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SosteNica's investors and donors support two
programs administered by the León office of CEPRODEL. One program
provides credit for small businesses. The second program, Sustainable
Rural Development, provides credit and technical assistance for
the region's farm families.
CREDIT FOR SMALL BUSINESS |
The Problem
According to the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP), unemployment in Nicaragua is greater than 20% and
underemployment tops 60%. Also, the government does not have the
resources to provide the kind of "safety net" available in developed
countries. So a very large number of Nicaragua's population of 5
million suffer the physical and mental deprivations of poverty:
hunger, sickness, illiteracy and hopelessness.
At the same time that jobs are not available,
small entrepreneurs have difficulty finding resources to sustain
or expand their businesses. Traditional Banks have not found it
cost effective to provide credit for this sector.
The Solution
Providing credit to
the poor had its humble beginnings in 1976 when Muhammed Yunus loaned
a group of 42 Bangladeshi villagers $27. Since that time this strategy
has proven to be one of the most effective in improving the lives
of poor people throughout the world.
It is also the case in Nicaragua. The small business
loans made by CEPRODEL have allowed thousands of entreprenuers and
their families to improve their lives. It has also improved the
economic conditions of the communities in which they live and work
by injecting funds which flow in a multiplier effect from one business
to another.
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SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT
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The Problem
The good news is that Nicaragua has over 450,000
square miles of arable land; ample water supplies, and a very favorable
climate for growing food. Also, due to the particularities of their
history, many thousands of families own land suitable for small
scale agriculture.
Unfortunately, much of that land had been dedicated
to mono-crop, export oriented agriculture. In the León region, the
dominant export crop has been cotton. When, in 1991, the cost of
producing cotton exceeded the international market price, farmers
were left with no market for their crop. Hundreds of thousands of
acres fell fallow and thousands of farmers, field hands, and support
businesses, lost their incomes.
The Solution
In 1995 SOSTENICA founder, Alan Wright, organized
two series of field trainings on permaculture and sustainable agriculture
in Nicaragua. In 1996 the UNAN (National Autonomous University of
Nicaragua) department of biology began offering a new degree program:
agro-ecology. Then, in 1998, CEPRODEL began a pilot program to assist
farmers devastated by Hurricane Mitch, using credit and technical
assistance to enable over 60 families to recover and reestablish
their farms
In February of 2002 these three paths all met
and the Sustainable Rural Development Program was born as a collaboration
between SOSTENICA, CEPRODEL, and the agro-ecology department of
the UNAN. By the end of 2002, the staff of the León office of CEPRODEL
had put together a consortium of several organizations to work with
farmers on creating business plans, provide ongoing technical assistance
on ecological practices, and marketing. SOSTENICA loaned CEPRODEL
the initial $300,000 to provide credit for participants and made
a $34,000 grant to help fund the initial technical assistance.
It is the vision of CEPRODEL and SOSTENICA that
this program increase the quality of life for farm families and
workers, diversify the food supply, preserve the soil, and make
the 'countryside' a viable and sustainable economic sector.
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