Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF) was chosen by Crédit Coopératif to receive the second Solidarity Quota (QPS), applied to its most-recent bond issue. QPS is an innovative mechanism for solidarity-based financing, whereby the rate is fixed at 0.02% of the amount borrowed. The mechanism, which was created by Crédit Coopératif in 2010, is intended to promote development. In this case, 10,000 euros, or 0.02% of the 50 million euros borrowed, will be allocated to support AVSF’s activity in Mongolia. AVSF’s objective is to develop alternative economic resources in developing countries, while also providing professional expertise in terms of farming, livestock raising, and animal health.
Crédit Coopératif has implemented this operation within the framework of a broader ambition: to create and implement innovative solidarity-based financing. With this in mind, the bank has developed a line of solidarity-based products (a savings account where a portion of the interest earned goes to support an organization, a bank card where a donation is made to an organization each time a transaction is made, a solidarity-based investment fund, etc.) for its clients. Crédit Coopératif also thinks up mechanisms for financing solidarity-based initiatives by channeling funds from its own activities. For instance, the bank has developed a system for making donations to partner associations through the Carte Agir bank card. This system has since been expanded to include foreign-exchange transactions (CVTC, which is the French acronym for the ”Voluntary Contribution on Foreign Exchange Transactions”) and bond issues (QPS).
The QPS will be used to support AVSF’s project for developing the business of the first Mongolian cooperative to export yak fiber
In 2010, a group of 70 nomadic livestock farmers in the Khangai mountains founded the Ar Arvidjin Delgerekh Cooperative, the first cooperative to export yak fiber. By supporting the Ar Arvidjin Delgerekh Cooperative, AVSF is continuing its engagement to help structure innovative supply chains and communicate the value of these supply chains and the role they play in the socio-economic development of smallholder communities. This project is part of a broader objective to develop alternative economic resources for the sake of promoting social responsibility and fairness. AVSF is helping to ensure the continuity of nomadic livestock farming in Mongolia by training the livestock farmers in basic veterinarian skills and natural-resource management, and by helping them add value to their livestock-farming products and market those products as well. AVSF makes a point of putting in place methods of governance that are in line with the principles of fair trade.
AVSF, an officially recognized French non-profit association, has been assisting smallholder communities in developing countries in their food-production activities for the past 35 years. The association provides them with professional skills in farming, livestock raising, and animal health: technical support, financial support, training, access to markets, etc.
Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières carries out more than 90 cooperation programs in 20 different countries in Central and South America, Asia, and Africa. Through these programs, AVSF works alongside smallholder societies that depend upon crop and livestock farming in order to ensure their food security as well as the economic and social development of their community.
Crédit Coopératif is a cooperative bank that serves actors who are working to ensure a more ethical economy. The bank strives to assist in the development of legal entities within the social-economy movement: cooperatives and company groups, associations, mutuals, and more generally, all organizations working for the general good. Crédit Coopératif also has a growing base of retail customers, who are attracted by the bank’s vision.
Crédit Coopératif is a national cooperative bank and is present in every region of France, with a network of more than 70 branches.
http://www.credit-cooperatif.coop/
Contact: Crédit Coopératif Claude Sevaistre 01 47 24 89 71 / 06 16 36 16 47
Contact: AVSF Christophe Lebel 01 43 94 73 48
