New Horizons

Credit, Compassion and Christianity

As ECLOF is a Christian-based organisation, one of the main speakers at the recent first-ever ECLOF Managers' international workshop considered the meaning of a Christian lending institution.

WORKSHOP
Held in La Paz, Bolivia, from 24 August to 4 September, the workshop brought together managers from 20 National ECLOF Committees (NECs) in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. ECLOF Director, Muhungi Kanyoro, and three Geneva staff members also attended. Women made up about half of the delegates. Among outside experts on specific topics invited to the meeting were Dr Makonen Getu of Opportunity International (Zimbabwe), John Owens of USAID, Bolivia, and Thomas Kandasami from India.

WHAT THEY DISCUSSED
After a round of field trips to ECLOF Bolivia and other micro finance agencies, the workshop followed a full agenda which included the sharing and exchange of NEC stories and learning experiences. Participants considered the concept of sustainability as it relates to the ECLOF vision and mission. Also on the agenda was training on specialized credit technology and consideration of how to sharpen ECLOF's policies, systems and management tools and their implementation by NECs.

MANAGERS RAISE CONCERNS
During the meeting, national managers told Geneva staff they sometimes feel 'sandwiched' between their national committee Boards and the international ECLOF Board. Because NECs have a high degree of autonomy, there are times when the policy of their boards does not tally with that coming from Geneva. This can put managers in a very delicate position.

Muhungi Kanyoro told the managers the ECLOF Board was committed to giving more autonomy to NECs. He urged his colleagues to keep their own national boards fully informed on policy issues and to explain to them that it is the international ECLOF Board which has final authority. He added that in cases of particular difficulty the Geneva secretariat was willing to play a consultative role. He emphasised that the tasks of the NEC Boards and the international Board are complementary.

ECLOF'S SPECIAL ROLE
In an impressive plenary presentation, Rev Fanny Geymonat - Pantelis, who is on the teaching staff of the Andean Theological Institute in Bolivia, spoke about the special role of a Christian lending institution.

Compassion
Ms Geymonat reminded the workshop that efficiency was seen as paramount in today's global marketplace and anything which did not increase efficiency was ignored. She claimed the current obsession with trying to achieve market objectives meant justice and responsibility for humanity and the natural world had been forgotten. She believed the biblical concept of compassion reflected the very nature of God and was the basis of the ministry of Jesus. Therefore, a fundamental characteristic of Christian service should be compassion which was not simply a feeling but something which led to action.

Breaking Free
Fanny Geymonat questioned whether it is possible to break free from the driving forces behind market values and to live by the demands of the Christian Gospel. Market values alone, she maintained, are destructive and result in large sectors of society being robbed, weakened and excluded from any possibility of achieving an abundant and good life. However, since these values are human constructs they can be changed, although it is foolish to believe churches, institutions or nations can singlehandedly overcome the sufferings of the world. The key for the future is for different agencies and organisations to work together and draw on each other's traditions and life styles.

The purpose of a lending institution, Ms Geymonat asserted, is precisely that - to lend money and ensure it is recovered so it may be lent again. But no one model can be applied everywhere and it is necessary to consider each situation in its cultural and religious context.

She concluded that the basis of a Christian lending institution should undoubtedly be God's justice, and that one of the strong lessons learned from this century's ecumenical movement is that Christians should not only work with each other but also with people of other faiths. Then, the life of all creation would improve for the oikumene, the whole inhabited earth.

The first round of field visits during the Workshop was to clients of ANED's Chulumani Branch in Chulumani, an adventurous three-hour drive south from La Paz. Participants visited the Corporación Regional de Campesinos de Irupana (Regional Peasant Farmers' Corporation in Irupana - CORACA) about a one-hour's drive from Chulumani. The facility processes, stores and/or markets a number of products but concentrates particularly on coffee. In 1997, the CORACA won the Gold Star Ecological Coffee Award and has been invited to the Hanover Fair (Germany) for the year 2000. They also market coffee to OXFAM in Belgium. The CORACA, primarily through member organisations, also provides a number of training courses to producers. Pictured (l. to r.) officers and employees of the Irupana CORACA: Lucia Yanarico, Assistant Manager in charge of supplies; Petersen Mansmith, General Manager; Natividad Llanos, Vice President of the CORACA and Executive Secretary of the Federation of Rural Women of Irupana; Policarpio Ali Cruz, President; and Luis Rivera, Assistant Accountant.

Officers of the Chico Coropata Community answering questions from participants at the Managers' Workshop. The Community has been an associative client of the Chulumani Branch of the ANED RMP for five years. In that time, it has received four loans to finance potato production. The officers told the participants the story of their relationship with ANED. One year, their potato crop failed and the loan to the Community fell into arrears. The Community managed to pay the penalty charge and covered losses on their potato crop with earnings from other crops. ANED in turn extended the repayment date; and the following season, as a show of confidence and interest in the Community, ANED granted them another loan. The Community paid off the loan according to schedule.

After Chulumani, the participants were bused to ANED's Ancoraimes Branch Office in the village of Omasuyos near Lake Titicaca. Pictured are Josefath Rodríguez Hinojoza, Manager of the branch, and María Luisa Pacheco, Portfolio Assistant. María had limited experience as an organiser in a rural development programme before getting married. She started working at ANED's La Paz office part-time doing the cleaning and office errands. Her abilities and initiative soon became apparent. She was steadily given work with greater responsibilities until ANED decided to send her through computer training and promote her to Portfolio Assistant in the Ancoraimes Programme. She has been working there since March 1998. María is Aymara. Both Josefath and María speak the local language and live in the village where they work.

Rev Irene Sievers, President of SARTAWI, talking to participants just after their visit to SARTAWI's brand new, modern and fully equipped offices. Rev Sievers delivered the sermon at the service making up part of ECLOF's 50th anniversary commemoration which took place in Geneva, Switzerland in November 1996. Also in the picture is Dr Viji T. Solomon, Director, ECLOF India and Richard Pavlic, ECLOF Geneva staff.

A group of some of the participants at the ECLOF Managers' Workshop listening to an explanation of the organisation and functioning of SARTAWI, a small-scale lending institution in the town of Batallas, near Lake Titicaca. SARTAWI owes a large part of its success to its policy of use-free loans. SARTAWI was one of the first clients to receive a loan from the newly organised National ECLOF Committee in Bolivia called ANED. They used the loan to feed their use-free small-scale revolving loan fund scheme.

Pictured (l. to r.) Olga Lucía Álvarez, Executive Director of COFEP (ECLOF Colombia); Fanny Geymonat-Pantelis, external resource person; Getu Makonen, Deputy Regional Director, Opportunity International, Harare, Zimbabwe, external resource person; and Maryssa Mapanao, Executive Director, ECLOF Philippines.