Financial bootstraps for the disenfranchised.

An unusual kind of "summit" meeting, to take place in Washington, D.C. next February, could mark a turning point in the steady erosion of work security that has hounded the global economy in recent years. Unlike the Earth Summit and the Women's Summit, which established broad strategies for sustainable development, the planned "Microcredit Summit" will focus on a single tool that could stimulate work opportunities in much the same way that the development of microcomputers stimulated the global processing of information. By providing viable alternatives to employment by larger companies and the public sector, small (1-person or 2-person) "microenterprises" - if adequately financed - offer a proven means of enabling people to work gainfully.

As noted in an article by Hal Kane in the March/April World Watch, lending institutions in a number of countries, beginning with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh in the 1970s, have established methods by which financing can be provided, without charitable aid, to impoverished people who would not qualify for credit with conventional banks. With a two-decade track record proving that even uncollateralized loans often achieve payback records of 99 percent, the stage has been set for a major expansion of credit to disenfranchised workers - particularly women, who have had difficulty obtaining financial credit in much of the developing world.

The potential impact of extending creditworthiness to people at the bottom stratum of society is immense, since economic insecurity has become a driving force in both social and environmental decline worldwide - exacerbating rates of migration, homelessness, uprooting of communities, looting of parklands and other natural resources for subsistence food and fuel, and empowering of political demagogues.

Organizations planning to participate in this conference so far include the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Self-Employed Women's Association of India, Women's World Banking, the Population Council, and Citicorp Foundation. The goal is to establish a campaign - and lending commitments - that will bring credit to 100 million families.

For more information, contact: Microcredit Summit, c/o RESULTS Educational Fund, 236 Mass. Ave., NE, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20002; phone [phone]; Fax [phone]; E-mail microcreditsum[at]action.org.