ukraine sustaining -yunus and who
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christopher macrae
Apr 7, 2008, 11:07:28 AM4/7/08
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well Bristol declared itself to be in the running as the 2nd most supportative uk city in collaborations with dr yunus- if its citizens can't whip round to send an ukrainan off to dhaka to get microcredit knowhow,
...
well lets have a citizens http://smbaworld.com/id8.html vote as to whether to demote it from europe's premier league of social ABC
other ideas on getting cities to compete to be more sensibly collaboraive is something I have been reearching for a few years now but could always do with sanbe advice on - you would believe what arguments this caused at the EU's www.knowledgeboard.com and among that profession http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bcollaboration+%2Bknowledge+%2Bcity&btnG=Google+Search ; oddly there was a meeting of top 100 knowledge management experts that I observed in norway near the start of the US war with Iraq; this was loosely relevant as back at the start of 2001, I interviewed the chair of brookings and georgetown's report on compound unseen wealth- she had just been more or less sacked for daring to present to the incoming bush administration that as currently audited all the world's largest organisational systems would compound risks and crashes- she had hoped that knowledge management experts would pick up where her research had been terminated but by 2004 I was being told by the head funder in brussels it would take 3 european enrons crashing in the same year before politicians will ever become interested in the missing audit
of goodwill and all compound systems/network futures- I suppose we may get that many european banks crashing this year whether that will do the trick of getting every profession to admit the mindset to change it needs if sustainability is to be our investment I dunno
when all the world's sustainability crises are root caused by the same maths mistake its both very good news and very bad; it comes back to how do 6.5 billion beings get a chance to look at yunus social ABC maps to decide whether they want more of that sort of true community planted all around them or not -mark's been interviewing people on the challenge of 6.5 billion people collaborating with a handful in Dhaka- you would think it might be the most interesting challenge ever set for the www but I cant find a techhie who even starts mapping it in a way that invites others to join in - not that I havent loked for many years now
chris
macrae
The simple answer to that Chris, is funding. My colleague in Ukraine has had two periods of long homelessness, before the Tomsk project and after Crimea.
When I invited him to join me in the UK all was legitimate. Attempting to re-enter he was taken as being destitute and a potential economic migrant though I stood beside him in immigration with my pledge of support. Such is the association between being impoverished and having the potential to commit crime.
The extent to which I can fund operations from here is constrained by customers who don't pay on time and being a very small business. This has meant that he's been unable to return home since the death of his father neither is he able to get health treatment, let alone trips to Dhakar or anywhere else.
The up-side of this is that it puts us amongst the group of people who punch above their weight because there's little to lose.
Jeff
christopher macrae <chris....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:Jeff, I believe and I understand and empathise with what you say but do not understand why one or your colleagues or yourself have not visited Dhaka over the years about the Ukraine situation. Presumably if you had then the visit which Dr Yunus made to the Ukraine on feb 7 would have been more useful for you and to the extent that your movement obviously cares deeply about sustainability of ukrainan peope and their communities to Yunus too.Basically my understanding (which eg Mostofa can always improve on when it cmes to doublechecking structures out of Dhaka) there is a specilaist group called Grameen Trust who advises on starting up tricky implementations of microcreditIt seems that in general terms we are asking what is the trickiest appication of microcredit they have managed to sustain in a place where a violent corruption or basic lack of law is predominant. I dont know and could imagine that such transparency knowledge needs quite private exchanging particularly at the time of implementation. I do wonder if Yunus and peter Eigen- originator of Transparency International - have for example exchanged case implementations. Yunus is in Peter's home city of Berlin on Friday. Previously Eigen and Yunus were members of the original 6 global ashokan but when i asked the number 2 person at ashoka did they ever meet I was told not yet under the auspices of global ashoka that is. This is just a rather random example of wishing there was some way of seeing whose entrepreneurial maps have ever interconnected and whose remain as yet separated by different expert borders.Its jumping ahead of ourselves but if we are lucky in the UK then Robert Knowles has volunteered to develop some real case negotiations withy Grameen Trust and it might be relevant to form group knowledge and questions around him.If the UK or any country or concern network is to become a valuable partner to Grameen -and its ABC maps of Future Capitalism, Social Business & Actions - then we need to organise ourselves so that we ask key questions once but then get all analagous system projects learning from this. I am struggling to get all of us to find a way and means towards such a collaboration. In spite of some London teams spending half of last year doing pen space experiments on exactly that challenge. I invite more practical ideas than I or they have yet hubbed!Somehow we need to agree who is being lead questioner of Dhaka knowhow on what as well as how to share what practises and open system change maps emerge from that Q&A. What I believe we do know is that the 3 billion poorest vilagers in this world want to structure their own Q&A exchnaes broadly round 6 maps:*finance as a human right -when it unpacks the creativity and productive difference you can flow*health as a human right*clean agriculture : water, food, energy as a human right*education as a human right*what few consumer goods do you need to want first as a human right*how do we privatise or otherwise distribute government so that in future the most vital commons infrastructures are developed without waste but owned by that nation's poorst womenI will keep mapping these open society & system revolutions at http://egrameen.com and http://wholeplanet.tv and http://worldentrepreneur.net but to continuously improve I wholly depend on what practice clues you interconnectChris,
As part of research over the last 4 years my colleague Terry has looked into the availability of microcredit and found it lacking. What exists is totally constrained to established business only.
The Tomsk pilot was successful we believe because he held out insisting on moral collateral based microcredit, loans to poor people starting new businesses a la Grameen, and at that time Finca took on the role of banker with $6m USAID seed funding rising to $10m over 5 years to service 14,000 loans.
What we also find in Ukraine is that this kind of business only microcredit is a magnet for corruption itself. The protection rackets and corrupt police know where to find the businesses, mostly in market complexes and the result is that having been paid off, nobody makes any progress.
Terry set a precedent in Ukraine by saying no to graft in the Crimea project and sticking to his guns, such that UNDP weren't able to come in behind and force it through anyway. It came as very plain language as I learned from speaking with the interpreter that sat in on meetings with government.
Jeff
previously Berlin asks:Dear all,
A few social pioneers from Germany will have the opportunity next Friday to meet Nobel Peace Prize holder M. Yunus in Berlin.
Yunus will be in Germany in order to introduce his new book: http://www.grameenfoundation.org/yunus_book/
We are invited to hand in questions by Monday for the discussion with M. Yunus. I have started reading the book and questions that came to my mind were:
- What do we need to unlearn in order to establish social businesses in Germany?
- What are skills/attitudes that business leaders need in order to set-up social stock markets?
What would be your question to M. Yunus?
If I receive your question by tomorrow, I can select the most powerful question for the Monday deadline and I will make sure to report back after the meeting on Friday.
Best,
FRAUKE
P.S.: Some book-related reading
http://www.grameen-info.org/bank/socialbusinessentrepreneurs.htm
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/02/05/8399198/index.htmFair enoigh Jeff - your energy for Ukriane is immense -if anypne does come across bookmarks they trust as making the country beter for its people lease tell me so I can jot them up in my country directory http://www.wholeplanet.tv/id22.htmlapparently Yunus got to the ukrane on feb 6 - mostofa can you eg find out from samir if there are any continuing contacts, or how does grameen hq keep track of what yunus does in east europe? http://www.ch.kiev.ua/en/news/384.htmljeff I note there seems to be a long list of microcerdit groups in ukraine - presumably many without mass - but if you see any whose names you recoginse etc please tell mepeter do any of the orphanage people you occasionally bump into in NY include ukraine in their remit - the bergers', luces etcChris, as far as I know the only show in town is this one, which was birthed at the time of Davos. It seems to be a restructure of the Eurasia foundation which in turn is part of USAID.
http://www.eef.org.ua/en
As I understand it much of East Europe has childcare problems which are a legacy of Soviet times. Perhaps not so much in CZ , but certainly Romania where we're reading of similar neglect being uncovered.
Much the same package, I imagine. Corruption rendering poverty and poverty rendering children to institutions then on to vice and crime and so on to a following generation. In volume terms the numbers may not be as great as parts of the developing world but it is all the same socially corrosive.
Here trickle down works least of all. Few pay alimony to provide child support, for instance, because it's cheaper to bribe a notary to enter a false record of payment
In defence of the BBC they did do the story of the foetus trade in Kkarkiv, but there's plenty more to get their teeth into.
Jeff
christopher macrae <chris....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:jeff what you say also resonates with me in 2 ways1 I am not a believer that we can hope much that Uk and european and us governments will actually help positively but they could mend the ssytemic harm they are doing; I belivee it is absolutely tragic that western governments did not greet Eastern people in fair trade etc when the berlin wall fell; I am not talking about East Germany but in effect all the other countries that the EU kept trading barriers against2 Some aspects of transparency are ultimately to do with cowardice or failed systemisation of public media like the BBC to investigate stories so that there is public awareness of what's going onIs there such a thing as one leading UK to east Europe movement that increases awareness and actions on these sorts of issues. When we talk about make poverty history it seems to me that east Europe is the region in the world that gets least attention from the Uk relative to the scale of people suffering but I say that waiting to be corrected.To the extent that there is any aid in west europe goning east, which government bureau does it pass through; and could that bureau say like the french president did to yunus about african aid that already one trird of our aid goes in microcredit style.Incidentally one of the networks that puzzles me is ashoka as I believe ashoka could do so much more if it connected its east europe entrepreneurs better. I wonder if we could somehow get in touch with Jennifer Fry on that. I think she has some sort of roving east europe role for ashoka having prevously worked as bill drayton's assistant. The problem for me is not having a east europe context to start a conversation of lilely interest to her. I think she's working out of czechslovakia. I also dont know if neighbouring east european countries share their problems where they are analagous which I assume with eg orphanages they may largely be.chrisPatrick/Chris,
I think, though in many ways there are obstacles to overcome, there are also factors which make our task easier.
We're dealing here with a nation which has high standards of technical education, abundant agriculture and the political will to change things from the recently elected government. We also recognise a will for other countries to help given the position of Ukraine with regard to gas supplies and the enthusiasm to include them in our NATO alliance.
The big issue being immunity from prosecution for its members of parliament, which offers an attractive position for anyone wanting to avoid imprisonment.
One member recently made the point that to deal with an orphanage which he named. where young children are prostituted with law authorities controlling activity, immunity would be necessary to clean up without having law authorities obstruct reforms.
We know, however that we can succeed in these circumstances, having already made progress by leveraging the Tomsk initiative and a successful microfinance bank project.
In Ukraine we have made progress in 2 ways. First was to get the government to acknowledge the problem of neglect in care of disabled children with a consequent promise of 400 rehab centres. We need supporters to press for that to be kept on track. Second, having delivered the microeconomic strategy 'Marshall Plan' 18 months ago, we know that USAID has responded with the creation of the Eastern Europe Foundation which came from nowhere several months ago to fund sustainable local development projects and encourage CSR.
Yet to be deployed, are the rural telecentres component, national scale microfinance availability and national deployment of family type group care homes.
We extrapolate from the Tomsk experience, that $10m of microloans will be needed for each 1m population. $500m in total and full cost recovery. The cost of internet deployment and group care homes balance each other as more than and less than full cost recovery to yield nil overall cost in a 5 year project.
We have no reason not to do it, apply the same principles in post conflict countries and outward to the developing world. We have only the fear of saying no to the corruption to obstruct us.
It may be difficult but we need to do these things urgently, recognising that the neglect and abuse of these children has direct consequences in the highest proportion of HIV positive persons in Europe and allegedly at 14% pa, among the highest rise in new infections in the world.
This was the major point of the P-CED missive delivered in 1996 for a more inclusive capitalism. It is not merely noble and compassionate to deal with the problem of world poverty, as in the end, poverty will be what most threatens our own existence.
Gandhi still being here might remember his correspondence with a Russian named Leo Tolstoy in the 'Letter to a Hindu' where the principle of passive resistance was urged with the understanding that the Law of Love demanded such action.
" Love, or in other words the striving of men's souls towards unity and the submissive behaviour to one another that results therefrom, represents the highest and indeed the only law of life, as every man knows and feels in the depths of his heart (and as we see most clearly in children), and knows until he becomes involved in the lying net of worldly thoughts."
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/tolstoy/lettertogandhi.html
Jeff
Patrick Moore <pat...@moorevyas.com> wrote:Jeff/Chris,I think the point about multiple problems is absolutely critical, and has a huge impact on the extent to which outside resources can be brought to bear on alleviating poverty in a country or region.For most of its 30-year existence, The Hunger Project has used Infant Mortality Rate as a key indicator of poverty. It won't surprise anybody to learn that some of the countries with the highest figures are those suffering civil war.Whatever other problems are being experienced, a country where there is civil war/unrest, extra-judicial killings, or other factors that make it unsafe for external agencies to operate, is going to be in a far worse situation than a country that's "only" suffering from drought, famine, lack of healthcare, etc.High levels of corruption or organised crime activity represent another such problem, in as much as they also make it very difficult for most external agencies to operate in any kind of effective way. This seems to be a major obstacle to addressing the problems in Ukraine, for example.As Chris says, it may sound terribly callous and cowardly, but I'd rather devote my efforts to alleviating poverty in those countries that have some degree of political stability, and moderate levels of corruption/crime. It just seems to make sense to work in places where a given level of effort and money will produce the greatest social impact.With regard to Ukraine and similar countries, it may be that the most impactful approach will be to support them in their efforts to develop the economy, on the basis that, over time, prosperity tends to bring lower levels of corruption. Once the corruption has been reduced, more direct aid programmes can be contemplated....All the best,Patrick
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SkypeID: patrickmoore-----Original Message-----
From: christopher macrae [mailto:chris....@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: 06 April 2008 14:07
To: Jeff Mowatt; Peter Burgess
Cc: so...@turnupthecourage.com; les...@pioneersofchange.net; tav; rebecca...@deltaeconomics.com; dennis...@deltaeconomics.com; mark....@ned.com; to...@i-genius.org; kl...@justmeans.com; brad...@collaboration.co.uk; pat...@moorevyas.com; most...@yahoo.com
Subject: if Gandhi was hear and here nowJeffI say Gandhi but it could be anyone who wholly maps open systems and is trusted so that enough people play with the mapsI have no answer to the Ukraine type crisisI think I can guess from 25 years of debates between gandhi and my grandad what the 2 meta-system trust mapping problems in poor worlds are:1 not compounding social business - this we can solve at http://egrameen.com2 not having transparency for truth to win-win-win outThere seems to be a truly sad league of countries which are confronted by both problems - that's not a double whammy but a whammy squared. Ukraine sounds as if it is in that desparately sad leagueThe odd thing about Bangladesh is that while it has often been near the top of transparency international's corruption league, after 30 years of cultivations its grassroots up organsiations are transparent and now have enough of the resources whereas the government down has less and less resources and so is no longer of consequence provided it doesnt start unrest -which again it can't really do in 10000 vilages which is where the economy is now distributedPerhaps I am wrong but what people who desperately want to help a poor nation need to do imo is first work out whether there is one problem or 2 problems to resolve. Where there are 2 problems that include viciously lost transparency we need a superclub/map of people who understand the problem.This may sound chicken but I'd really like to get on with ending poverty in the world that doesnt suffer the vicious tansparency problem- if 1000 people properly understood yunus book and networked around it, then I would feel ready for moving up to mapping the lost transparency problem as wellchris macraeChris,
From what I hear fed back from Ukraine it is a small group of young people who recognise the need and have fallen in to help. For them there are risks - apparently it's close to open warfare right now as Ukraine's PM battles with Mafia interests. The mayor of Kiev recently stopped all benefit payments to the needy for example in a stunt to oppose her relieving him of his position.
UK wise, there is just me. I had to sell up in London to keep things going and face to face networking is limited in scope.
This morning I contemplated approaching the British Council, though they ironically are one of our customers with the greatest reluctance to pay on time. A year to pay up for a training session and 2 years behind in maintenance payments.
This is what one is up against in social business, when most think it was invented only moments ago. British Council just have no idea, not a clue that we're even a social enterprise.
Jeff
christopher macrae <chris....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:jeff I dont really have ideassoros has money but if I hear you not the confidence to explore relatively unknown approachesI have an unquenchable belief in youth if one can find a ring of a country's best spirits but I just dont have the contacts in the regionworldwide who do you find helps you most?chrisLasro I know little about. I think I did try to make contact with the Gorbachev foundation in another context, with the usual non-response.
I know about Soros. Ironically, two years ago I was attempting to get both this situation and the concept of leveraging internet to deliver to the poor across to a Soros ICT expert. Same old stuff, clearly the guy wasn't interested in much without their badge on. This and other like responses kept the neglect submerged for the last 2 years.
http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/business-building/ict-strategy-101-technology-for-social-change-june-2006
christopher macrae <chris....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:Apart from where there is a war, it does seem that East Europe at its worst is the hardest problem of all. I dont know -is there anyine like soros, gorbachev, Lasro unitinging progress?Thanks Peter and Chris.
For background info, part of our 'Marshall Plan' was a foundation trust of $3million for social business education and development in Ukraine. It's likely to be some while yet before any decision will be made.
Meanwhile we had something brewing in the background which started 2 years ago with a report about conditions in homes for the disabled. It's taken 2 years for others to stand up and verify that what we described is true.
http://eng.maidanua.org/node/581
http://deti.zp.ua/eng/show_article.php?a_id=5219
http://deti.zp.ua/eng/show_article.php?a_id=5220
Basically, almost everything destined for these facilities is milked by local crime organisations and until now, nobody would speak up.
A month ago, we approached the East Europe Foundation (USAID) for an emergency $25,000 grant, their decision on this is overdue but we are pushing ahead regardless.
Current outgoings to Ukraine stand at $1000/month which covers the cost of keeping our founder employed in country. This amounts to around half of UK revenue at present.
We're collaborating with the local nonprofit which spoke out recently and the intention is to spend $600 on a radio promotion production with a budget of about $100/month for broadcasting. To fund this we'll be appealing for donations internationally.
My major task, aside from finding a form which USAID and private donors can legally contribute to , is to build the framework for a multi-lingual website based on a CMS product. This is targetted for completion by the end of next week and is within personal capabilities with volunteer Ukrainian and Russian translation capabilities on hand.
I have a fund transfer route to founder Terry Hallman in Ukraine which is a prepaid credit card. For UK donations there is no cost to make small donations into this account, only a withdrawal charge at the other end. Ideally something similar needs to be in place on the US side.
Regards,
Jeff
christopher macrae <chris....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:Hi JeffI am not sure if I have introduced you and Peter before but I can confirm that Peter is a retired chartered accountant -and Brit - sitting in new york dealing with grassroots up development issues every day. In other words we are desperatly on the same side in terms of things we see as urgent global problems needing local fixingI have no idea if there is a quick answer to your question -and indeed how many levels of context it may iterate through - but if there is I expect Peter knows the right peoplechris
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