This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Administrator J. Brian Atwood
Lessons Without Borders: Conference on Rural Enterprise
Knoxville, Tennessee, November 21, 1997
U.S. Agency for International Development

First, I would like to thank all of those who have worked so hard to make this event possible: the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Institute of Agriculture, the University of Tennessee Community Partnership Center, Karen Anderson from USAID and her staff -- you have all done some wonderful work to pull this off. I'd like to thank Congressman Duncan for his kind introduction and I want to thank Jill Long Thompson for making the trek down from Washington to be with us today.

I think this conference on rural enterprise is testament to the willingness of all involved to be open-minded, creative and to think "out of the box" to solve problems. It is refreshing to see a group people who are as eager to learn as they are to teach. Because clearly there are tremendous lessons that we do need to share.

As the head of America's international development agency --USAID -- I can certainly speak volumes about the tremendous difference America's know-how, technology and ways of doing business have made around the world.

It has been American farmers who developed the crop varieties and farming techniques that have helped millions in the developing world stave off hunger. It was America's leadership and commitment to medical technology that helped eradicate polio in both North and South America. It has been America's compassion that helps bring assistance to millions of victims of war, famine and flood around the globe.

But like any good relationship, information can flow both ways. I'll admit to you, we got some funny looks from people when we first suggested that America's communities could benefit from USAID's experiences working in the developing world.

Some people were openly skeptical that America -- the wealthiest, most powerful and most technically advanced nation on earth -- could glean any insights from the teeming slums of Dakka, the barren plains of the Russian Far East or the bustling streets of Nairobi.

In June of 1994, Mayor Kurt Schmoke and the city of Baltimore hosted the first Lessons Without Borders conference, followed by similar USAID linkages with Boston, Seattle, the District of Columbia, Alaska and now here in Tennessee. One focus of the Baltimore conference was immunizing children.

Only 62 percent of Baltimore's school-aged children had all their documented immunizations. Yet even far poorer countries like Egypt, Morocco and Thailand have far higher rates for immunizing kids. The lesson here was that being a wealthy nation doesn't mean we can't successfully use the very creative and aggressive approaches to social problems that some other countries have used successfully.

As a result of the conference, nine Baltimore health care and economic development professionals traveled to Kenya and Jamaica to see first-hand USAID projects in action. Baltimore's immunization program director Penny Borenstein witnessed the fact that 80 percent of Kenya's 2-year-olds were vaccinated.

Upon her return, with the support of the Mayor, Baltimore launched a massive immunization campaign. Some 39,000 school-aged children were either immunized, or more complete records were collected for them. As the Baltimore Sun noted, "The bottom line: The rate of documented immunization now is 96 percent."

Ms. Borenstein credits the first-hand information she saw in Kenya with helping Baltimore achieve this recent immunization success. Health services that send people out into the community are more effective than more expensive approaches that think high technology can solve every problem.

Similarly, in Baltimore and Boston we have seen that in the area of economic development peer-lending and micro-finance can be extraordinarily effective in generating local economic activity. These microenterprise programs have been used for years in developing countries like Bolivia and Bangladesh, and now we are seeing that they can be used in both urban and rural areas here in America.

It is rather ironic that most of the Lessons Without Borders conferences have been held in urban areas in the United States. Most of USAID's programs in the field are rural-based. The successful models used in both Baltimore and Boston came from projects in rural areas. Rural enterprise is really a homecoming for USAID.

I find it very encouraging that this conference has brought together people and organizations involved in financing micro-enterprises like PRODEM International from Bolivia, Tuskeegee's University's small farmer outreach training and technical assistance project, the Biodiversity Conservation Network active in Asia through the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership, the Cooperative League of the USA who has long experience in developing community-based enterprises in West African, Appalbanc from Kentucky a locally controlled and community supported economic development corporation, the Women's Microenterprise Network from the Philippines, the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development and the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks.

On the surface some people would wonder what Alabama, Bolivia, Ohio, the Philippines, Appalachia and Asia could learn from one another. But a closer look shows we can learn a great deal. Look at PRODEM -- a non-profit finance institution so successful that it led to the creation of BancoSol a licensed commercial bank that provides loan and deposit services exclusively to poor microenterprises. With $3 million of support, and after less than three years of operation, BancoSol had served over 300,000 clients -- most of them Indian women -- with loans averaging $400 each. The bank makes more loans every month than the rest of Bolivia's banks combined. BancoSol's present microenterprise loan portfolio is over $60 million.

Because the bank generates profits that are reinvested in expanding its services, and because it is able to finance almost all of its portfolio with funds from commercial sources, BancoSol can grow rapidly without any subsidies from donors. And BancoSol's success can be traced directly back to PRODEM. PRODEM is now establishing lending in rural Bolivia.

Surely, there are lessons the U.S. banking community can carry away from this experience. First Lady Hillary Clinton has been an outspoken advocate for the wider use of microenterprise programs in the States, and she has been a terrific advocate for Lessons Without Borders and community based programs in general.

I am also proud to say that the Clinton Administration did launch the Community Development Investment Fund. This program, managed out of the Department of the Treasury, works in urban and rural enterprise zones to support community development banking
and micro-lending. I also hope that more commercial banks come to see that small loans can be cost-effective and a good commercial risk.

When we look at the Tuskeegee TAP program that has been providing intensive training and management assistance to limited resource farmers in 12 counties, we begin to see that some of these experiences do work in the United States. The TAP project fields farm management specialists to lead workshops, conduct field visits and provide one-on-one help with farm business plans, preparation of loan packages, and advocacy where needed. A significant outgrowth of the program is the provision of youth business loans and housing loans. And the real lesson here is that it doesn't matter if you are in Alabama, Tennessee, Bolivia or Bangladesh -- if you give people a little bit of training and a little bit of a chance, they are going to make the most of it.

When we look at the Community League's successful micro-lending project in Mali, it is hard not to see parallels with the APPALBANC efforts to provide financial counseling, housing construction, consumer and microfinance and a no minimum credit union loan program. When we look at the work Save the Children has done using the women's microenterprise network model we have to ask: why not here?

For too long people have treated poverty and a lack of economic opportunity like it was a sickness, a character flaw or just a way of life. There are people who look at the inner cities and say poverty and a lack of economic opportunity will always be a way of life.

There are people who look to poor families and say that they will never accept family planning or work to improve their own health and well-being. There are people who treat poverty as if it were somehow predetermined by living in a rural area. I must say that I have been disturbed by some of the trends in America during the last fifteen years. Income disparity has created a real gulf between rich and poor in this country. There are some who seem to simply shrug their shoulders, willing to accept the threat of creating a permanent underclass in our cities and in poor rural areas. There are some people who look at problems as if they simply cannot be solved.

But nobody wants to be poor. And even in the poorest communities people will work like the Dickens if they think they can improve their lot. Many of these programs are about nothing more complicated than giving people the chance to help themselves.

And by giving people a chance to help themselves, we not only help improve their lives, we help improve the lives of our communities, our states and our entire nation. When we talk about children in Boston or Baltimore -- or any city for that matter -- who aren't immunized, we aren't just talking about kids who are more likely to get sick. For every child who isn't immunized, that means a city spends more on health care, more on emergency room costs, more on a whole range of social services. Lost opportunity costs us all.

We all benefit from common problem solving. Rural families with access to credit who start a small business do better by their children, contribute to their town, help bolster the state's economy and convince others that with a little hard work and help they can realize their dreams. I think the ACEnet programs creativity is a great example of what really works. ACEnet has facilitated networks of producers of agricultural products and specialty foods to produce lines of products for niche markets, such as gourmet and ethnic markets and food products for people with severe allergies. Small farmers are not going to compete head to head with General Mills or Nabisco, but they can do great business by finding unique markets that make the most of their and ability to provide a quality product.

I think sharing "best practices" and creative solutions holds true for a lot more than just loan programs or economic development. I think what we have seen during this conference with other issues like leadership training for women and exploring ways to jumpstart community participation, is that good solutions and a collaborative approach works in most fields.

I find it tremendously exciting that we live in a time and place where the folks from Brushy Fork Institute at Berea College can sit down and talk about leadership training with people engaged in similar efforts in Slovakia.

Not only do I think that this leads to better leadership training programs for all involved, I think it also helps us understand a little more about communities we might never otherwise have a chance to explore. People are such a valuable resource that I don't think we can afford to waste the skills and talents of anyone in our community.

The Women's Initiative Networking Groups staff recently traveled to Tanzania as part of their efforts to establish networks among women business owners to counter constraints of geographic isolation, limited business experience and inadequate access to capital.

African Women Leaders in Agriculture and Environment, a program of Winrock International, provides leadership training to women leaders and professionals who work with rural programs. The training program has been designed for women, on the premise that women face unique issues in taking on leadership roles. The program focuses on building a network of women leaders, and establishing channels to ensure that the concerns and needs of rural women, who make up the majority of African farmers, are incorporated into local and national policies and programs.

Similarly, think of how lucky we are to live in a time when people from the University of Tennessee Community Partnership Center can sit down with counterparts from the Philippines and discuss models of community participation. To realize that water quality programs in Alabama and the Philippines can support each other is to truly realize the unlimited potential of today's world. For example, earlier this year USAID participated in a rural development conference in Anchorage. Our Community Involvement in Management of Environmental Pollution Program was very useful to Alaskans exploring new ways to manage sanitation and water systems in rural areas.

There are far too many good programs involved in this conference to give due credit to them all. I apologize for all of you whose excellent work I have not highlighted. But that too says something very positive. So many people are involved here this week, so many of you do such good work and there are so many fascinating linkages between these organizations that no single speech could even begin to cover the map. President Clinton said of Lessons Without Borders that it was all about helping "people in need to acquire the skills and build the institutions that can unleash their creative energies." When I look around this room I can not help but be somewhat overwhelmed by the depth of those creative energies.

I think one of the most exciting aspects of Lessons Without Borders is that we are showing ourselves and our communities that we can often solve problems by working smarter and developing new partnerships. All across the United States budgets are tight and communities are trying to deal with more and more, often times with fewer and fewer resources.

Whether it has been increasing immunization rates in Baltimore, trying to spur economic development in Tennessee or finding new ways to train community health workers in Boston -- Lessons Without Borders is working hard to be a catalyst for a better way of life in our own backyard.

There is not a problem we cannot solve when we work together. I thank you all for your tremendous hospitality and I look forward to our continued partnership. Thank you.

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

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