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THE WORLD WON’T BECOME A MORE EQUAL PLACE UNLESS WE CREATE IT

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“The future needs women’s jobs with green Technologies”

One long-standing interest of India’s Development Alternatives Group has been TARA. This initiative ensures that livelihood support services are provided to marginalised people including vocational training. Success also requires a few basic things such as a small solar energy reading light so that people can study in the evenings.

Young Illiterate Women 15 to 25 years old. Country area proportionate to number

Development Alternatives’ founder Ashok Khosla has highlighted the positive consequences of tackling female illiteracy in rural India. Being able to read is a critical step to a quality job. In 1988 a ‘TARA’ all-women paper recycling business producing hand-made paper had 25 women workers between 23-35 years old. In 2009, 23 of those women still worked there. Between 1988 and 2009 the paper-producers had two additional children. On average, twenty-three additional births would have been expected of rural Indian women with the same demographic.

Noting that this was not a forced choice for the ‘TARA’ women and their families, this has major implications for the future pressure on resources arising from that reduction in births. To illustrate one aspect, Ashok estimates the combined package of education and enterprise creation would have cost between $4 and $10 per ton of carbon (CO2eq) emissions saved. These costs substantially undercut traditional thinking about abatement costs including Carbon Capture for fossil fuel electricity, energy efficiency and afforestation.

TARA and the wider Development Alternatives Group supports far more than female empowerment, but this small insight makes a powerful point for strengthening economies by building True Value costs and benefits for primary education, vocational training, women’s income and green technologies into business practices.

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Upgrading Fair Trade to True Value

Financial Inclusion

A Golden Share (51%+) of Cleo Organics profits from retail sales outside Africa are reinvested back into Africa for clean energy processing centres with no health problems and to re-plant natural parkland. Women’s groups are 10% shareholders thus increasing their income by 10 fold for healthcare plans and education.

Nourishing Young Minds

Delicias de Alicia Buenos Aires holds free interactive cooking and nutrition workshops for children from low income communities financed by its catering and restaurant business. ‘Delicias’ has therefore created new financing mechanisms for education and preventative health care from a balanced diet.