Investing in hope ” “

The General Assembly of the United Nations has proclaimed 2005 “International Year of Micro-credit”. During this year the UNO has promoted a series of programmes aimed at raising the awareness of workers, governments and trades unions about the advantages of micro-credit and micro-finance. The initiative is born from the consciousness that micro-finance has already helped to improve the quality of life of millions of poor people by permitting them to gain access to such services as credit, savings, insurance, and the transfer of funds to people who on account of their disadvantaged conditions of life would never have been able to benefit from them. Unfortunately these services are still not easily accessible to everyone. The Director General of the International Labour Office (ILO) JUAN SOMAVIA has recalled that only 10% of the poor benefit from them. At the same time the ILO has emphasized that the access of the unemployed and the poor to micro-credit programmes represents an extraordinary deterrent to child labour, indebtedness and usury, micro-criminality and the sexual exploitation of women. We report an experience described in the last number of the ILO’s review “Travail” on “Micro-credit in south-east Europe” in favour of Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. AT THE SIDE OF WORKERS. The experience of Western countries demonstrates that micro-finance, by facilitating the creation of small but viable businesses, can be a valuable tool in combating unemployment. The ILO is convinced of this and is proposing to offer it to three countries in south-east Europe with a project that aims to convince Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia to turn micro-finance into the lynchpin of their employment policy. Financed by the French government, the ILO project is aimed at creating favourable conditions for the implementation of national programmes whose objective is to furnish a start-up capital to potential businessmen now unemployed. “We are gaining an increasing understanding of the importance of micro-finance in the fight against poverty”, says SEVERINE DEBOOS, expert in social finance at the ILO. “If the unemployed are given the chance to express their skills by providing them with the necessary financial support and advice, we ascertain that the rate of survival of their businesses is very close to that of other young firms”. THE CHALLENGE OF UNEMPLOYMENT. Unemployment remains the major problem of the countries of south-east Europe, where the difficulties linked to the transition from a centralized economy of socialist type to a market economy have been exacerbated by other factors such as the reticence of investors to invest in these countries given the political and social instability still evident after the conflicts that have crippled the countries of the former Yugoslavia and the distance from and difficulties of connections with the main Western markets. One characteristic of the measures being sponsored by the ILO in the sector of micro-finance is that of “networking”, namely by placing round the same table the various institutional players that are not directly involved in the projects: Ministries of Labour, Economy and Finance, central banks, employment agencies, social services and trades unions. SERBIA. In Serbia there are plans for the implementation of a special programme of micro-finance for workers of the national railway company due to be sacked as part of the plan for the restructuring of the company. According to the country’s official statistics, the unemployment rate in Serbia is 18,4%. To respond to this situation, the Ministries of Finance and the Economy recently launched a programme of state loans specifically aimed at helping the unemployed to create their own businesses. “This project – says RADMILA BUKURIMIC-KATIC of the Ministry of Labour and Employment – has aroused great interest. So far 7,000 applications have been received”. Unfortunately, however, “our budget has hitherto permitted us to help only 500 people. We hope that the beneficiaries of the new programme of micro-finance will be more numerous”. ROMANIA. The case of Romania is also encouraging. It is described by MARIA DOICIU, member of the ILO Romanian team. She recalls that in a project recently conducted in the city of Brassov, 33 of the 189 workers sacked by a local company have been able to start up their own business thanks to micro-finance. At the start, the most dubious about the project were the Ministry of Finance and the banks. But they too soon came to realise that their fears were unfounded”.