CUSO Asia-Pacific Sustainable Economic Alternatives Program

The Economic Alternatives program of CUSO Asia-Pacific looks at alternatives to the dominant neoliberal economic system that underpins most thinking about the allocation of resources. This is the same economic system that makes most people poor, increases wealth disparities between economic-social classes, sacrifices the environment to short-term gain, and inevitably leads to bubble economies such as Thailand and much of Asia in 1997.

Despite the rhetoric, the neoliberal system puts more value on money than on real goods and services or on people. Both traditional and novel alternatives to this sytem have all but been silenced or ignored in international and national policy dialogues, in the media, and in economic faculties and institutions. CUSO agrees with the identification of two mechanisms which allow this to happen: the money system and the market system. There are probably more.

CUSO, supported by 700,000 individual contributors and the Canadian Government is supporting several alternative economic projects in the Asia-Pacific region including Community Shared Agriculture (CSA), Micro-Enterprise support, Community Health and Economic Literacy. CUSO is interested in exploring methods to tie these various projects together using different methods of exchange that suit the local community and culture, and may involve the use of a parallel or alternative type of currency. This project was initiated by CUSO Thailand in 1997-2000 and CUSO Indonesia will begin a similar program in the 2000-2002 period.

Thailand Community Currency Systems (TCCS)

Thailand has been a food-exporting country for centuries and the country's wealth was derived from what Thai villages produced. But the poorest sector of the Thai economy has been those same villages. How can it be that the wealth-producers become the poorest part of the economy?

Most Thai villagers find it hard to participate in the economy, and almost impossible to benefit from it, because they lack national currency. After a thorough analysis of Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and similar systems in North America and Europe, beginning in 1997 the TCCS project has been cooperating with 8 Thai NGOs, including Thailand's noted Local Development Institute to develop a pilot project in a village in the northeast of Thailand. The villagers have created and will very soon be using a local currency which is available whenever anyone needs it, and which is interest-free. Alternative currencies allow communities to improve human security-- economy, food, health-by (1) putting their own value on goods and services, (2) encouraging local production to satisfy community needs, and (3) protecting communities from the kind of economic crisis that hit SE Asia in 1997.

More information on the project and on alternative currencies in general can be found on the project website at http://www.appropriate-economics.org and http://www.cuso.org/coops/powell/e-cuso.html.

Indonesia Community Currency Systems

Two members of the TCCS project, Jeff Powell of CUSO Thailand and Menno Salverda of the British Government Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) visited Indonesia in October 1999 and CUSO facilitated a series of workshops with local communities and NGOs on community currencies and alternative economics. CUSO Indonesia, with the assistance of CUSO Vancouver will be placing a CUSO Cooperant (volunteer) starting in April 2000, who is Stephen DeMeulenaere, a community currency researcher and practitioner from Victoria, British Columbia.

Stephen DeMeulenaere will be working with the Indonesian NGO Yappika as an alternative economic advisor. Yappika was formed by NGOs in Canada, with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and CUSO in conjunction with a national network of Indonesian NGOs. Yappika works with these Indonesian NGOs in addition to managing its own programs focusing on socio-economic and community development. These projects include microcredit schemes, cooperative enterprises, agriculture, and other community-based economic development programs. These NGOs are interested in learning more about alternative economies, and would like to promote community dialogue and to create analysis tools about economic security issues.

Working for the Community Based Socio Economic Development Unit, Stephen will be involved in developing a community-based alternative economic education module at least four NGOs located in Indonesia's provinces of West Timor, Aceh, Java and Lombok. Further projects will be developed from the information and experience gained. Project cooperants (volunteers) in other countries have expressed interest in this project and we hope to see the effort spread to other countries in South East Asia.

Implications and Future Directions

In the future, the Alternative Economics program will look at alternative insurance or risk-sharing systems to cover health care, natural disaster, old age and other human security issues. There is an obvious connection to work on alternative agriculture, energy, housing and local environmental management.

The current economic system is, quite simply, unsustainable. It also conflicts with all of the world's major belief systems. Work has to be done at the macro-level to rectify the most glaring problems and create a critique of the neoliberal paradigm and its policies: organizations such as the Third World Network, Focus on the Global South, International Forum on Globalization, the International South Group Network, and the Policy Institute on Food and Development (formerly Food First) are doing that. But there is also the need to develop economic systems at the micro-level that respect individual rights, social harmony and the environment above unfettered greed. that is what the Alternative Economics programme is trying to do.

CUSO is funded in equal part by individual contributors like you and the Canadian Government. CUSO accepts targetable donations, and we anticipate a request for funds to initiate more micro-lending programs in Indonesia. Five $200 contributions will allow us to initiate a new micro-loan program, eliminating the need to borrow these funds from a bank at interest. As the charging of interest is prohibited by Sharia (Islamic law), we are concerned that the taking of loans would contradict the intention of our efforts in Indonesia. However, this is what is happening in other countries due to lack of interest-free contributions. We ask for your financial support, and will heartfully thank each contributor. As CUSO is a volunteer-based organization, all cooperants (volunteers) receive an income commensurate with the income paid to a similarly-leveled employee in the host country sufficient to provide an equivalent standard of living. If you would like to make a contribution to the micro-loan program, pleasse contact CUSO Indonesia's new Alternative Economics Advisor, Stephen DeMeulenaere, stephen_dem@yahoo.com.

An important component of CUSO is its activities within Canada to promote intercultural understanding through activities which connect Canadians to people around the world. The model for community currency activities for the project in Thailand come from the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS), first initiated on Vancouver Island in Canada in 1982 and now used in Community Economic Development (CED) efforts worldwide. CUSO's efforts in South East Asia will require future cooperants, thus CUSO hopes to build linkages with community currency groups in Canada and in other countries to develop experienced individuals capable of continuing these efforts in the majority world.

For more information contact:

Alec Bamford, CUSO Country Coordinator cusothai@loxinfo.co.th
Jeff Powell, CUSO Cooperant, Thailand Community Currency Systems tccs@loxinfo.co.th
CUSO Indonesia cusoindo@indo.net.id
Richard Manning, CUSO Asia-Pacific manning@indo.net.id
Stephen DeMeulenaere, CUSO Cooperant, Indonesian Community Currency Systems stephen_dem@yahoo.com

Sources:

CUSO Brief: Alternative Ecoomic Currents in Asia, February, 2000.
CUSO in the Asia-Pacific and Indonesia, Asia-Pacific Plan 1998-2001.
CUSO Cooperant Placement Description, Alternative Economic Advisor, CUSO Indonesia.