The
Revolving Sheep Bank is a small-scale, five-year micro-credit project
that lends reproductive-age sheep and goats to poor nomads in Western
Tibet.
- What
are its purposes?
- How
did it start?
- How
does it work?
- Where
do the sheep and goats come from?
- Why
don't you charge interest?
- Who
gets the loaned animals?
- Who
runs the project?
- What
is BODHI's financial commitment?
- Is
there a report I can look at?
- What
sort of response has the project generated?
- How
can I help?
- How
can I make a donation?
- Questions
people ask
What
are its purposes?
What
are its purposes?
- To
provide impoverished Tibetan nomad households with a 5-year loan
of reproductive-age ewes and nannies to foster economic self-sufficiency.
- To
inject funds into the local economy by purchasing ewes and nannies
from local nomads.
- To
create a self-perpetuating animal bank that will continue to loan
sheep (and goats) to poor households after the project ends.
- To
assess the efficacy of the trial project and determine its utility
for other nomadic pastoral regions in Tibet.
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How
did it start?
How
did it start?
Anthropologists
Professor Melvyn C. Goldstein, Dr Cynthia Beall and Benjor, one
of Prof. Goldstein's PhD students, have worked in the Phala area
of Western Tibet for many years. Hoping to encourage sustainable
economic development they conceived the Revolving Sheep Bank. Prof
Goldstein presented the project to BODHI in 1999, and it began the
following year.
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How
does it work?
How
does it work?
Every
year for four years, four different selected households receive
50 fertile ewes and/or nannies (as they prefer). They will repay
half of their loan in Year 4 in kind (fertile ewes and/or nannies)
and half in Year 5. In Year 5, the Revolving Sheep Bank will be
receiving 200 ewes and nannies per year so will be completely self-sufficient.
Households pay no interest and keep all by-products, such as offspring,
milk, meat, skins, wool, butter and cheese. Animals that are repaid
into the Revolving Sheep Bank will then be lent to other nomads.
Assuming
10% annual mortality of adult sheep and 30% annual mortality of
lambs and kids, at the end of five years the Revolving Sheep Bank
will be repaid in full from the first year's loan.
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Where
do the sheep and goats come?
Where
do the sheep and goats come?
Reproductive-aged
ewes and nanny goats are purchased from wealthier nomads in the
area.
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Why
don't you charge interest?
Why
don't you charge interest?
Interest
is usually charged for three reasons: to compensate for inflation,
to meet running costs and to make a profit. In the Revolving Sheep
Bank, there is no inflation because loans are repaid in kind. Running
costs are subsidised by the Xiang officials and BODHI. And yes,
we have no desire to make a profit.
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Who
gets the loaned animals?
Who
gets the loaned animals?
Poorer
nomads who, nonetheless are judged a good credit risk.
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Who
runs the project?
Who
runs the project?
Prof.
Goldstein travelled from the U.S. to Tibet to set it up, with the
blessing and participation of the Chinese government. The local
xiang, or administrative district, administer the project and assume
ongoing administrative costs. A retired nomad schoolteacher, Yonden,
monitors progress. Prof. Goldstein returned this year (2001) and
will return at least once more for monitoring and evaluation purposes.
Professor
Melvyn C. Goldstein is John Reynolds Harkness Professor of Anthropology,
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Professor of International
Health, School of Medicine, CWRU (secondary appointment), Director,
Center for Research on Tibet, CWRU, and Chairman, Department of
Anthropology, CWRU.
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What
is BODHI's financial commitment?
What
is BODHI's financial commitment?
BODHI
pays for sheep and goats (US$ 18/A$36 each), Yonden's wages (US$500
p/a) and travel expenses such as jeep rental and costs. We do not
pay for international air travel. In Year 1 we sent US$7350 to Tibet
and in Year 2 US$3150. We expect to send $4300 in Year 3.
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Is
there a report I can look at?
Is
there a report I can look at?
Report,
May 2001.
(We
expect another one around October 2001.)
Year
2 Update
Reported
by Professor Melvyn C Goldstein
May
2001
Yonden
went to Lhasa in May to pick up this year's funds. He made a visit
to the nomad area in mid April and got some data on the animals
distributed. In one of the two sites the following were the results:
|
Family
|
ewes
given |
pregnant
|
birth
lamb |
died
|
alive
|
%
alive |
total
sheep 4/01 |
|
1
|
25
|
24
|
24
|
1
|
23
|
95
|
48
|
|
2
|
25
|
23
|
23
|
2
|
21
|
91.3
|
46
|
|
Family
|
goats
given |
pregnant
|
birth
kids |
died
|
alive
|
%alive
|
total
goats 4/01 |
|
1
|
25
|
24
|
24
|
1
|
23
|
95
|
48
|
|
2
|
25
|
25
|
25
|
1
|
24
|
96
|
49
|
Thus,
in Family 1, they now have 96 sheep and goats from the 50 we gave
them, and in the other family, they have 95.
In
the second village they gave him the total number of the old and
new animals for each household so we cant separate out just the
one we gave. However, when he returns this summer to give out the
new money, he will get the results of the actual sheep given.
However,
based on the overall number of livestock per household, in one of
the households to whom we gave sheep, their overall number of animals
had increased by 38% as of April 20th, and in the other by 28%.
Consequently,
so far the result are excellent. In the village for which we have
specific data, the birthing rate was high and the mortality rate
low. In the other, the results also seem to have made a substantial
difference in their livestock situation based on the totals.
We
should get some more data in early [northern] Fall, and
then another followup visit in April/May of 2002. Yonden says that
the local xiang officials and people are extremely happy with the
program. Thanks again for the new funding.
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What
sort of response has the project generated?
What
sort of response has the project generated?
Print
press coverage has been very positive in Australia, the U.S. and
Europe. Tibetan Bulletin in Dharmasala has also been supportive.
Radio coverage has included the BBC's World Service, and Australian
agricultural programs.
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We've
had much support from individuals, and now need corporate support.
The
project is being used in the U.S. by an economics professor as an
example for his students.
How
can I help?
How
can I help?
Individual
- Buy
sheep and goats
- Sponsor
a household
- Approach
potential corporate donors
- Help
with fundraising
- Help
with publicity
Corporate
- Be
a sponsor - Sponsor a household
- Unrestricted
- Make a 'no strings attached' donation
- Matching
Grant - Motivate others to make similar gifts
- Corporate
Matching Grant - Match employee donations
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How
can I make a donation?
How
can I make a donation?
You
may pay by credit card (all credit card donations are charged in
Australian dollars), personal cheque (in US or Australian dollars)
or money order (ditto).
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For
further information about BODHI, please click
here.
Questions
people ask
Questions
people ask:
How
did the idea originate?
Professor
Goldstein writes, 'We started studying this group in detail in
1986 and have returned for follow up studies every few years.
Our last fieldwork was in 1997-98. We have learned that while
most of the nomads have done okay as a result of the ending of
communes (in 1981) a considerable number of nomads are poor and
have not been able to break out of poverty since it is hard to
get a core herd of animals (there are no loans available to them)
and no sources of sideline income available in the area. The nomads
also do not want to migrate to cities (and even if they did, there
are no jobs there as the cities are full with more skilled Chinese
labourers and Tibetan villagers from the farming areas around
Lhasa etc). In the late 1980s, the government made small amounts
of money available to poor nomads to enter into local trade, buying
cloth, tea etc from a town (a two days truck trip away) and selling
it in the area, but all of these cases failed. Consequently, in
most of the poverty cases, the government provides just enough
welfare to keep them from starving, but it is a bad situation
and local officials have been trying to find some way to intervene
to for some years.
[Out
of the experiences of a personal friend in the area receiving
sheep as a gift], 'Dr Beall and I and Benjor discussed it
and thought that what would really work with nomads such as
these was to provide animals to the poor but not as a gift but
rather as a revolving sheep bank that could be used to continuously
help nomads who are poor.'
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How
many nomads are there and how far do they travel?
There
are 2.4 million nomads in Tibet (officially the Tibet Autonomous
Region). The Revolving Sheep Bank 700,000.
Professor
Goldstein writes, 'Tibetan nomads (and most Mongol nomads also)
make two or three main moves a year. They do not move far (perhaps
a day or at most two in this area) because they are not moving
from the mountains to the lowlands where there continues to
be fresh grass. In Tibet, by mid-September the growing season
ends and for the next eight months the nomads' animals survive
on senescent grass. Thus the strategy is basically to move from
the summer grazing areas to a fall-early winter grazing area
that has not been used that year yet, and stay there until December
or so, and them move back to their winter quarters which is
usually the same general area as the summer. In between, often
they send out satellite tents with special animals, e.g., yaks
in winter go higher to a new camp in winter, and when sheep
and goats give birth in spring they move them to a special site
setting up a satellite tent'.
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I
was reading about your sheep bank project, and I don't understand.
What's the incentive of farmers to pay back the young ewes? He's
already gotten the original set of ewes (so it's not that he's
missing out on anything by not repaying), and presumably the young
ewes have some economic value (so it's costly for him to give
them up).
Professor
Goldstein writes, 'As to why families will pay back our loan that
is difficult to say. That is why this is a trial. First, like
any lending agency we chose poor families that have the capacity
to improve, i.e., that have labor in their household and have
household heads who are good people who want to improve their
lives. There are other families who consist of only one person
and are somewhat undisciplined that we chose not to assist since
we did not think they could mange the resources. They were a bad
loan risk. The hope is that families will do well and pay back
due to the pressure of the local officials and other relatives
and neighbors who might benefit by the bank in the future. It
is possible that the local government could simply confiscate
the owed animals but I doubt they would do that. However, I think
that if households do well we have an excellent chance of getting
a high degree of payback. We will monitor this yearly and do followup
interview work as needed to study the process.
'Finally,
I think that in Tibet micro-loan programs based on the Grameen
Bank have been 1. subsidized in the sense that there is a heavy
overhead cost used to set up local workers to help borrowers
and collect payments (literally this starts from month 1). Thus,
these are not self-sustaining at all. The measure of success
in Tibet has basically been the % of payback, not the ability
of the loan to change the livelihood of the recipient. (This
is what I generally understand, and there may be exceptions.)
My thoughts in setting up the revolving fund, therefore, was
to do something different, i.e., to really have an impact on
the lives of people by providing them something that really
gives them a chance to succeed. I wish we could have had more
families last year since in all endeavors there are random/
luck factors that may lead some to not succeed, so having more
households in the trial gives us a better ability to test the
idea.'
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Has
anyone looked into the environmental effects of sheep grazing
on the Tibetan plateau? It's my impression that they can have
rather serious environmental consequences, though I'm definitely
no expert. Why not yaks?
Professor
Melvyn C. Goldstein writes, 'This is an area where there is an
excess of pasture so overgrazing is not a problem. As to why not
yak, in this area the vegetation yak prefer is scarce so only
about 10% of herds are yak. Sheep/goats are the main economic
engine since they do well and provide needed commodities. In Tibetan
nomad areas more toward the east, the vegetation changes somewhat
and the proportion of yak increase.'
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Aren't
wealthy nomads worried about competition for resources if they
sell sheep to poor nomads?
Professor
Goldstein writes, 'The richer nomads all have to sell some animals
normally and we paid a good price so they did well. You must remember
that in this region, nomad households have limits on the number
of animals they can have based on their herd size in 1996..they
will be able to increase their herd size. Social welfare and poverty
alleviation are strong social motives there and there is an excess
of grassland.'
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