| CHAPTER 1 - THE CHALLENGE OF THE UK'S UNDER-INVESTED COMMUNITIES | ||
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Community development finance is a world-wide phenomenon, from Bangladesh to the Basque region of Spain. It is therefore becoming possible to benchmark it in the UK against international best practice.
In the UK, community loan funds and micro-loan funds currently have a total capital of £80 million of which £65.6 million is private sector investment. Of this private investment, £60.9 million comes from companies, including banks, while £4.7 million comes from individuals.
There is a further £122 million of private investment in "social banks" such as Triodos Bank and the Ecology Building Society, with about £20 million coming from corporate sources and the rest from individuals [11]. However, the primary focus of these banks is not the economic regeneration of under-invested communities. Then there are some Community Development Venture Capital Funds with about £45m. This suggests a total community development sector of about £250 million. (see Table A below)
In the USA, the sector is more highly developed. By 1999, assets held and invested locally by CDFIs totalled $5.4 billion, up from $4 billion in 1997, a 35 percent growth over just these two years. And mainstream bank lending to small businesses located in low- and moderate-income communities and for other community development averaged a total of $50 billion annually from 1996-8.
Table A. How UK and USA CDFIs compare 1999/2000
| TYPE | £ - UK | £ - US | |
| Social / Community Development Banks [12] | £122m | £2,000m | |
| Community Loan and Micro-loan Funds [13] | £80m | £1,195m | |
| Community Development Venture Capital [14] | £45m | £207m | |
| Total community development financial
institutions (excluding community development credit unions) |
£247m | £3,402m | |
The strength of the USA community development finance sector owes much to a series of fair lending laws, in particular the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which created an affirmative obligation for banks to address under-served markets. The efforts of banks are supported by incentives, in the form of loan guarantees, tax credits and funding for CDFIs that act as partners for banks. (see Appendix A)
Even adjusted for lower population, the UK has a community development finance sector no more than forty per cent or so of its American counterpart.
Continental Europe also has extensive experience in social investment, much of which also falls under the umbrella of evolving European Union law and practice. For example, ADIE in France has a proven track record from the 1990s of lending to over 5000 micro-entrepreneurs. The CIGALES, again in France, provided some of the earliest micro-venture capital targeted at small companies with some social, cultural or ecological purpose. New markets, such as wind energy, were pioneered by the Danish social bank, Merkur Bank.
A snapshot survey by the International Association of Investors in the Social Economy [15] of 86 social investment organisations in the 15 European Union member states showed capital of EUR 1.6 billion and a total loan portfolio of EUR 640 million. The survey focused solely on those organisations offering loans for small enterprise and the voluntary and co-operative sectors and thus by no means covers all social investment organisations in the EU.
The emerging economies of Eastern Europe have also shown remarkable success in developing micro-finance initiatives - Fundusz Mikro in Poland is a well-known example.
In the southern hemisphere, micro-finance institutions have at least US$7 billion in loans outstanding to more than 13 million individuals. Many, particularly in Asia, focus exclusively on women. Such initiatives have proved that poor and socially excluded people can be profitable customers. The most celebrated micro-finance institution is Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, but diverse examples range from South and South-East Asia to Africa and Latin America.
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The Task Force felt that whilst the UK can build on its own experience by learning from all these examples, the most effective practical step would be to study American experience in detail, since this appears to offer clear lessons in how an advanced and prosperous economy can make the transition from patchy provision of community development finance to a successful system capable of financing entrepreneurship in under-invested communities on a sustained basis. In what follows, therefore, the Task Force has concentrated its international comparisons on the American experience. The Task Force recognises that the USA record in tackling poverty is in many other ways less impressive than the UK's. Indeed, it is the sheer scale of income inequality in the USA and the comparative weakness of its welfare system that have helped to drive innovation in community development finance. |
FOOTNOTES:
11. New Economics
Foundation research, October 2000
12. UK data - New Economics Foundation
report (forthcoming). US data - "1999 Report on Socially Responsible Investing
Trends in the United States", Social Investment Forum, November 1999.
13.
UK data - New Economics Foundation report (forthcoming). US data - "1999 Report
on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States", Social
Investment Forum, November 1999.
14. UK data - Source: New Economics
Foundation, conservative estimate of targeted venture capital, including
pioneering initiatives in the field such as the Merseyside Special Investment
Fund. US data - Capitalisation of the US CDVC industry at 5/31/2000. Source -
Research by Julia Sass Rubin of Harvard University for Community Development
Venture Capital Alliance (forthcoming).
15. Unpublished research by INAISE,
1999. The data for this survey was mainly from 1998, but some data also came
from earlier years, making these figures indicative rather than precisely
comparable. Data on a number of organisations was from between 1995 and
1998.
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