Welcome to oneVillage Foundation

Vision
We envision a global economic system that is highly integrated and makes effective use of ICT. The emphasis is on the development of local empowerment programs which encourage the development of a strong local self-identity combined with a global consciousness in relation to human as well as ecological cosiderations.

Current Reality and Challenges
Critique of Conventional Approach to Development - Free Markets, can be shown, under certain assumptions, to be the most efficient and fair method of setting uniform prices, making the best use of resources and encouraging economic growth. One of those assumptions is that every participant in the market has perfect information about everybody else in the market, and about everything offered for sale. Without that assumption, as economist Joseph Stiglitz points out, none of the advantages follow.

Those countries not in the information economy do not get world prices for their labor, agricultural produce, or other goods and services. The economies of these countries are notoriously inefficient, and even corrupt. Resources are allocated extremely poorly, and most are greatly underused, while natural resources that can be extracted and sold by international corporations are greatly overused. The corporations get the world price, and the country getting very little. The local population not only fails to receive money for the resources in their lands, but often has negative economic results from resource extraction, including environmental degradation, disruption of their society and traditional economy, and other problems.

Wealth Inequality a Threat to Global Peace - The UNDP Human Development Report, 15% of the world most affluent people consume 85% of the world's resources and that inequality is growing. Whether income inequality under globalization is increasing or decreasing is debated. Regardless it is clear that significant challenges remain in getting low income regions to the point where they sustain their people's basic needs. Most low-income countries as they have gone further into debt they have never developed effective economic strategies to pay back the money that is their economies never became percieved as stable enough by financial markets business people and investors to "take off" into a high enough level of sustainable economic growth to cover population increases and propel these economies into the age of mass consumption as Walter Rostow put it.. Unfortunately an unintentional byproduct of conventional development economics was to force a crisis in the political apparatus of many of these countries. Given this situation the usual response was to sell off natural capital to pay off debts.

Digital Divide - As the impact of technology has become more obvious to many the issue of a Digital Divide between between haves and havenots became seens as a larger issue. The ICT for development has grown with people lead Allen Hammond of WRI and CK Prahalad leading the way. In countries like telecommunications has take off with the number of cells going from under a million to almost five million in five years. However the SANGONeT report on the Status of the Internet in Africa notes that "the differences between the development levels of Africa and the rest of the world are much wider in this area than they are using more traditional measures of development." According to the Digital Dividend:

	Manhattan has more phones than sub-Saharan Africa
	More internet accounts in London than all of Africa
	80% of the world's population has never made a phone call.
	Developed world one radio station per 30 thousand as compared to one per every 2 million in the developing world
	The net connects 100 million computers, but represents less than 2% of the world's population

The Human Development Report for 2003 shows that in many countries women, the rural poor and ethnic minorities do not get their fair share of increased social spending. Data shows patterns of discrimination in terms of access to education, healthcare, safe water and sanitation. In a majority of the countries in the developing world with reliable statistics charting health standards in rural as well as urban areas, progress towards the reduction of child mortality rates has been notably lower in the countryside than in cities.

Approach
Those regions of the world that have been most successful have relied on a self-help approach. Other common attributes have been a strong sense of community and collective self-identity that allow people to discipline themselves to promote sacrifice and frugality so that savings rates remained high and investments were effectively allocated towards meaning investments that actually stimulated rapid economic development rather than conspicuous consumption of frivolous goods.

We feel it is necessary to nvolve all segments of society in the policymaking process and debate is essential. In order to ensure global stability a more equitable distribution of the benefits of growth in the global economy is necessary. Therefore to adequately address the income and the corresponding digital divide we find it is vital to buttress the WB’s objectives. We propose a framework more realistically to changes and challenges of the 21st century that:

Through the oneVillage Initiative we link grassroots oriented programs together developing an global approach that effectively promotes best practices. The of our integrated approach is to link education, with training consulting, networking and financial assistance together so that OVF and its family of partners and affilaited organizations can provide one-stop shopping towards ecoliving solutions for bottom up economies. The potential for growth is immense as disruptive technologies like open source SW, alternative energy, wireless and agricultural systems that integrate waste recovery and collection with energy and agricultural productiion.

Basic empowerment of the village economy creates wealth and credit that allows the village to purchase a variety of tools and equipment to leverage further growth, including more computers, and perhaps more bandwidth from the Internet into the village. The village school can be fully equipped, and used as a community center in the evenings.

With the right approach, the village economy could be a driver in moving more affluent regions towards sustainability. Careful consideration of the most effective strategy for integrating the below mentioned appropriate technologies and best practices is vital:

	Workstations for synchronous telecooperation
	Electronic meeting and virtual participation rooms
	Solar, biomass, hydroponic technologies
	Modular building materials for lightweight building
	Toolmachines to realize open designs in all kind of materials

Human and economic capital will focus not just on sustainability but also on developing export services to peripheral regions that add to the core values. These services will be a significant form of foreign exchange for sustainable communities. However, they will be secondary in priority to the core economy, which revolve around valued added goods produced from natural resources managed at the local level. The economic pump of the Unity Center restorative economy will involve the production of necessities like food, water and building materials as well as from consulting, education and tourism.

Objectives

	Generate global interest in transferring technology
	Develop and deploy products, services, training methods and communications systems that facilitate sustainable development on a global scale.
	Increase technology access to the emerging markets
	Promote triple bottom line sustainability that empowers grassroots economic development through an integrated whole systems approach