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Invitation
to Professor Yunus
to Join ICT Task Force |
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On behalf of the United Nations, I would wish to underscore again
how grateful we are for your valuable contribution to the work of
the Advisory Group on ICT that was set up to assist the Secretary
General in developing a strategy for the ICT Task Force, an initiative
that emerged from the Ministerial Session of the United Nations
Economic and Social Council last July. As indicated in my letter
of 16 March, the United Nations Economic and Social Council has
formally adopted the decision to establish the Task Force on the
basis of the recommendations of the Advisory Group.
We would like
to continue to benefit from your leadership and thinking in pursuing
the objectives outlined in the report of the Advisory Group. I have
the pleasure to invite you, on behalf of the Secretary General to
become a member of the ICT Task Force as a key leader from the private
sector. As suggested by the Advisory Group, the Task Force is designed
to develop solutions built on public-private partnerships that would
pave the way for bringing ICT capacity to the developing world.
The Task Force will be an innovative public-private partnership
under the United Nations umbrella, and the first body created by
an intergovernmental decision in which Member States, the private
sector and other stakeholders will participate as equal partners
to help to bridge the digital divide.
It is intended
that an action plan for the Task Force would be developed between
mid-April and June, taking into account the dot force report being
prepared for the Genoa G-8 Summit. The Task Force would then be
in a position to launch its plan of action at its first meeting,
planned for early September.
The Task Force
will meet for no more than one or two days, once or twice a year.
Arrangements will be put in place for working level co-operation
with the support of a small substantive secretariat and networking
arrangements with key partners, including the academic community
and regional and sub-regional satellite nodes.
I look forward
to your dynamic involvement in the ICT Task Force. At the United
Nations, we believe that we can develop solutions more effectively
when we bring our creative and inventive forces together as partners.
Yours sincerely,
Sarbuland
Khan
April 12, 2001.
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Micro-credit
Best Practice in Italy |
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It is my pleasure to inform you that Sviluppo Italia will test out
microcredit in our country. Sviluppo Italia, S.P.A, whose capital
is held by the Treasury Ministry, is the national agency that uses
national and European funds to promote economic and entrepreneurial
development in the disadvantaged areas of Italy.
The Agency's
mission - carried out on several levels of intervention - includes
the carrying out of specific measures to promote the self-employment
and self-initiated entrepreneurship of young people and also to
support co-operatives for job training.
As I mentioned
to you during our recent, meeting in Naples, I have commissioned
the elaboration of a project: "Micro-credit. Testing and distribution
of credit to the poor in Italy". It will be presented in conjunction
with the EQUAL Program for Community Initiative with steps
and timelines to be established shortly.
Our proposal
already enjoys strong institutional support and alliances in Italy
and has adequate financial resources. We are also looking at possible
international collaboration in the implementation, testing and distribution
of microcredit in Italy.
Furthermore,
we are currently establishing partnership agreements with European
organizations, which have developed microcredit projects in England,
France, and Sweden. These projects have been declared as "Good
Practice" by the European Union.
I therefore,
hope that you will accept my request for you to be a sponsor of
this initiative as the President of the Scientific Committee. As
President, you would be asked to follow the elaboration of the project
and to send one or more experts from your organization to participate
in the project's development from the very beginning and also in
ensuing stages of testing.
I look forward
to our future collaboration.
Carlo
Borgomeo
Chief Executive Officer
Roma, 13/12/00
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I am the president of The ACCIE (Associacao Comercial, Industrial
e Cultural de Erechim), an institution which brings together industrial
and commercial entrepreneurs. Visiting your site and reading the
book "Banker to the Poor" by Prof. Mohammed Yunus, we
become very much interested in implanting the Grameen Banking Program
for the poor here in our region. We are located in the south of
Brazil, a region which has 250,000 inhabitants and we would like
to know how to participate in your training and replication programs,
to start a partnership with your existing organizations. We are
looking forward to hearing from you.
Jaci Jose
Delazeri
ACCIE President ERECHIM (RS)
Brazil, 29/04/2001 .
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I work as a journalist for the Brazilian issue of Forbes magazine,
based in Sao Paulo. We are currently preparing a cover story about
the expansion of microcredit in Brazil. The state-run National Social
Development Bank has just released a US$ 1 million loan for two
Grameen-style banks here, Microcred and Rotula, that will benefit
more than 10 thousand borrowers in two states. There are today 12
institutions like yours in my country, and we at Forbes believe
that it is a powerful tool in the fight against poverty, one that
helps to create an entrepreneurial mind among our people.
Thanks for your
attention,
Rodrigo
Leite
Assistant-editor
Forbes Magazine, Brazil.
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We suspect that there are some huge and extremely promising analogies
to the Grameen approach in many areas of life, policy and practice,
in the developing world (and for poor people around the world).
If you visit The Common http://www.ecoplan.org
you will see some of our work, much of which is attempting to move
in a somewhat analogous direction. You may find the Car Free Day
projects example, one interesting eventual case in point. Also,
you may find some interest in Politics of Sustainability at http://www.ecoplan.org/politics,
which attempts to look at this from a different angle. We have been
pursuing this path for many years, and have the intention of continuing.
All our work is collaborative and essentially self-organizing in
its structure. We are there to help, if help is wanted and needed.
With good wishes.
Eric
Britton
E-mail: Eric.britton@ecoplan.org
France, Thursday March 2001
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Dedicating
Their Vacation |
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We are three students of Economics, at the University of Navarre,
Spain. We have been fascinated by microcredit as a means to alleviate
poverty and we would like to direct our professional future in everything
related to helping the needy. We are contributors in ONG Association
ProPeru: we have assisted in several seminars about microcredits
and we know about the start and the evolution of this system. We
turn towards you because we would like to dedicate our summer vacations,
from July until September 2001, working in the Grameen Bank. Given
that it will deal with an approach similar to our chosen field,
we wish to go into the matter in depth and get involved from the
inside. Therefore, you may rely on us during those three mentioned
months as the geographical mobility does not impede any obstacle
to us. Our experience as co-operators has also benefited us. Two
of us have lived in Mexico for 10 years, and have had the opportunity
to witness extreme poverty. My mother is the president of ProPeru,
ONG, which works with projects of cooperation for development, supporting
micro-companies. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Laura
Oneca Arribas
Gloria Diaz de Rada
Carmen Deaz de Rada Martinez
E-Mail: cdiazde@alumni.unav.es
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We have a small group of friends getting together to start a small
microbank from Singapore to reach our fellow beings in ASEAN - we
hope to touch and offer hope to affirmative microcredit facilities
which will be community based - we start and leave a resource staffed
and run by locals for their own advancement - we are hoping to learn
from GB experience and jump start our effort so that we can reach
these deserving individuals at internet speed. Appreciate, if we
can tap your expertise, assistance and available resources. God
bless your fantastic enterprise.
shteon@medicomm.com.sg
Singapore - March 27, 2001.
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