Condiciones sociales culturales y académicas en la edad media

Foremost, the proposed model can effectively address the problem of scarcity of funds for enterprise development in Nigeria. It is only when one is engaged in an economic activity, which generates income streams to acquire physical goods and services, that poverty can then be arrested and reduced. The GB-ROSCA financing model that will be developed in the study not only has the potential to expand and scale up the outreach of economically disadvantaged persons belonging to the lower socio-economic class in the economy, it is also capable of leveraging all the persons of the lower socio-economic class to rely upon themselves for self- development – a situation which can only be achieved through self-savings in small solidarity group circles, and joint liability fashions as a more viable means to get out of poverty. Although the joint liability component of the proposed model ensures the inclusion of all persons of lower socio-economic status, it may not satisfy all the persons (particularly the

poorest of the poor) since its continued existence is solely dependent on financial self- sustainability and self-funding capacity. The key issue here is the ability to find safe-risk business partners willing to accept anyone into their fold, a process that Wydick (2001) describes as an evolving jury or a dynamic peer review committee. In this kind of model where self-equity contributions (self-savings with the group) are committed and tied up, the success of the group-backed projects becomes paramount, while the collective and cooperative endeavour and group support become critical in realising such projects. Moreover, members become more committed and participatory in the prudential administration of pooled savings towards credit facilitation leading to the growth of small- scale enterprises. Then these small-scale entrepreneurial projects become a source of steady income streams, which enable households to smooth both their food consumption and investment levels in human capital. If managed properly at the local level, the pooled savings instrument over time becomes a major capitalisation for wider market coverage as depicted in Figure 3.3. Thus the microfinancing model investigated is one that not only creates jobs and reduces poverty, but also has the potential to scale up into creating a pool of entrepreneurs who fuse to function and integrate into the formal economy as clearly shown in Figure 3.3. Research has reported a high rate of ROSCA participation by both sexes in several African countries including Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Liberia and the Ivory Coast, (Bouman 1995). The influence and achievements of the ROSCAs went beyond the financial frontier of self- help support into other spheres of human and community developments such as education, recreational facilities, insurance, health, etc., (Geertz 1962; Gerdes 1975). Geertz (1962) and Gerdes (1975) among others have found that Nigeria has abundant traditional informal savings and credit microfinance institutions. These traditional self-help institutions include the Esusu of western Nigeria, with its counterparts in the eastern parts of the country, and the Dashi of Nupe in the northern parts of the country, whilst the Ibo community, particularly the Mbaise area of the Ibo community where there is acute population pressure on the land at 1000 persons per sq. mile in the eastern part of Nigeria, is quite notable for the use of these institutions for development purposes (Ardener 1953; Geertz 1962). The self-help ROSCAs have been instrumental in helping the Ibo and Yoruba ethnic groups over the years to accumulate the great wealth and income that has enabled them to provide scholarships to their promising youngsters to pursue further studies in England or the United States, and then return home as doctors, engineers, lawyers, educators, midwives, and others useful for development (Bouman 1995).

Since the proposed scheme is based on what the Nigerian populace already knew by traditional knowledge and values, ultimately it will not only make a positive and practical contribution to the development of the country, it can also count on the legitimacy and accountability rooted in the notion of a bottom-up approach to development. Essentially, the traditional methods of development need to adapt to the modern context (in the sense of modern ways of doing things), and while they are rendered more efficient by modern innovations, they should not be replaced (Anonymous 1). This is to say that the infusion of the GB joint liability innovation with the traditional ROSCA self-help savings approaches has more advantages than any single approach. For this purpose, Seibel and Parthusip (1990) have highlighted earlier attempts that were made to link up formal institutions, for example, commercial banks with informal institutions, and the ROSCAs. This appears to be one of the developmental mistakes that the Nigerian development authorities might have been suffering. In effect, the microfinancing model investigated in the study is one that not only creates jobs and reduces poverty (Figure 3.3), but also has the capacity and potential to scale up into a pool of entrepreneurs that can integrate and function in the formal financial economy without being bogged down by the type of poverty described in the 2000/2001 World Bank Development Report highlighted in the last paragraph of section 3.1 of this chapter.