Senate Committee Nods Approval for Increased Funding for Key CU Development Program
Washington, D.C. - Before
adjourning for the Fourth of July recess, the
Senate Appropriations Committee gave a major
funding boost to a program of the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) that supports
international economic development through eight
U.S.-based cooperative development organizations,
including World Council of Credit Unions,
Inc. (WOCCU).
Acting on the appropriations bill passed by
the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, the full
Senate
Appropriations Committee approved funding for the
Cooperative Development Program (CDP) at the
level of $10 million. The appropriation still
requires approval on the Senate floor, as well as
to make it through the House and Senate
conference intact.
Until now, the CDP has been funded at the
discretion of USAID. Congress has shown support
for the program in the past by requesting that
USAID adequately fund CDP; their most recent show
of support was a bi-partisan letter to the USAID
administrator requesting a funding level of $8
million for fiscal year 2004. The program
received less than $5 million in 2004.
WOCCU's current CDP is a $3.7 million award
that began in 2004 and will continue through 2009.
With the CDP, WOCCU is able to "refine approaches
and develop methodologies to support global
credit union development. Through the
Cooperative Development Program, we are
supporting the establishment of credit unions
from the ground up in Afghanistan, training
credit union volunteers in Ecuador, and adapting
credit union products to the HIV/AIDS environment
in Kenya - but CDP is bigger than even those
significant activities. CDP allows WOCCU to
continue to provide credit union movements around
the world with innovative tools to improve the
lives of their members," said WOCCU governmental
affairs manager Molly Schar.
WOCCU worked closely with CUNA and a number of
state credit union leagues to activate grassroots
support for the earmark. "Members of Congress
hearing from their own constituents how important
this program is to international credit union
development - how important it is to improving the
lives of people in developing countries through
the credit union difference - helped us make this
great stride toward achieving increased funding
for USAID's Cooperative Development Program,"
said Schar.
Schar and CUNA's Katie Herberger co-chair the
legislative committee of the Overseas Cooperative
Development Council, a coalition of the eight
cooperative development organizations -
Americas
Association of Cooperative and Mutual Insurance
Societies, ACDI/VOCA, CHF International, Land
O'Lakes, NRECA International, Ltd., National
Telecommunications Cooperative Association and
WOCCU - that receive funding through the CDP.
El Consejo Mundial de Cooperativas de Ahorro y Crédito es la asociación gremial y agencia de desarrollo para el sistema internacional de cooperativas de ahorro y crédito. El Consejo Mundial promueve el crecimiento sustentable de las cooperativas de ahorro y crédito y otras cooperativas financieras en todo el mundo a fin de facultar a las personas para que mejoren su calidad de vida a través del acceso a servicios financieros asequibles y de alta calidad. El Consejo Mundial realiza esfuerzos de defensa activa en representación del sistema global de las cooperativas de ahorro y crédito ante organizaciones internacionales y trabaja con gobiernos nacionales para mejorar la legislación y la regulación. Sus programas de asistencia técnica introducen nuevas herramientas y tecnologías para fortalecer el desempeño financiero de las cooperativas de ahorro y crédito y profundizar su alcance comunitario.
El Consejo Mundial ha implementado 290 programas de asistencia técnica en 71 países. A nivel mundial, 51,000 cooperativas de ahorro y crédito en 100 países atienden a 196 millones de personas. Obtenga más información sobre el impacto global del Consejo Mundial en www.woccu.org.
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