve these problems, but thrive together, on a greener, more just earth.

We had to arrive at the Convention Center an hour early today because of security; it is everywhere!  The President and First Lady of Indonesia were part of the opening ceremony.    While waiting, I had a chance to discussion technology and education with a young woman from Microsoft (I'm not sure why I continue to gravitate to the corporate types), saw a beautiful Indonesian dance performance, heard more of the exotic music of Bali and was reminded with a video, why we are here. 

Jodiman was married at 10 in 1962, had her first child at 15 and was living in abject poverty when she first heard of the Grameen Bank and microfinance in 1980.  She took out her first loan for $10, despite warnings from friends she would be killed by the bank if she couldn't repay the loan, purchased a rice husker and to is still a Grameen client.  Today, she and her children and her grandchildren enjoy a level of prosperity never dreamed of when she first joined Grameen.  A perfect example of why 98%+ of microfinance borrowers are women.

All the opening speakers addressed the current fuel and food crisis in someway but Professor Yunus summed it up the best.  In his comments he told us of the progress that has been made in alleviating poverty, mainly in Asia but also listed "bad omens of terrible things coming up".  These he said include "rising oil and food prices, the slowing economy, climate conditions and environmental degradation."  He then went on to say "microcredit can be a strong help in addressing these issues by extending agricultural credit and focusing on women."

Given the work we've been doing in Haiti with 2^nd generation biofuels (jatropha curcas), I couldn't agree more.  Agriculture policies in the US and EU have caused some of the problem, it is now time for them to be part of the solution. 

As President Yudhoyono said "microcredit is a tool to promote peace, stability and political development" and without a concerted efforts on the part of developed countries, 100 million people are in danger of slipping back into poverty according to the World Bank.   

 Currently the world is facing higher food and energy prices, both of which are creating problems for the most vulnerable of the world’s people; those 2 billion plus living on $2 or less a day, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Yes, higher energy cost, demand, and subsidies have driven up the cost for staples like corn, soybeans and rice.  Yes, a significant percentage of the corn and soybean crops are going into making ethanol and biodiesel.  And yes, some land across the globe has been converted or cleared to make way for bioenergy crops but none of this inevitable.

We need an ‘Apollo Program’ for energy that will begin to reverse the demand for foreign oil while fully recognizing the social and environmental impact of the current policies and begins to make choices that are good for people and the planet.

First among these is the acknowledgement that conservation is our quickest and most effective way to reduce dependence on imported oil.  Following that, support for research and development of so called 2nd Generation feedstock is critical if we want to reduce pressure on food.  Corn and soybeans represent 1st generation crops that are seen by many as overall energy losers.  And while if I’m being very charitable, some positive benefit is being derived from them in that the critical infrastructure to produce, transported, and use ethanol is being developed. 

It however, can’t be an end point but only a very short pause on the way to 2nd generation feed stocks such as jatropha curcas and miscanthus. They must in turn relieve the pressure on food while providing clear and undeniable energy and environmental benefits.

Kathleen Robbins, GreenMicrofinance Director of Clean Energy