Tomorrow: Making Savings Work for the Poor Event

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: zimmerman@newamerica.net



Greetings!

I wanted to share with you information about an event tomorrow that will prominently
feature the Global Assets Project's (GAP) work and leadership. Starting at 8:00
AM tomorrow, USAID's Microlinks will launch a three day Speakers Corner entitled:
"Making Savings Work for the Poor - What We Know, What We Don't, and Where We're
Headed." This online, facilitated seminar will take place from June 5th (8:00 AM
EST) to June 7th (6:00 PM EST), and you can sign up to participate here [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0017809U...phoRFHHB-ovj].

On the first day, Debbie Dean of the Grameen Foundation and I will examine the current
landscape of formal savings for the poor. We will address assumptions that the savings
community deals with every day, including the very definition of "savings for the
poor". On day three, GAP's work will again be featured prominently, as Nisha Singh
(SEEP Network) and I have a candid discussion about what we still don't know concerning
the savings landscape, and my colleague Eric Tyler guides participants through theGreetings Colleague!
Savings for the Poor Innovation and Knowledge Network website.

We're looking forward to an engaging and productive discussion!

Sincerely,

Jamie Zimmerman

Director, Global Assets Project

New America Foundation

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[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: ejdodson@comcast.net


Jamie Zimmerman wrote:

On the first day, Debbie Dean of the Grameen Foundation and I will examine
the current landscape of formal savings for the poor. We will address
assumptions that the savings community deals with every day, including the
very definition of "savings for the poor". On day three, GAP's work will
again be featured prominently, as Nisha Singh (SEEP Network) and I have a
candid discussion about what we still don't know concerning the savings
landscape, and my colleague Eric Tyler guides participants through
theGreetings Colleague! Savings for the Poor Innovation and Knowledge
Network website.

Ed Dodson here:
As much as I would like to participate in this discussion, I have a
commitment that cannot be rescheduled.

There is one observation I believe is extremely important regarding the
obstacles the poor face accumulating savings from current income. The
landless poor are most vulnerable to the rentier class in every society
where the private ownership of land exists. Everyone needs land, whether
simply for residential use or for subsistence farming. In too many countries
the concentrated control over land yields slum housing for the majority,
vast landed estates raising cattle, sheep or crops for export while a
shortage of affordable food crops means near-starvation for the landless
poor.

Various programs of land reform have had limited success, the land to the
tiller program adopted by the Nationalist Chinese in Taiwan being something
of an exception. In the United States and a few other countries, the main
non-governmental programs for creating decent affordable housing for lower
income households are those within community land trusts. The more systemic
solution to what political economists in the past called "the land problem"
is for community-held land allocated by competitive bidding under leasehold
to the highest bidder (the ground rent collected thereby then utilized to
pay for public goods and services). Where land is deeded to individuals and
entities, the equivalent approach is to impose a market-determined "ground
rent charge" on land (with no tax imposed on buildings or other
improvements).