Solving food insecurity
Can be Deployed in Developed and Developing Countries
YOUNGSTOWN, OH, UNITED STATES, September 26, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — Sustainable Communities Corporation (SCC) has announced a breakthrough economic development program that has the potential to effectively eliminate food insecurity (United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #2), as well as help solve many of the UN’s 17 other SDGs.
To demonstrate the viability of the concept in both developed and developing countries, the program is being launched simultaneously in Youngstown, Ohio, a city known as the birthplace of the Rust Belt in the U.S., and Ososo Kingdom in Nigeria, a country with one of the highest percentages of its population living in extreme poverty.
According to SCC advisor Dr. JoAnn Rolle, the program is “A significant economic development program and has great potential when fully executed.” Dr. Rolle has a Ph.D. in economics and is the former Dean of the School of Business at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. She was president of the National HBCU Business Deans Roundtable and is a consultant on workforce development for corporations, non-profits, educational institutions, entrepreneurs and more. Her focus has been on poverty reduction in marginalized communities.
“I have been actively involved in development activities both in the United States and in Africa,” said Rolle. “SCC’s program in Nigeria can be a model for Africa and the rest of the developing world.”
SCC advisor Dr. Fadhel Kaboub said of the program, “I think it has great potential to address many of the intractable problems facing the world today. And more importantly, it does so from a bottom up rather than top-down approach, where people are empowered to address their own needs.” Dr. Kaboub focuses on economic and monetary sovereignty, particularly in relation to job creation, sustainability, and green industrialization. Dr. Kaboub is president of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, a member of the Independent Expert Group for Just Transition and Development, and serves as senior advisor with Power Shift Africa.
SCC calls its program the Sustainable Communities Framework (SCF). An economic development non-profit, SCC discovered times and places in history when local economies were extraordinarily prosperous (see examples), in some cases more so than most places in the world today. The primary commonality was that those local communities issued their own money (in contrast to national currencies like the dollar and euro). SCC subsequently built a complete new digital economic development ecosystem around the core principle that “we the people” can issue our own money (called complementary currencies) to fund economic development.
“The system gives people the tools to take charge of their own prosperity and grow their own economies, without begging and competing with each other for scarce government support or waiting for others to provide them the resources needed to solve major problems,” said SCC chairman Michael Sauvante.
While SCC’s program is new, complementary currencies themselves are not. In its article Private Money in our Past, Present, and Future published by the Cleveland Federal Reserve, the FED acknowledged the validity of complementary currencies and provided several historical implementations. “The government isn’t the only entity allowed to issue money,” it said. “Private citizens and businesses can too, and throughout U.S. history, they often have.”
To demonstrate the viability of the concept in the developing world, SCC entered into a comprehensive development agreement with the King of Ososo, Nigeria, HRM Oba (King) Bamidele Obaitan, to deploy the SCF in his Kingdom. SCC’s pilot program underway in Nigeria commenced with a food grant program for all adults and children in Ososo. The grant provides beneficiaries sufficient money to purchase two full meals a day.
“For far too long the people of Nigeria have looked to and depended on government leadership, that unfortunately, cares little about their basic needs and amenities,” said Obaitan. “What I find very appealing is the “We the People” concept embraced by the SCC organization [see below]. It epitomizes my belief that power comes from and should belong to the people. This partnership with SCF is the framework needed to give power back to the people and assist them to free themselves from the plight of poverty that is pervasive throughout our land.”
The program will never run out of money, as it does not come from a government or from donors, who always have limits to the amount of funds they can provide. And SCC has a raft of additional programs ready to launch in Ososo, according to Sauvante.
The organization is simultaneously demonstrating its concept in the United States, beginning in Youngstown, Ohio. Many social, environmental, and economic programs that can be funded in this manner, thereby addressing a good number of the problems that are left unaddressed in the current economic paradigm.
To promote this concept widely, SCC has established a website called We the People Campaign (see below) that details how citizens everywhere can control their own economic destinies and provides instructions on how to do it. That includes the option of developing their own program, using the guidelines provided by SCC, or by teaming with SCC and using its turnkey system, allowing virtually immediate implementation.
The SCF program in both the U.S. and in Nigeria includes a digital complementary currency bank that will issue a local currency in each U.S. and Nigerian state. There is also an online marketplace that resembles a combination of Craigslist and eBay, where users can buy and sell goods and services using the complementary currency. The marketplace can be used by businesses in the formal economy as well as by individuals in the informal economy (people to people). SCC has special programs for college students, teachers, for-profit small businesses, and non-profit organizations, each with their own benefits and incentives.
Other SCC Programs
In recognition that sustainability for the planet requires a transition to renewable energy, SCC has established Wisconsin Battery Company (WinBat), the first of several subsidiaries in the renewable energy space.
WinBat, a benefit corporation, is an energy storage company developing advanced battery technologies. The company’s flagship technologies use carbon made from hemp, a plant that can be grown almost anywhere, as well as the abundant and more eco-friendly zinc. WinBat aims to significantly reduce the prevalence of lithium, a chemically unstable, rare, and environmentally damaging metal, and to lead the industry to a cleaner, safer, more energy-efficient future. The company is currently focused primarily on worldwide sales of industrial batteries and batteries for defense applications, including high-performance drone batteries for Ukraine.
To support the energy transition in Africa, SCC has formed NrG Company Nigeria Ltd (NrGCo). In addition to producing and selling batteries developed by WinBat, NrGCo will also produce small electric vehicles (like the three-and four-wheel “tuk-tuks” found throughout the developing world). NrGCo will also design and build micro-grid and full-scale solar generation systems, along with a variety of products that go along with electricity generation.
Getting Involved
SCC, WinBat and NrGCo are seeking joint venture partners and/or donors who would like to support these developments.
Interested parties can visit the We the People Campaign website and choose to get involved by a) helping to launch the program in their region, as well as b) supporting those efforts through joint venture opportunities, donations and/or currency purchases.
To learn more about the SCF and the We the People Campaign, visit https://wethepeoplecampaign.net/ and https://scf.green/media
Vari MacNeil
Sustainable Communities Corporation
+1 310-403-2394
vari@scf.green
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