Poverty-Community entrepreneurship-Sustainable Development « vmioom

MARKET ECONOMICS, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY IN RURAL ANDEAN COMMUNITIES by Ana Maria Peredo Ph.D. Candidate New Venture Development- Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Program January,1999

Abstract

In the effort to alleviate poverty, multilateral organizations and international aid agencies from industrial countries have been involved over the last fifty years in the developing world, including Latin America and the Andes. However, despite good intentions the approach has been usually paternalistic, seeking even if unintentionally cultural assimilation and ignoring the strength of indigenous institutions and knowledge (including environmental knowledge). This in turn, according to a World Bank (1998) report, has contributed to worsening poverty, social marginalization and environmental degradation. Research into failed developmental programs illustrate the importance that cultural values play in fostering entrepreneurial activities ( Taubb, ). Recent literature in entrepreneurship calls attention to the need for more cross-cultural research and the need to look at community issues . Cornwall (1998) argued that the goal of entreprenurial activity should not be only independent income and mobility, but also the creation of the ability to strengthen families and rebuild communities. The main premise of this research is that authentic development must come from the people themselves and that one of the most fundamental challenges for organizations and policy-makers is to incorporate the diversity of cultures as well as the diversity of economic and social systems into their policies. This study focuses particularly on indigenous peasants in the Andean region of Latin America. It looks at indigenous peoples? alternatives and challenges with regard to the issue of sustainability. Specifically, the study 1) analyzes selected collective enterprises of indigenous peoples of the Andean region, and 2) identifies those internal and external factors within the given communities that facilitate or inhibit a process of sustainable development.

Conceptually, this research is fundamentally interdisciplinary and draws on my background in anthropology and my studies in the areas of entrepreneurship, environmental management and development studies as can be seen in this chart: Methodologically, this research involved 10 months of fieldwork, living among Quechua indigenous peoples. It used participatory and ethnographic approaches, as well as case studies for the purpose of data collection and analysis. In the four cases, the study found that community-based entrepreneurship has emerged as a response to economic crises and unemployment, social alienation, environmental degradation, social disintegration within communities and post-war top puma shoes reconstruction, and that the goal of those communities is to gain control over their lives in a rural scenario. puma shoes Four main conclusions emerge from the research: 1. Community-based enterprise is an unconventional form of entrepreneurship—in that it is based on the complementarity between the collective and the cheap puma shoes individual—but at the same time it is a culturally appropriate one 2.Community-based enterprise emerges as a potential strategy for the alleviation of poverty in the context of sustainable development because it integrates all the different aspects of the community while building and strengthening the enterprise’s organization. puma store 3.Governments have an important role to play. For a community-based enterprise to succeed and to flourish, it must have an appropriate legal and taxation framework—which only government can provide. 4. Finally, it became clear that certain kinds of partnerships can facilitate a sustainable process of community development, puma ferrari shoes if they build upon traditional Andean organizational forms.

The potential of this research to contribute to research and practice would appear to be significant and timely, when there is broad recognition that a challenge for the immediate future will be to create sustainable organizations and to manage diversity. This study opens new avenues for theory and cross-cultural research, and also is significant for policy-makers and practitioners of development.
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