GreenMicrofinancing

 

J2008 Tech Awards TONIGHT!  Join a Live Webcast   7:00 pm PST

Mr. D. Vidya Sagar, Director of SKG Sangha, INDIA, is part of an esteemed group of 2008 Tech Laureates, who were selected from hundreds of nominations representing 68 countries.  Today, twenty-five innovators from around the world, recognized for developing and applying technology to benefit humanity, will receive the 2008 Tech Award in San Jose, California.  

These Laureates have developed new technological solutions or innovative ways to use existing technologies to significantly improve the lives of people around the world.  This year, the 2008 Laureates represent the truly global vision of the program, spanning countries such as Senegal, Peru, Hungary, Canada, Namibia, Germany, Egypt, India, United Kingdom, Laos and the United States. Their work impacts people in many more countries worldwide.

Professor Muhammad Yunus, pioneer of microcredit and founder of Grameen Bank, is the recipient of the 2008 James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award. Dr. Yunus will accept this distinguished honor during The Tech Awards Gala tonight! 

GreenMicrofinance team welcomes Mr. D. Vidya Sagar, this coming weekend to Philadelphia as our guest.  On Saturday evening, we are hosting an event, Harnessing Clean Energy to Microfinance: Waste is Wealth, during which Mr. Sagar will be sharing on biogas technologies that address a range of issues including energy, sanitation, poverty, health, and education.  Please check Betsy Teutsch's blog post for more information on our First Delaware Valley Event.   

Our road to the NetImpact conference was very fortuitous.  Listening to WHYY (our local NPR radio) on a roadtrip in July, I heard a great interview with Muhammad Yunus.  One of the call-in questioners was Emily Schiller, a Wharton student who mentioned that she is the chair of NetImpact's national conference entitled "The Sustainable Advantage: Creating Social and Environmental Value".  Since GreenMicrofinance is based in the Philly area, not far from Wharton, I scribbled Emily's name down and tracked her down to meet.  Over coffee I realized that the July broadcast was actually a replay of Yunus' January visit to Philadelphia - he spoke at the Free Library, and I was there.  Fortunately it was not too late for us to be included in the NetImpact program, since our missions match so perfectly.

My session, a Friday lunch RoundTable, is titled " Microfinance Meets Climate Change: How OffsettingYour Ipod Can Provide Clean Energy for the Bottom of the Pyramid".  When I began to learn how big a difference just a minuscule amount of locally generated clean renewable electricity can make in the life of microfinance clients, by lowering their overhead and expanding their use of lights and light appliances like cellphones or radios,  I was astonished.  Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow share some of our electricity, which we take for granted and use quite wastefully?   Kind of like when your mom scolded you about wasting food, when children were starving in Armenia....

Microfinance can actually make this possible.  We'll kick around the numbers at the session, seeing how to balance an average American household's electrical consumption (about 11,040 kWh a year) with an entry level solar system for a microfinance client's 74 kWh a year.  Small as that sounds, it  is enough  to power four hours of lights, charge a cellular, and play a radio or energy-efficient computer! 

After a fair amount of research, we can say with confidence that the amount of energy used in charging an Ipod for four hours daily for a year - get this - would power a third world family for 3 1/2 weeks!

Stay tuned!  

Photo from AME SUD.

Saturday, Nov 15, 2008

Join us for our first local event Harnessing Clean Energy to Microfinance: Waste is Wealth! Meet the GMf Team and our guest D Vidya Sagar, Director of SKg Sangha India 7:30-9:00 PM St Peters Episcopal Church Parish Hall 121 Church Street Phoenixville, PA Download Invite [PDF] Learn More [PDF]

The GreenMicrofinance team, based in Phoenixville, PA, but international in reach, is excited to invite you to our first public Greater Delaware Valley event.  Our mission is at the sweet spot of environmental concern and poverty alleviation: bringing clean, affordable, renewable, local energy to the 1.8 billion people lacking access to grid-distributed energy.  It is a gargantuan task with the potential for equally spectacular benefits – helping hardworking families out of poverty while furthering climate change solutions and environmental stewardship.

In 2002 when we began our mission of bringing environmental responsibility to microfinance, eco-issues were considered a luxury.  Now there is a global consensus that clean energy is THE CENTRAL ISSUE of the 21^st century, for rich and poor countries alike.  In Thomas Friedman’s recent book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, he states that the “task of creating the tools, systems, energy sources, and ethics that will allow our planet to grow in cleaner, more sustainable ways is going to be the greatest challenge of our lifetime.”

Through both our non-profit GreenMicrofinance Center and our GMf business side, we are launching many complementary initiatives which we are eager to share with like-minded friends, donors, and potential Socially Responsible Investors.  You can already access our vast, open-source online library, right here at our website.

On Saturday, November 15, 2008, at 7:30 PM we invite you to join us to learn more about our pioneering initiatives.  We really feel that after six years of groundwork laid by many cutting edge microfinance and environmental experts  and now joined by an expanded team (many of whom you will meet),  our time has come!

We are delighted to feature our Indian colleague, the esteemed Vidya Sagar, winner of many international awards for his work in bringing biomass energy to scale.  We are honored that Mr. Sagar is making a special stop on his American tour to meet with GreenMicrofinance in Philadelphia.  While GMf advocates for all clean energy technologies – solar, hydro, wind as well as biomass – we are especially wowed by Mr. Sagar’s accomplishments and vision and are sure you will be, too.

The event, while graciously hosted at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Phoenixville, is open to the public and is completely non-denominational.  There will be no solicitation of funds.

Please come meet the GMf team, Mr. Sagar, and learn more about our audacious goals, as well as impressive track record!

Thomas Israel, Board Chair                                          
Betsy Teutsch, Director of Special Projects

Micro-Loans, Macro-Impact!  A conference hosted at the University of Illinois on 4 October by the National Organization for Business and Engineering (NOBE) and Entreprenuers without Borders, provided an opportunity for students to learn about microfinance and how in practical terms, it is impacting people in developing countries around the world. 

 We discussed Haiti and their 200 year descent from the wealthiest country in the French Empire to the the poorest in the western hemisphere, racked with poverty and environmenal devastation.  We talked about possible solutions to the poverty and envirnomental devastation, including the replication of the Grameen Bank Village Phone program, FonkoSel Aktive pa Digicel and the Jatropha Pepinye; a nursery to help local growers plant jatropha curcas for feedstock for biodiesel. 

The high level of interest and the depth of questioning from the participants was a very heartening experience!

As the Japan Airlines 767 descended through the clouds to the runway in Hanoi, I remembered other days and other times. A not so long ago time when the US and Vietnam were at war. But instead of devastation, we pulled up to a modern terminal and 20 minutes later I found myself on a smooth, modern highway riding into a well light city. A marked contrast from my last ride into Port au Prince and my long held image of a city under aerial attack from the 60s and a stark reminder of the futility of war.

The next day, I wandered the streets of Hanoi, waiting for the conference to begin in the afternoon and visited what remained of the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. The French colonial prison, Maison Cetnrale where Vietnamese had been held by the French and captured American flyers were held by the Vietnamese. Most of the prison has been demolished to make way for a skyscraper, but enough remains that you get a good sense of the horror the place represented, in both colonial times and then following independence. It was clear that American prisoners were treated by the Vietnamese like the French had treated them; fortunately it seems the cycle of violence has finally been broken!

Maybe we can leaarn something from that suffering and break the cycle of poverty here at the Asia Microfinance Forum 2008!

This past week at the summit a major topic was interest rate transparency, as some MFIs have come under fire for charging relatively high rates and allowing "mission drift" to move them to a priority of high profits instead of the original mission of poverty alleviation. Long time microfinance insider Chuck Waterfield has taken the initiative to address these concerns, launching MicroFinance Transparency.

A highlight for me was the lively discussion between Professor Muhammed Yunus, Damian von Stauffenberg (the founder of MicroRate), and Chuck. They debated the importance of the profit motive in growing microfinance, with Yunus holding firm to the ideal of not making a profit, seeking only to break-even and pass any potential profits back to the clients. In my view microfinance has always been a profitable business proposition, with profit driving the ability to expand the reach of poverty alleviation efforts. Perhaps the debate should be reframed around reinvesting profits to expand reach vs. passing profits on to outside investors. Or is it possible to do both?

 The topic is getting great press in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and many more (100+ stories listed when I searched Google News).  It's great to see this positive move coming from inside the Microfinance community to address these issues now rather than later.
 
With current energy price pressures, environmental degradation, and climate change looming, we at GreenMicrofinance hope to lead a similar movement among MFIs, disclosing standardized metrics of environmental impact and sustainablility.

Over the past days we have been video-taping various folks here at the conference. I had the privilege to meet and chat with Ingrid Munro founder of JamiiBoro in Kenya, a member organization that works with and uplifts street beggars.

The story of those who have been supported by JamiiBoro is an inspiration – whether through microfinance program or through her housing program and Levuka, a program for alcoholics. Another amazing initiative is Kaputei Town, a housing initiative for some 2,000 families, that will provide employment, housing, and a safe environment in which to live. Ingrid was able to secure around 290 acres of prime land in Kisaju for this project.

Beyond the conversation of our work over the past 28 years with the poor, two white-haired grandmothers here at the Summit shared stories of our children and grandchildren.

Ingrid has 5 children, some of whom were adopted.  My oldest son and his wife from Vermont are adopting Poojah, an Indian six year old girl who was abandoned in the streets of New Delhi two years ago. She will be my eighth grandchild and will be well loved.  As I encounter street beggars and children again, I will always be reminded of both Ingrid’s work and Poojah’s early years.

Today was a breakthrough!  Since 2002, GreenMicrofinance has been participating and leading panels on microfinance and the environment at various Microcredit Summit gatherings- Bangladesh 2004; Chile 2005, Halifax 2006, and today in Bali. 

During today's session on Microfinance, Their Clients, and Clean Energy: Making a Positive Impact on the Environment there was a definite shift in interest and ‘energy' around the topic.  THE LIGHTS ARE ON!

Craig Wilson from The Foundation for Development Cooperation based in Australia and my colleague, Kathleen Robbins from GreenMicrofinance, provided a macro overview of moving forward with clean energy and the microfinance.   

We then shifted to the local perspective.  Paul Thomas, Founder and Exective Director,  Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF), India, and Chitta Ranjan Chaki, Deputy General Manager, Grameen Shakti, Bangladesh, both provided very comprehensive overviews of their clean energy initiatives.  

ESAF in partnership with GreenMicrofinance (and Microenergy International) is developing a clean energy lending program; they recently completed a market survey of 1,200 clients in four States in which they work.  A couple of highlights from the survey include:

• Majority of these people use firewood for cooking purposes; even if they do have LPG connections they prefer to use firewood stoves (comparatively cheaper source)
• Waste generated in each household could be processed to produce renewable clean energy.

One can't help but be impressed with the work of Grameen Shakti, which incorporated in 1996, and which provides energy services in remote rural areas of Bangladesh. GS sells, installs, and maintains solar photovoltaic systems, and has biogas, solar thermal, and wind programs.  

The session was very well attended with about 45 participants from government, NGOs, energy service providers, national banks, advocacy groups, and microfinance institutions.  We invited the group to post on this blog some of their thoughts and questions to further the dialogue on this panel theme.   

From my own perspective, I think we need to clearly identify our vision within the microfinance sector, continue to develop innovative solutions, and promote champions (like Paul Thomas and Chitta Chaki), who will reenergize communities to work together to conserve our natural environment and to promote environmental justice.  

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.   

On the way to the opening ceremony, Dan and I had a discussion with several people from UDDIPAN . I had a chance to chat with Sawkat Ali Talukder, Deputy Director.   UDDIPAN, in Bangladesh (based in Dhaka), reaches 300,000 clients, has nearly 3,000 employees, and was founded in 1986. Approximately 20% of the clients have no electricity.  They plan on integrating a solar energy progam in the future, perhaps 1 or 2 years from now.

It was encouraging to hear during the opening ceremony several comments by dignitaries regarding the food and fuel crisis. Dr. Boediono, governor of Bank Indonesia, mentioned that food and energy prices on a global scale have escalated and we need to recalibrate our priorities in the microfinance field. Dr. Yunus also said:

"The climate condition and environmental degradation of the world makes it difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals"

How do we come up with solutions within the microcredit field to address this food and fuel crisis, and at the same time reduce poverty?  Share your thoughts.