[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 73 (Thursday, June 6, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 MICROENTERPRISE FOR SELF-RELIANCE ACT OF 2000 AND FOREIGN ASSISTANCE 
                       ACT OF 1961 AMENDMENTS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 4, 2002

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, according to the World Health 
Organization, over one billion people [one-fifth of the world's 
population] lives in extreme poverty. They subsist on less than one 
dollar a day. These families cannot adequately feed themselves or plan 
for the future, working menial jobs or selling whatever they can to 
survive one more day. In most Third World countries more than half the 
people survive by working in small-scale businesses or 
``microenterprises'' outside the traditional economic structures. They 
are fruit vendors in Haiti; ragpickers in India; basketmakers in Ghana. 
To climb out of poverty toward self-reliance, access to credit for 
these people is critical, but hard to come by.
  Government credit programs and traditional lending institutions do 
not offer affordable loans to the poor because they cannot afford loan 
fees, offer collateral, or show a credit history. They're viewed as 
high risks who yield a low return. Though many poor people possess 
relevant skills and often own necessary tools, without access to credit 
they cannot establish or expand their business to sustainably support 
their family. Generation after generation is trapped in poverty.
  Microenterprise programs can offer these willing workers the 
opportunity to break the cycle of poverty and improve their families' 
welfare. Women, especially, could alter the face of global poverty by 
having an impact not only on family incomes, but also on child 
nutrition, health and education.
  H.R. 4073, Microenterprise and Self-Reliance Act of 2000 and the 
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 will ensure continued availability of 
microenterprise services as a key component of U.S. bilateral 
international development assistance. The bill reauthorize and 
increases funding for microenterprise assistance programs, expands and 
focuses microenterprise programs to the very poor, and updates language 
of both acts concerning rural lending, the provision of financial 
services, and the development and application of poverty measurement 
tools.
  The Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act institutionalizes that 
initiative and authorizes support for programs that provide credit, 
insurance, training and other services to entrepreneurs--50 percent of 
whom must be very poor or women. Much of the credit for its passage 
goes to the women themselves--97 percent of whom have repaid their 
loans in full and on time.
  The Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act increases the U.S. 
government's support for microfinance around the world. The bill will 
support the institutional development of programs that provide credit, 
savings facilities, insurance, business training, and other services to 
microentrepreneurs. At least 50% of resources must go towards programs 
that serve women and the very poor.
  This bill goes beyond helping women develop small businesses. The 
programs that the bill supports will change the face of foreign aid, 
expanding access to financial services and making microlending a 
component of U.S. foreign policy.
  Whereas today microcredit is helping more than 20 million creditors, 
the summit set a new goal five times that number. This bill will go a 
long way toward helping us meet that goal.
  H.R. 4073 also broadens the definition of microenterprise development 
services in recognition of the importance of delivering both financial 
and non-financial services to the poor, and emphasizes the importance 
of providing these services to rural as well as urban areas.
  H.R. 4073 expands the definition of the very poor to include those 
severely poor people living on less than one dollar per day and 
provides clear guidance to USAID for the development and use of cost-
efficient practical poverty measurement tools that can be applied by 
practitioner organizations.
  This change creates substantially greater incentive for USAID to find 
and support financially-sustainable lines of microenterprise 
development service that favor the very poor, while allowing up to half 
of the funding to support other lines of service that serve others who 
are economically better-off.
  Therefore, I strongly urge my fellow members to support H.R. 4073.




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