Costa Rica Travel and Vacation

We all know the story about The Great Race between the Turtle and the Hare. The Hare is a shoe-in as the winner before the race even starts yet the Turtle agrees to a seemingly unfair match. What kind of race are you in? Hares are like flips. You let your guard down, take a little rest and the next thing you know, the race is still on and you’re left eating Turtle dust. Turtles are like long term holds. The Turtle just plods along: slow and steady; uneventful; boring, even. This makes Real Estate the perfect Turtle win. It is my belief that only long term real estate investments are the perfect vehicle for creating passive income and true financial freedom. Remember: the Turtle always wins. So why is it that few people employ Turtle methodology? It comes down to mapping out your plan and sticking to your plan no matter what. Hares come and go. They’re off chasing the next deal. There is an element of speculation and high risk when you’re playing their game and the pay-off can be very lucrative. It can be very tempting to wander off the path towards that vacation property in Costa Rica or Panama; the pre-sale development that’s sure to double in price before it’s finished. The downside to this strategy is the lump sum cash and capital gains. Plus there’s no ongoing passive income. Once the deal is done, Hares are off looking for the next race because eventually their cash runs out. Excitement of this nature is seductive. It’s like gambling. You’re going from one high to the next and eventually it’ll crash. It’s called the real estate cycle and is generally between 7 to 10 years long. Real estate is a race that requires patience. And like all races, there is a strategy you need to formulate before you begin. There are seven profit centers of real estate that allow you to use leverage to multiply your return. Consider these strategies to leverage your money:? Buy Equity Day One o (always buy under appraised value so that when you take possession of your investment you have an instant gain on your net worth statement)? Leverage – Front End o (use other people’s money for the down payment and closing costs to leverage your return on investment)? Appreciation o (properties generally go up in value an average of 3% per year and this increase is reflected in your net worth statement at market value)? Principle Reduction o (tenants are paying your mortgage and this equates to approximately 3% to 5% per year and this decrease is reflected in the liability section of your net worth statement)? Positive Cash Flow o (this is the continuous flow of money over and above expenses and debt service that is deposited into your account every month just like a pay cheque)? Tax Benefits o (you can defer paying taxes through depreciation on building and chattels but the only drawback to this strategy is recapture of these monies upon the sale of the property, if you ever plan to sell)? Leverage – Back End o (invest the equity in your property into other investments and make your interest payments tax deductible)Although physically inferior to Hare in the speed category, Turtle’s mental game kept him in the race. Use these passive income strategies to set yourself up for long term success. See you at the finish line.

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2. 0   CONCERNS ABOUT POVERTY
 As we got ready to complete the first half of the decade of the 1990s, growing concerns about poverty stood out in political agendas all over the industrialized and the developing worlds including Zambia.
 
The stubbornness of poverty, even in the richest of nations, is being met with increasing impatience, and governments of diverse ideological persuasions are trying to do something about it, while donors and other international agencies have been rushed into offering their support to these efforts. This has even been hastened by the deepening global financial and economic crisis that is sweeping the entire globe.
 
 But, from good intentions to actual successful remedies there is a long way. Thus, both conceptualizers and practitioners are once again looking for operational approaches to deal with poverty. And so, the old question of credit extension re-emerges which hinges on financial inclusion.   Financial inclusion plays a critical role in reducing poverty. But with this financial crisis blowing across the globe is financial inclusion possible?
 
Cross sectional data have shown that people with access to credit have less incidence of poverty. As we well know, the extent to which the reduction of poverty and/or the alleviation of its consequences has been a public policy issue which has differed significantly across countries and over time. In Zambia, for example, poverty was at the top of the nation’s agenda during the preparation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper which saw the country qualify to Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative program steered by the International Monetary Fund. One of the key issues considered in this paper was access to credit.
  
Further, in the early 1980s, not only was poverty merely one of several explicit policy concerns, but many chose instead to highlight the counterproductive nature and high fiscal costs of some of the poverty alleviation programs that had been adopted earlier.
 
More recently, as we move into the 1990s, public attention has focused again on the potential role of both government and of the publicly-supported non-government organizations (NGOs) in directly alleviating the continuing plight of the poor.
 
Three decades ago, as new programs were being introduced and old programs were being
expanded, an optimistic view prevailed. The belief was that if stable economic growth could be maintained, government actions could actually solve the poverty problem if only sufficient resources were devoted to the task (Danziger and Weinberg).
 
It is against this backdrop that some countries have come up with a deliberate vision of promoting sustainable financial service providers to the unbanked nationals with emphasis on the provisions of low interest rates.
 
3. 0    FINANCIAL INCLUSION AND POVERTY
 
In the letter of transmittal of the 1964 Economic Report of the President, President Johnson announced: “We know what must be done and this Nation of Abundance can surely afford to do it” (Johnson). Soon optimism was followed, however, by a diminishing faith in the government’s ability to solve any problem (Aaron) and by strong arguments that social problems cannot be solved by “throwing money at them. ” This is one of the perceptions that led to promotion of the private sector, but with the recent economic crisis, we have seen the USA Government increasingly taking up its role that was negated to the private sector.
 
 Despite this skepticism, in the 1990s the pendulum of public opinion has been swinging
back and new initiatives to address the challenge of poverty are being proposed. In general, among these recent initiatives, specialized credit programs for the poor are
becoming increasingly popular (Jordan; Minsky et al. ). As many believe that a more effective design of the poverty alleviation programs would prevent their earlier shortcomings, it becomes critical to identify lessons learned from earlier experiments. What do we know about more effective program designs? As experience accumulates on the performance of credit (and of  Income from a country, Costa Rica, where these objectives of renewed growth with improved social conditions are being achieved quite successfully, and thus we are optimists about well-designed structural adjustment programs). Hence the need to encourage microfinance institutions so that many people will have access to credit any time they need so. This is how financial inclusion can be promoted in poor countries.
 
 There are legal requirements that a financial service provider needs to adhere to before a license is granted to an institution. However it is the deliberate policy of most central banks to relax some of these legal requirements so as to maximize the numbers of the players in the market, especially those whose operational objectives is to serve the unbanked. In this case, this will positively affect one the fundamentals of economics, demand and supply. Once there are more financial service providers, this will subsequently increase competition, leading to fall in interest rates, the price of money.
 
Further there is need to come up with other programs explicitly designed to assist the poor, in this regard there is need to take stock of all antipoverty policies that have worked and which have not. We need complimentary policies that will support on the promotion of financial inclusion. The Government should come in and come up with fiscal policies that will lessen the hurdles that applicants in financial service face. The tax regime should be favorable to all players in the market whose objective is to serve the poor people. In this case, in addition to encouraging formal financial service providers, the country will promote informal players as well.
 
 A substantial abode of experience (positive and negative) on credit programs for the poor has been accumulated in low income countries. Many of the lessons learned are relevant for any country wishing to pursue this deliberate policy. The evolution of public policy has not been different in other developing nations, where poverty is so conspicuous. Leaving behind the “basic needs” paradigm of the 1970s, for most of the developing world in the 1980s were a “decade of structural adjustment,” dominated by stabilization efforts designed to bring national expenditure in line with national income (or output) as well as by attempts to increase national income, through policy reforms that have promoted a more efficient use of resources (Grootaert and Kanbur).
 
There is a strong professional consensus that these adjustment programs of the 1980s were successful in moving many countries toward internal and external macroeconomic balance. With the attainment of this objective we need to avail all the credit resources that the poor desperate need. The debate is intense, however, about whether these objectives could have been achieved “while better protecting the poor and providing the basis to incorporate them in the growth process. ” However, let it be emphasized that, this is not the place to solve this issue. To begin with, establishing causality between specific policies and the evolution of the standards of living of different socio-economic groups is a particularly difficult exercise. This is also the case, of course, of attempts to establish the impact of credit programs on final beneficiaries (Rhyne). In the case of structural adjustment efforts, in any case, the outcome depends strongly on the initial conditions and on the types of policies adopted.
 
In any case, regardless of whether the observed poverty outcomes of the 1980s stemmed
from past policies which militated against growth or from the adjustment policies that inevitably followed as the earlier strategies failed (Morley), there is no doubt that both low-income country governments and international donors have been increasingly concerned with poverty alleviation.
 
There are two dimensions to this preoccupation.
 
A first type of concern relates to the need to achieve growth with equity over the long term. This requires policies and programs that foster the participation of the poor in the process of economic growth, by creating employment opportunities and by increasing their access to income-generating assets; and by raising the productivity of their assets, both physical and human (Grootaert and Kanbur). We believe that, if efficiently provided, financial services may play an important role in this task of incorporating (some of) the poor to processes of economic growth in most poor countries.
 
A second type of concern relates to the need to mitigate the transitional cost of adjustment for the most vulnerable groups of society. We believe formal financial services can play a very limited role in this effort, if any. Other fiscal mechanisms provide a more cost-effective approach to assist those unfortunate who have no productive opportunities and, therefore, no debt capacity. The use of credit in this case carries an excessive social cost and is easily counterproductive, as one would not want to burden the unviable with additional debt they cannot repay (Adams). In dealing with these (poverty) issues it is always difficult to bridge the gap between moral obligations, calling for private and public charity, on the one hand, and the economic requirements that could improve the lot of the poor, on the other (Schultz). It appears, nevertheless, that financial services can have a sustainable economic role only in the second case. In this case it is our desire that to encourage more players in informal financial services, any country and regulating authorities need to relax some requirements on governance and prudential issues when the opportunities for improvement do exist. To understand why this is the case, one needs to appreciate the nature of finance and the importance of its economic contributions as far as economic development, particularly poverty reduction is concerned.
 
4. 0   FUNCTIONS OF FINANCE
 The financial system is a key component of the institutional infrastructure that is required
for the efficient operation of all markets. The most important contribution of the financial system is its ability to induce a larger size and foster a greater degree of integration of the markets for provision of goods and services, factors of production, and other assets. This expansion of markets is a precondition for powerful processes of division of labor and specialization, greater competition, the use of modern technologies, and the exploitation of economies of scale and of economies of scope. As already noted by Adam Smith, these are the processes that increase the productivity of available resources and lead to economic growth. With economic growth there are multiplier effects that spill off to poverty reduction.
 
The expansion and integration of markets is achieved through the provision of monetization services and the efficient management of the payments system, the development of services of intermediation between surplus and deficit economics agents, and the establishment of opportunities for the accumulation of stores of value, the management of liquidity, and the transformation, sharing, pooling, and diversification of risk (Long). Particularly important are the services of financial intermediation, which transfer purchasing power from agents with resources in excess of those needed to take advantage of their own (internal) opportunities (surplus agents, such as savers), to those with better opportunities but not enough resources of their own (deficit agents, such as investors). This is critical for financial inclusiveness. By making this division of labor between savers and investors possible, financial intermediaries channel resources from producers, activities, and regions with a limited growth potential to those where a more rapid expansion of output is possible.
 
Since there always are more economic agents who claim that they have superior uses for
resources than there is purchasing power available, financial markets must contribute to the selection of the best possible uses of resources. These markets can also offer monitoring services, ensuring that funds are profitably used, as promised, and they can contribute to the enforcement of contracts, making sure that those who have borrowed repay the loans (Stiglitz).  This is where regulators such as central banks come into play. After all, finance is about promises to pay in the future that are expected to be fulfilled. If this is not handled properly the consequences are disastrous, like the current economic crisis that has its roots in poor regulation of the financial sector. The conditions of such repayment influence, in turn, who bears what risks.
 
 We cannot sufficiently emphasize the extent to which the efficient provision of financial services is extremely critical for the operation of the economy at large. Because financial markets essentially influence the allocation of resources, Stiglitz has compared them to the “brain” of the entire economic system, the central locus of decision making: if they fail. . . the performance of the entire economic system may be impaired. Why this is the case is a complex question, but if it is indeed so, there is clearly a major social interest at stake here. Most governments have recognized this and many have gone to extremes in order to prevent a collapse of their financial systems. Frequently, however, while recognizing but (mis)understanding their powers, governments have intervened in financial markets, in the pursuit of a varied range of worthy nonfinancial objectives, but with negative consequences. We need to think through as regulators therefore to mitigate this competing needs of positive and negative consequences when coming up with financial inclusion vision.
 
5. 0   FINANCE AND POVERTY: LESSONS FROM THE PAST
 A good number of the initiatives to directly assist the poor with financial services (may)
fall under this category of unsuccessful interventions. In considering such interventions,
moreover, a key question to address is their potential cost in terms of the reduced efficiency of the financial system at large. This is a cost that it might be worth enduring, if the expected benefits were sufficiently large. Unfortunately, this is typically not the case, given the very nature of financial markets.
 
According to Gonzalez-Vega this is one of the most important lessons learned from earlier attempts to use formal financial markets to ostensibly promote particular activities, to compensate producers for other repressive policies, to free them from the grip of moneylenders, or to redistribute income towards the poor (Gonzalez-Vega 1993). The subsidized interest rates and administrative loan allocations through targeted credit programs, used for these purposes, did not displace informal sources of financial services and hardly promoted anything. They only redistributed income, but in reverse, from poor to rich (Gonzalez-Vega 1984). So, despite the best of intentions, they frequently turned out to be harmful for the particular segments of the population (marginal clientele) they had been set out to help. As a country, therefore we need a concise visionary action to avoid redistribution of income from the poor to the rich. This is common where commercial lenders with the high pegged interest rates are targeting the poor exploitatively.
 
These outcomes are well known and have been extensively documented for dozens of
countries (Adams et al. ). Too much effort was spent in small farmer credit programs, for
example, to obtain meager results. The primary objective of increasing the farmers’ access to formal credit was poorly met and a reduction in the cost of borrowing was achieved only for a few larger borrowers in most poor countries. Despite artificially low interest rates, formal credit did not become cheap for small rural producers and most credit portfolios became concentrated in a few hands.  Even in stagnant economies, nevertheless, finance plays a role in consumption smoothing. This role is frequently performed well by informal financial arrangements (Udry).
 
More importantly, these government-sponsored credit programs distracted attention from technological innovation, infrastructure development, and human capital formation, which directly increase the productivity of resources. Finance, instead, can only contribute to this goal indirectly, by making it possible for some to take advantage of the opportunities created by those other growth-inducing processes. In the absence of such opportunities, however, there is only a limited role for finance to play.
 
There is an increasing body of evidence confirming that economic growth and reductions
in poverty go hand in hand. Clearly, a substantial improvement in living standards requires economic growth (Biggs et al. ). Further, securing full participation of the poor in such process is a long-term effort and it involves improving their employability, expanding the educational opportunities for their children, improving the performance of labor markets, creating a hospitable environment for their productive activities and much more. An efficient provision of the financial services that they demand is part (but only a part) of all of this process.
 
So, to the question “Can financial services be used to assist the poor in improving their
lot?” the answer is “only when finance is allowed to do what finance is supposed to do. ”
 
That is, only when:
 
(a)        finance allows a transfer of purchasing power from uses with low to uses with high marginal rates of return;
(b)        finance contributes to more efficient inter-temporal decisions about saving, the
accumulation of assets, and investment;
(c)        finance makes possible a less costly management of liquidity and accumulation of stores of value; and
(d)        finance offers better ways to deal with the risks implicit in economic activities.
 
Otherwise, financial interventions (such as the early subsidized and targeted credit
programs) are a weak instrument to achieve different, non-financial objectives and frequently lead to unexpectedly negative outcomes (Gonzalez-Vega, 1994). This section can be summarized with the proposition that many ingredients are needed for the poor to come out of poverty and that credit is only one of them. Credit is an important ingredient, but it is not even the most important one. Financial services play the key role of facilitating the work of growth-promoting forces, but only when the opportunities exist. In this case the poor also need saving facilities as it is one of the most important ways of storing their value. Therefore poor countries should encourage deposit taking MFIs for this objective to be fully met.
 
6. 0   LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT LOANS AND DEPOSITS
 
As alluded to above, a second important lesson learned from accumulated experience is that, among financial services, credit is not the only one that is important for the poor. In particular, deposit facilities provide valuable services for liquidity management and for the accumulation of stores of value by poor firm-households. Researchers are always surprised by the intensity of the demand for deposit facilities in the rural areas of very poor countries (Gonzalez-Vega et al. ). According Robinson, to satisfaction of this demand has been a distinctive feature of programs that have been successful in delivering financial services to the poor (Robinson). An outstanding example is the unit desa program of the Bank Rakyat Indonesia, with over 12,000,000 small depositors for only over 2,000,000 small borrowers (Patten and Rosengard). Thus, while not all producers demand loans and, among those in need the majority needs saving facilities. Among others, we need to emphasize the importance of payments services, particularly for remittances and other money transfers In this regard financial inclusion will be approached in a holistic manner. We fully agree that a payments service is another important service for the poor. Therefore payment system should collaborate well with saving and provision of credit for the full attainment of financial inclusion.
 
Empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that the poor do not demand credit all of the time, most (if not all) economic agents demand deposit and other facilities for liquidity management and reserve accumulation, all of the time.
 
A third lesson from direct experience is that the demand for credit is not just a demand for loanable funds. Finance is intimately linked to inter-temporal decisions, and in this sense it plays a critical role not only in savings and investment processes but also in dealing with the lack of synchronization between income generating (production) and spending activities (consumption and input use decisions), as well. Finance is also closely associated with risk management. It facilitates the accumulation of reserves for precautionary reasons (to be able to survive emergencies) and for speculative purposes (to be able to take advantage of unexpected future opportunities). For this, being creditworthy is critical. Being creditworthy is equivalent to possessing a credit reserve: poor people do not necessarily want a loan now; they want the opportunity to get one, if and when they need it (Baker). They want this potential access to a loan to be reliable, to result in a timely and flexible disbursement of funds, to be always there. According to research finding, because the informal sources of credit do offer these opportunities, poor people are reluctant to substitute formal sources of funds, no matter how subsidized, for the flexible and reliable informal financial arrangements that have served them well over the years.
 
Thus, what matters is not just access to loanable funds (credit) but the development of an
established credit relationship. This, in turn, implies a sense of permanency of the financial institution. A fourth lesson learned, in this connection, is that a financial intermediary cannot be restricted to credit provision alone but to institutional framework support.
 
7. 0   INSTITUTIONAL VIABILITY AND THE POOR
 
With every program we have learned that the most severe deficiency of the earlier
interventions to provide financial services to the poor was the lack of institutional viability of the organizations that were created for that purpose. For instance, why does viability matter so much?  The concern with viability springs first from a clear recognition of the scarcity of resources. If resources are limited, without self-sufficient financial institutions there is little hope for reaching the numbers of poor firm-households that are potential borrowers and depositors. The amounts required are beyond the ability and willingness of governments and donors to provide them (Otero and Rhyne).  We therefore, as poor nations need to guard against weak prospective financial services in the system to compliment government and donors’ efforts.
 
The alternative to viable organizations are expensive, unviable quasi-fiscal programs that reach only a selected few beneficiaries. Thus, viability matters the most from this equity perspective: to be able to reach more than just a privileged few. Moreover, if the objective were just a one-time (transitory) injection of funds, then lump-sum transfers are always a more efficient way of accomplishing this. If, on the other hand, sustainability is important, then the viability of the financial organization matters.
 
Further, in addition to being fiscally feasible, the most important contribution of a concern with institutional viability is that it elicits appropriate incentives among all the participants in financial transactions. Thus, for example, while poor loan recovery rapidly destroys viability, an image of viability improves repayment discipline. A reputation as a good borrower in an established intermediary-client relationship is a more valuable intangible asset if the financial institution is expected to be permanent rather than transitory.
 
When this intangible asset is sufficiently valuable, it elicits punctual repayment. When the organization’s survival is questioned, on the other hand, default follows in stampede, and institutional breakdown becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Viability matters when repayment matters. Therefore, there is strong need to ensure that borrowers have a good credit culture. This is where a strong credit reference service is imperatively needed to enhance good credit culture.
  
In this way, a concern with viability makes it possible to identify one way how interest
rates and default rates are linked. Too low interest rates that cause intermediary losses are
perceived by borrowers as signals of lack of permanency and thus delinquency follows. .
 
Moreover, in the same way that very high interest rates may induce adverse selection (Stiglitz and Weiss), too low rates tend to attract rent seekers who eventually default (Gonzalez-Vega 1993). Thus, both too high and too low interest rates may reduce expected intermediary profits through higher expected default rates. There is need to strike a balance, to make sure that real interest rates strike a balance
 
As another example, the targeting of loan uses, irrelevant because of the fungibility of
funds (Von Pischke and Adams), basically increases both lender and borrower transaction costs and reduces the quality of the services supplied by the intermediary and thus lowers the value of the intermediary-client relationship.
 
In summary, targeting hurts viability in several ways. It reduces the scope for portfolio diversification in already highly specialized lenders. It limits the lender’s degrees of freedom in screening loan applicants, and it reduces incentives for vigorous loan collection, shifting accountability for default from the lender to the donor that conditions the availability of funds to their use for specific targets (Aguilera-Alfred and Gonzalez-Vega).  Findings reveal that compliance with the targeting becomes imperatively difficult, for a long time many donors ignored this potential impact of targeting on delinquency, but they were very surprised when rampant default destroyed the institutions that had been (ab)used to easily channel donor funds.
 
 Deposit mobilization, on the other hand, is not an easy task. It requires an appropriate organizational design, liability management techniques, and prudential supervision to protect depositors. You therefore require a strong and resilient regulator.
 
Finally, deposit mobilization is also intimately linked to the importance of institutional
viability. Deposits provide information to the lender about the potential borrowers, create a basis of mutual trust, and facilitate the accumulation of a down payment that can serve as a deductible in any future loan contract. Deposits contribute, therefore, to the solution of difficult information problems frequently encountered in financial markets. Moreover, healthy deposit mobilization creates an image of institutional viability that promotes repayment. Thus, while donor-funded loans may not be repaid, those funded with the neighbor’s deposits are (Aguilera-Alfred andGonzalez-Vega).
 
Most importantly, depositors create institutional independence from the whims of donors
and politicians; they shield the financial organization from political intrusion (Poyo, Gonzalez-Vega and Aguilera-Alfred). In general, deposit mobilization contributes to sustainability and to an organizational environment (corporate culture) where permanency becomes an important (compatible) incentive to attract and retain competent managers and induce the agency’s staff to behave in ways compatible with the viability of organization. For them, the value of their relationship with the organization increases when deposits are an important source of funds. This encourages correct decisions and effort (Chaves 1993).
 
8. 0   FORMAL AND INFORMAL FINANCE
 
Against this backdrop as poor countries formulate financial inclusion vision and strategy they need to recapitulate the following into consideration that:
 
 
(a)        The poor need more than just financial services; the non-financial ingredients of growth and development matter;
(b)        The poor need more than just credit; deposit facilities may matter even more.
(c)        The poor need more than just loanable funds; they need a permanent, flexible and reliable credit relationship;
(d)        In consequence, the poor need viable, efficient, profitable, well-managed financial
intermediaries with which to establish these permanent relationships.
9. 0              OBSERVATIONS
 
One important additional lesson increasingly learned over the past decades is that informal financial arrangements are pervasive and very successful in providing several (some) types of financial services among the poor (Bouman and Hospes). They are timely, reliable, and levy low transaction costs on their clients, mostly for loans of small amounts and at short terms.
 
The value and importance of these informal financial arrangements have been increasingly recognized and visions of exploitation have been replaced by attempts to either replicate their features or link informal lenders to national financial networks (Adams and Fitchett). But, as Hugo Pirela has asked “if this is the case, why would additional (semi-formal and formal) financial intermediaries be needed to do a job that indigenous, informal arrangements are already doing to well?” The fact is that, despite their valuable contributions, informal financial arrangements suffer from several limitations.
 
These shortcomings stem from the very features that make informal transactions competitive in the first place. They are grounded in the local economy and are thereby limited hence the need to formalize them in form of microfinance institutions.
 
Moreover, successful finance requires inputs for screening loan applicants (information management for creditworthiness evaluation and loan approval), for monitoring borrowers, and for the efficient design and enforcement of contracts. These costs are a function of distance (geographic, occupational, and ethnic) and of feasible technologies used to produce these services.
 
In addition, alternative technological arrangements result in specific comparative advantages in the provision of financial services in specific market niches. The choice of appropriate technology thus becomes critical.
 
Much technological progress has taken place in the area of microfinance (Christen, Rhyne, and Vogel). The key to success is to design an intervention that is properly dimensioned to the size of the market and compatible with the nature of the clientele (Chaves and Gonzalez-Vega).
 
Traditional banking technology, for example, is prohibitively expensive for loans to the poor in real terms. Both lender and borrower transaction costs are too high in this case. Moreover, as the poor are so heterogeneous, so are the financial services that they demand, creating opportunities for different types of intermediaries.
 
Commercial banks may, of course, adopt more information-intensive technologies than those that rely on traditional collateral; that is, embark on “downgrading” strategies (Krahnen and Schmidt). This adaptation of commercial banks’ technology of extending loans is clearly taking a centre stage in Zambia. We have seen a lot of banks extending microfinance services to the public, but this is explicitly available to the elite.
 
Although there are major advantages in using banks as intermediaries, to reach marginal clientele they need a technological revolution. Other non-bank organizations may possess comparative advantages in information and contract enforcement among this clientele. They may eventually be “upgraded” to become more like banks. In either case, the challenge is to bring together those who have the informational and enforcement advantages (usually local agents) and those with sufficient resources and willingness.
 
Appropriate technology is clearly a necessary condition for reaching the poor with
sustainable financial services. It is not a sufficient condition, however. While policies,
procedures and technologies matter, policies will not be enacted, procedures will not be revised, and technologies will not be adopted, unless it is in someone’s interest to do so.
 
In the end, all decisions are made by individuals, who pursue their own objective functions, given existing constraints.
 
Institutions constrain individual behavior, define property rights and incentives, and embody the rules of the game (North). Organizational design matters a lot because individual choices are induced and/or constrained by the structure of incentives within the organization.
 
Organizational design is critical because it influences behavior and behavior influences performance. If what matters is not just loanable funds but viable organizations, emphasis on designing efficient and viable organizations is critical. The dilemma is that a flood of donor and government funds tends to destroy adequate organizational designs. Because wealth constraints matter, how to overcome those constraints without at the same time destroying the intermediary involved is a major challenge.
 
It seems that the most difficult remaining question in the provision of financial services
to the poor is thus the design of organizations with the correct structure of incentives and
governance rules (Chaves 1994). As this depends so much on the structure of property rights of the organization, there are serious questions about the extent to which intermediaries with diffused property rights structures (such as the old public development banks and the new NGOs) or with conflicting governance rules (such as credit cooperatives) will be able to generate sustainable financial intermediation. The greatest challenge for the progress of finance for the poor, therefore, is in the institutional design of such organizations. This is, according to Krahnen and Schmidt, the most promising and critical area for future donor assistance.
 
Moreover, because of several limitations of locally-based financial arrangements (limited
opportunities for risk diversification and intermediation), appropriate links of the local
intermediaries to the aggregate financial system must be established, in order to increase the viability of enforcement-effective and informationally-advantaged agents, which may suffer from local, covariant, systemic risks and from limited opportunities for intermediation between surplus and deficit units. Ultimately, what matters is the development of financial systems and networks (e. g. , new ways of economic organization).
 
As markets grow and institutions are developed, formality will increase (although informality will not disappear), and the introduction of modern institutions will be required. For this, appropriate policies, cost-effective technologies, and viable organizational designs will still be needed.
 
10. 0          CONCLUSION
Therefore the vision of the poor countries in promoting this concept of financial inclusion in poverty reduction need to focus on the concerns about poverty raised in this paper;the relationship between financial inclusion and poverty, functions of finance, finance and poverty: lessons from the past, lessons learned about loans and deposits, institutional viability and the poor, formal and informal finance and lastly the relevant observations made in this paper.  REFERENCES
 
Aaron, Henry (1978), Politics and the Professors: The Great Society in Perspective, Washington,D. C. : Brookings Institution.
 
Adams, Dale W (1994), “Altruistic or Production Finance?: A Donor’s Dilemma,” Economics and Sociology Occasional Paper No. 2150, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University.
 
Adams, Dale W and Delbert A. Fitchett (eds. ), (1992), Informal Finance in Low-Income
Countries, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
 
Adams, Dale W, Douglas H. Graham, and J. D. Von Pischke (eds. ), (1984), Undermining Rural Development with Cheap Credit, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
 
Aguilera-Alfred, Nelson and Claudio Gonzalez-Vega (1993), “A Multinomial Logit Analysis of Loan Targeting and Repayment at the Agricultural Development Bank of the Dominican Republic,” Agricultural Finance Review, Vol. 53: 55-64.
 
Baker, Chester (1973), “Role of Credit in the Economic Development of Small Farm
Agriculture,” Small Farmer Credit Analytical Papers, Washington, D. C. : Agency for
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Biggs, Tyler, Merilee S. Grindle and Donald R. Snodgrass (1988), “The Informal Sector, Policy Reform, and Structural Transformation,” in Jerry Jenkins (ed. ), Beyond the Informal Sector. Including the Excluded in Developing Countries, San Francisco, Ca. : Institutefor Contemporary Studies.
 
Bouman, F. J. A. and Otto Hospes (eds. ) (1994), Financial Landscapes Reconstructed. The Fine Art of Mapping Development, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
 
Chaves, Rodrigo A. (1994), “The Behavior and Performance of Credit Cooperatives: An
Analysis of Cooperative Governance Rules,” Ph. D. Dissertation, Columbus, Ohio: The
Ohio State University.
 
Chaves, Rodrigo A. and Claudio Gonzalez-Vega (1994b), “The design of Successful Rural Financial Intermediaries: Evidence from Indonesia,” World Development, forthcoming.
 
Christen, Robert Peck, Elisabeth Rhyne and Robert C. Vogel (1994), “Maximizing the Outreach of Microenterprise Finance: The Emerging Lessons of Successful Programs,”
Washington, D. C. : IMCC, unpublished report.
 
Danziger, Sheldon H. and Daniel H. Weinberg (1986), “Introduction,” in Sheldon H. Danzigerand Daniel H. Weinberg (eds. ), Fighting Poverty. What Works and What Doesn’t,Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press.
Gonzalez-Vega Claudio (1984), “Cheap Agricultural Credit: Redistribution in Reverse,” in Dale W Adams, Douglas H. Graham, and J. D. Von Pischke (eds. ), Undermining Rural Development with Cheap Credit, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio (1993), “From Policies, to Technologies, to Organizations: The
Evolution of The Ohio State University Vision of Rural Financial Markets,” Economics
and Sociology Occasional Paper No. 2062, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University.
Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio (1994), “Stages in the Evolution of Thought on Rural Finance. A Vision from The Ohio State University,” Economics and Sociology Occasional Paper No. 2134, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University.
 
Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio, Jose Alfredo Guerrero, Archibaldo Vasquez and Cameron Thraen (1992), “La Demanda por Servicios de Depósito en las Areas Rurales de la República Dominicana,”in Claudio Gonzalez-Vega (ed. ), República Dominicana: Mercados Financieros Rurales y Mouilización de Depósitos, Santo Domingo: The Ohio State University.
 
Grootaert, Christiaan and Ravi Kanbur (1990), “Policy-Oriented Analysis of Poverty and the Social Dimensions of Structural Adjustment,” Washington, D. C. : The World Bank SDAWorking Paper.
Harrington, Michael (1962), The Other America: Poverty in the United States, New York:MacMillan.
Jensen, Michael C. and William H. Meckling (1976), “Theory of the Firm, Managerial Behavior,
Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure,” Journal of Financial Economics, 3:305-360.
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Washington, D. C. : GPO.
 
Jordan, Jerry L. (1993), “Community Lending and Economic Development,” Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, November.
Krahnen, Jan Pieter and Reinhard H. Schmidt (1994), Development Finance as Institution Building.
A New Approach to Poverty-Oriented Banking, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
 
Christen, Robert Peck, Elisabeth Rhyne and Robert C. Vogel (1994), “Maximizing the Outreach of Microenterprise Finance: The Emerging Lessons of Successful Programs,”
Washington, D. C. : IMCC, unpublished report.
 
Danziger, Sheldon H. and Daniel H. Weinberg (1986), “Introduction,” in Sheldon H. Danziger and Daniel H. Weinberg (eds. ), Fighting Poverty. What Works and What Doesn’t,Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press.
 
Gonzalez-Vega Claudio (1984), “Cheap Agricultural Credit: Redistribution in Reverse,” in Dale W Adams, Douglas H. Graham, and J. D. Von Pischke (eds. ), Undermining Rural Development with Cheap Credit, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
 
Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio (1993), “From Policies, to Technologies, to Organizations: The
Evolution of The Ohio State University Vision of Rural Financial Markets,” Economics
and Sociology Occasional Paper No. 2062, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University.
 
Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio (1994), “Stages in the Evolution of Thought on Rural Finance. A Vision from The Ohio State University,” Economics and Sociology Occasional Paper No. 2134, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University.
 
Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio, Jose Alfredo Guerrero, Archibaldo Vasquez and Cameron Thraen(1992), “La Demanda por Servicios de Depósito en las Areas Rurales de la República Dominicana,”in Claudio Gonzalez-Vega (ed. ), República Dominicana: Mercados Financieros Rurales y Mouilización de Depósitos, Santo Domingo: The Ohio State University.
 
Grootaert, Christiaan and Ravi Kanbur (1990), “Policy-Oriented Analysis of Poverty and the Social Dimensions of Structural Adjustment,” Washington, D. C. : The World Bank SDA Working Paper.
 
Harrington, Michael (1962), The Other America: Poverty in the United States, New York:MacMillan.
 
Jensen, Michael C. and William H. Meckling (1976), “Theory of the Firm, Managerial Behavior,Agency Costs, and Ownership Structure,” Journal of Financial Economics, 3:305-360.
 
Johnson, Lyndon (1964), “Letter of Transmittal,” in Economic Report of the President,
Washington, D. C. : GPO.
 
Jordan, Jerry L. (1993), “Community Lending and Economic Development,” Economic Commentary,Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, November.
 
Krahnen, Jan Pieter and Reinhard H. Schmidt (1994), Development Finance as Institution Building. A New Approach to Poverty-Oriented Banking, Boulder, Co. : Westview Press.
 
Robinson, Marguerite S. (1994), “Financial Intermediation at the Local Level: Lessons from Indonesia,” Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard Institute for International Development,
Development Discussion Paper No. 482.
 
Robinson, Marguerite S. (1994), “Savings Mobilization and Microenterprise Finance: The Indonesian Experience,” in Maria Otero and Elisabeth Rhyne (eds. ), The New World of Microenterprise Finance. Building Healthy Financial Institutions for the Poor, West
Hartford, Conn. : Kumarian Press.
 
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for Economic Growth.
 
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Stiglitz, Joseph E. and Andrew Weiss (1981), “Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information,”American Economic Review, Vol. 71, No. 3: 393-410.
 
Udry, Christopher (1990), “Credit Markets in Northern Nigeria: Credit as Insurance in a Rural Economy,” The World Bank Economic Review, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 251-71.
 
Von Pischke, J. D. (1991), Finance at the Frontier. Debt Capacity and the Role of Credit in thePrivate Economy, Washington, D. C. : The World Bank.
 
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Pandemic alert around the corner ? Swine flu or H1N1 virus spreads globally in a rapid pace. WHO called for an emergency meeting to discuss the latest developments in the Swine Flu spreading all over the world. WHO has escalated the alert level to 5, which is the level just below full Pandemic alert – level 6. The Swine Flu is caused by the H1N1 virus which has claimed 21. 940 humans in 68 countries so far. 125 people have died of the influenza epidemic so far.  As seen in this map, the cases are spread over a most of the world at the moment.                                                 The experts are very uncertain how the virus will develop and whether it will mutate and change to an even more dangerous influenza variant.  The table below lists all Laboratory-confirmed cases of new influenza A(H1N1) as officially reported to WHO by States Parties to the International Health Regulations (2005) Country Cumulative total   Newly confirmed since the last reporting period     Cases Deaths Cases Deaths Argentina 147 0   16 0   Australia 876 0   375 0   Austria 2 0   1 0   Bahamas 1 0   0   0   Bahrain 1 0   0   0   Barbados 1 0   1 0   Belgium 13 0   0   0   Bolivia 3 0   0   0   Brazil 28 0   8 0   Bulgaria 1 0   0   0   Canada 1795 3 265 1 Chile 369 1 56 1 China 89 0   20 0   Colombia 24 0   4 0   Costa Rica 68 1 18 0   Cuba 4 0   0   0   Cyprus 1 0   0   0   Czech Republic 2 0   1 0   Denmark 4 0   3 0   Dominican Republic 33 0   22 0   Ecuador 43 0   4 0   Egypt 1 0   0   0   El Salvador 49 0   8 0   Estonia 3 0   2 0   Finland 4 0   0   0   France 47 0   21 0   Germany 43 0   15 0   Greece 5 0   0   0   Guatemala 23 0   9 0   Honduras 34 0   32 0   Hungary 3 0   2 0   Iceland 1 0   0   0   India 4 0   3 0   Ireland 8 0   4 0   Israel 39 0   6 0   Italy 38 0   8 0   Jamaica 2 0   0   0   Japan 410 0   25 0   Korea, Republic of 41 0   0   0   Kuwait 18 0   0   0   Lebanon 3 0   0   0   Luxembourg 1 0   1 0   Malaysia 2 0   0   0   Mexico 5563 103 534 6 Netherlands 4 0   0   0   New Zealand 11 0   1 0   Nicaragua 5 0   4 0   Norway 9 0   5 0   Panama 173 0   18 0   Paraguay 5 0   0   0   Peru 47 0   7 0   Philippines 29 0   13 0   Poland 4 0   0   0   Portugal 2 0   0   0   Romania 8 0   3 0   Russia 3 0   0   0   Saudi Arabia 1 0   1 0   Singapore 12 0   3 0   Slovakia 3 0   1 0   Spain 218 0   38 0   Sweden 13 0   6 0   Switzerland 10 0   0   0   Thailand 8 0   6 0   Turkey 8 0   4 0   United Kingdom 428 0   89 0   United States of America 11054 17 1001 0   Uruguay 15 0   0   0   Venezuela 4 0   1 0   Viet Nam 3 0   0   0   Grand Total 21940 125 2681 8  Chinese Taipei has reported 16 confirmed case of influenza A (H1N1) with 0 deaths. Cases from Chinese Taipei are included in the cumulative totals provided in the table above.   If you want to keep updated and follow WHO statements on a regular basis, then you should read WHO web pages dedicated for this purpose.   http://www. who. int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/index. html  

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Off to Latin America or a Spanish speaking country for your next holiday? This article will show you how to learn Spanish for fantastic vacation experiences. You can directly download or order on CD or DVD a fully reviewed Spanish language course from our site. Not understanding the tongue of the country you are vacationing in can put you in a real mess, whether you are a first time tourist or you are on a frequent trip to visit friends. If you like to go wandering slightly off the usual track, you will find the locals far more helpful when you can speak a bit of their language. The locals might show you some unique places to visit, making a map or giving verbal directions that you might actually understand. You won’t get bored if you can see new sights and practice your new knowledge of the wonderfully romantic Spanish language. Would you like to know how to learn Spanish for an eye opening and relaxing vacation? There is nothing simpler in the on-line world. Computers are really good tools for a host of reasons but where they deliver impressively is learning or seeing new things and understanding a different country’s language or many countries in the case of Spanish. Choosing Spanish as your language to study allows you this advantage. Spanish is versatile and whether you want to go to Costa Rica for the rain forests or to Spain to view the glorious old architecture, then it will stand you in good stead. The Spanish still spoken in Spain is much different to Latin American Spanish, if it’s the Latin American Version you are looking for there are numerous courses made mainly for that purpose. Whatever you need to know how to learn Spanish for, be sure and get it now then you have more time to learn more phrases and words. You will have a far better time if you can speak more Spanish, believe me. Look up one of the great online courses available and you’ll be learning to speak Spanish instantly, for a fantastic vacation experience.

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Seventy years ago, a sleepy village in the Nevada desert began to gain the attention of vacationers and investors alike. A decade ago, a Central American nation few could even identify on a map became the destination of choice for thousands of expatriates throughout North America and Europe. The Nevada town I refer to is Las Vegas. The Central American nation is Costa Rica. What they have in common is a growth in property values unimagined years earlier. Today, Shuswap Lake Real Estate reminds one of the early days of these and other thriving real estate opportunities. Perhaps more than anything, this is what makes Shuswap Lake Real Estate such an enticing investment opportunity. Shuswap Lake Real Estate has all the essential ingredients for success. First, there is the setting. The Shuswap Lake region is among the most scenic of any area in western Canada. Second, there is the climate. Certainly, Shuswap Lake is a great setting for winter activities. But for those looking to invest in Shuswap Lake Real Estate, the truly astonishing thing about this region is the popularity it holds for summer vacationers. Warm, balmy temperatures attract a range of summer vacationers who are looking to escape the sweltering heat of the cities, but don’t necessarily want to fight for space on some hot, crowded beach. Finally, there is Shuswap Lake Real Estate itself. Shuswap Villas is a luxury development of the highest quality. Because this area is still relatively undiscovered, you can buy into this property at an exceptional price. Chances are, the Shuswap Lake region will not become another Las Vegas. In fact, in a setting this pristine, overdevelopment of that order would be a shame. But if you’re looking for the next great thing in vacation-style investments, Shuswap Lake Real Estate looks like a good bet.

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For mid-size internet retailer it is important to have online ecommerce order entry with status lookup, while the internet order is in fulfillment in the Warehouse.  If this is your scenario, we would like to show you the add-ons and business processes, assuming that you are deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP, or earlier version of Great Plains Dynamics.  Extensions for Great Plains work directly in GP database and create transactions and master records (such as Customer, Address, Inventory Item) which become available immediately (real time) in GP via Great Plains user interface.  You may also have more complex WMS operations, where you assemble your items on the order and even disassemble them back to parts (if item is returned) – in this case you may deploy GP Bill of Materials or even Manufacturing suite of modules, where automation could be facilitated by Alba Spectrum Workflow and Auto Batch Posting Server:
1. eCommerce module.  It should work in B2B and B2C ecommerce scenarios.  Our goal was to enable ecommerce setup via wizard interface, where you select your shopping cart platform (Magento, for example).  Integration work with Great Plains Sales Order Processing module, where if you plan to fulfill orders in your Warehouse Management System, you should select SOP type with manual line allocation.  In our opinion there are pretty advanced ecommerce shopping carts available on the software market, where you can do most of the ecommerce feature, including Sales Tax, Catalogs, Pricing (including items on sale with effective dates).  Please, see our ecommerce add-on dedicated publications and manuals for more info – here we are reviewing WMS and ecommerce integration.  E-commerce module deploy our technology, named Order Connector
2. Warehouse Management System.  Our version of the WMS is integrated and doesn’t require additional budget for “integration implementation” (often required for External WMS).  Basic Warehouse Management functionality, such as Order Fulfillment, Inventory Replenishment and Transfer from one Warehouse to another (plus quantity adjustments) are mapped directly to Sales Order Processing Document entry, Purchase Order Processing Receipt and Inventory Transaction (adjustment, transfer or cycle count respectively).  WMS has client application (works directly on barcode scanner) and the server (dedicated computer, running Windows OS, it talks to all the WMS clients and transmits scanned documents to Dynamics GP company database via ODBC connection)
3. Order Execution in Manufacturing.  If you are relatively small or mid-size manufacturer with EDI or eCommerce order placement channels – Dynamics GP Manufacturing suite of modules is great, but you may want to automate your manufacturing data entry.  Here we suggest our Workflow and Posting Server.  Workflow is programmed in Dexterity Sanscript or in any other . Net or old Windows technologies compliant programming or scripting language, where you can call external DLLs for advanced workflow logic (for example, you may decide to involve manufacturing manager, if certain conditions are met and all the others “simple” manufacturing orders are entered, fulfilled and posted automatically).  When Workflow is done, Manufacturing order batch (or individual order) might be scheduled for posting automatically , if required
4. How and where to get additional info and request demo?  Please, call us 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 or email us help@albaspectrum. com  We are serving local ERP market in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, plus USA and Canada nationwide and internationally as our consultants speak fluent or native English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian.  We also invite you to our Booth at Convergence 2011 in Atlanta – April 2011
5. Microsoft Dynamics GP eCommerce, WMS in international environment.  If you already own Dynamics GP user licenses in US for your Headquarters, you may add unlimited number of companies (including the ones for your international subsidiaries), assuming that you add them on the Same SQL server and there is enough concurrent users.  There are some nuances for international ERP – one of them is Multicurrency with Realized and Unrealized gains or losses on currency revaluation.  Second nuance is ERP localization concept, which has two aspects: local language support and compliance to the local country tax legislation (and sometimes government reporting, if it is required to be produced in standard format – typically in such countries as France, Russia).  Great Plains supports multicurrency in all its core modules, so this is not a concern.  Dynamics GP is localized for most of English speaking countries and in French Canada (Quebec – Montreal), plus in Arabic and in Spanish for Latin America (except Brazil, as it peaks Portuguese dialect).  There are several add-ons available on the market, which should allow your Great Plains screens to be translated in such languages as Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, German, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish (version for Spain) – and more languages are coming.  So – if you just need GP to be available for simple data entry for your overseas users, this should be OK, however if you plan to sell your products on the overseas markets with full local legislation compliance, we do not recommend you to localize Great Plains internally, if localization is not available directly from Microsoft Business Solutions.  Instead consider Dynamics AX (former Axapta) option for large manufacturing subsidiary, or SAP Business One for small or mid-size sales office.  Corporate ERP implementation or extension to the international market requires experience and familiarity with specific country conditions and requirements.  WMS typically works with existing SOP orders, POP Receipts or Inventory transactions, where tax compliance is already resolved in original documents – our modules support multicurrency and we have WMS implemented in such countries as Saudi Arabia, for example. We recommend you to call our office for consultation
6. Second Opinion, when your e-commerce or Warehouse Management System implementation failed or went over budget without seeing the end of the tunnel…  Well, you are not the first one and not the last one – Warehouse Management, Barcoding, Logistics, Distributions, Supply Chain Management are pretty technology challenging and require dedication for the Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner, who decided to take this route.  And even if you picked Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, there is still learning curve to enter into the Barcoding and WMS industry.  Make your homework in picking Dynamics GP Consultants, check with them on the number of implemented SCM and Warehouse Management cases.  Also, there is also dilemma to choose between local Barcoding provider (with potentially limited experience, but good intensions to dedicate local consultants) and nationwide partner (who specialize in Barcoding).  Besides of the requirements of being familiar with your industry (and industry niche) – WMS and eCommerce implementation often require such techniques as Dynamics GP data repair, Microsoft Dexterity, VBA customizations, advanced ODBC queries in Integration Manager.  Microsoft Dynamics is great Corporate ERP platform and we do not recommend you to give up – it is matured and reliable ERP and MRP architecture.  We would be happy to advise you on how to find the way out of crisis to successful WMS, ecommerce and GP implementation recovery
7. WMS and eCommerce for Dynamics GP or Great Plains – if you are on the Old Great Plains version, we would like to make the following observation: WMS software and hardware cost typically starts with twenty thousand US dollars and up.  This investment value is comparable or exceeds the upgrade cost to current Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 (formerly announced as version 11. 0).  But, by all means, we are ready to discuss your situation and your current Great Plains Dynamics version options (if you are on Great Plains Accounting for DOS, Windows or Mac 9. 5, 9. 2 or earlier we recommend you either to upgrade to Dynamics GP or walk away to something like SAP Business One or Quick Books, especially if your business came through downsizing).  Feel free to contact us if you are on Microsoft Dynamics GP 10. 0, 9. 0, 8. 0, 7. 5, Great Plains Dynamics and C/S+ 7. 5, 7. 0, 6. 0, 5. 5, 5. 0, 4. 0, 3. 2 on Microsoft SQL Server (2005, 2000, 7. 0, 6. 5) or Pervasive SQL 2000/Btrieve or Ctree/Faircom – we will work out with you the best action plan.  Upgrading from the old version of Great Plains or GPA for DOS might require additional expense in being reenrolled in Microsoft Business Solutions annual enhancement program
8. Dynamics GP and Microsoft RMS.  Microsoft Retail Management System is very popular, especially in Latin America among mid-size chains of the retail stores.  If you think about RMS and Point Of Sale operations, these are very similar to eCommerce online orders and credit card payments (debit card, check or cash payments are more attributable to Retail transactions, but the payment integration is very similar to Credit Card).  We have Microsoft RMS to Great Plains integration interface, which posts POS records to Dynamics GP SOP or Receivable Management modules at your choice.  We have customers in Central America (Costa Rica, Puerto Rico) plus in the USA: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois.  As our experience indicates, RMS customers prefer to control inventory quantities and print barcode labels for newly arrived merchandise in Great Plains directly, where we open Crystal Reports with barcode fonts

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If you look at a map, you will see that Ecuador is a small country in South America, just north of Peru. It is only the size of Colorado in the United States. Do you want to learn more about this place? Here are some other facts that you may not know about it:                 1.     Although it measures only 250. 000 Km² (155342sq. miles), there are 18 different languages spoken in Ecuador among the native communities, and both Spanish and Quechua are considered the primary languages of the country. 2.     Most people are not aware that the Galapagos Islands actually belong to Ecuador. 3.     Ecuador’s weather is not hot, even if it is located on the equatorial line. Cities along The Andes Region have an average high temperature of 15. 5°C (60°F) all year-round. The Coastal Region is constantly refreshed by the Humboldt Current, it may be humid, but the temperature rarely reaches 35°C (95°F). The Amazon Basin is the only area consistently hot and humid. 4.     Ecuador’s official currency is the U. S. Dollar. In fact, Ecuador is the only country besides the U. S. using the U. S. Dollar as its sole currency. 5.     Ecuador has the most biodiversity out of any country in the world in proportion to its size, with more than 9 species of animals and plants per square kilometer (0. 62mi). Over 15,000 types of vascular plants, more than 1,600 species of birds, 1,750 of freshwater fish, 413 of amphibians, 374 of reptiles, and 324 of mammals have been discovered in its territory. Almost 80% of its biodiversity is found in the Amazon Rainforest region, which is the least populated part of Ecuador. 6.     Ecuador has the place on Earth closest to the sun: the summit of Mount Chimborazo. This is because the Earth bulges at the Equator. This makes the top of Chimborazo the furthest point from the center of the Earth …In other words, the closest point to the Sun. 7.     The westernmost point of South America is found in Ecuador. It is a place called “The Chocolatera” (chocolate pot), a place from which you can watch the sea beating the rocks endlessly and furiously. 8.     In Ecuador’s “Sumaco Park”, we can find 831 bird species ―14 of which can’t be found anywhere else in the world— all packed into a 106Km² (66 sq. mi) area. This bird diversity is higher than that of Costa Rica or all of the United States and Canada combined. 9.     In Ecuador, there are 4,000 identified orchid species that constitute the highest diversity of orchids in the world, 1,300 of which are not found anywhere else in the world. 10.     Ecuador is a cheap place to travel. You can still get a decent meal at a sit-down restaurant for less than $4. The price for a hotel room in many towns may start at $20 or so, and it can be even less if you know how to negotiate… so be ready to walk away and the price may drop!

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Downtown projects are win-win
No, they won’t transform downtown Tampa overnight. But, yes, they are key catalytic developments with classic win-win upsides.

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The first image in the photograph to emerge was the ghost of figures, pale outlines on glossy paper, developed in a dark lab among hundreds of other snapshots of birthdays and couples beaming in front of scenic landmarks and babies taking first steps. Plunged into its chemical bath and then saved from drowning, the photograph was pulled out dripping, like a wet laundered sock, and hung to dry. And in its chromatic, magic way, the ghosts became alive: eyes to peer in to, lips that curl a hungry happiness, hands that are almost, but not quite, moving. A photograph to prove an existence. Perhaps it was the gingered hair of the young boys that made the photograph unforgettable. Or the rounded stomachs that belied nourished bodies. Or the clothes, worn day after day, that stretched ripped across torsos and framed startlingly snap-thin legs. Whatever it was, Colin Salisbury, pictured then as the blond-haired 18-year-old in flip flops surrounded by five Papua New Guinean youth, was never able to shake the way his thumbs-up to the camera promised a future where everything was going to be okay. Fifteen years later, the photograph is hanging in Colin’s office, and when he’s asked how he got into the business of people helping people, he points to it. Like the photograph with its quiet and sustained birth, so, too, was Colin’s idea for the Global Volunteer Network (GVN). Of the six weeks he spent in Papua New Guinea, Colin says, “For a young guy from New Zealand, it had quite an impact. ” Such an impact, in fact, that GVN, a non-governmental organization born out of a compassion for people that gripped Colin like an island vine, is connecting volunteers with communities in need all around the globe to deliver on his wordless promise all those years ago. Although Colin had been fascinated with finding a solution for the poverty he had witnessed during his travels the next decade after his first overseas experience, it wasn’t until he took a trip to Ghana in 1998 that he had his epiphany. Colin, who has a Master’s degree in International Development, was working for WorldVision doing a literacy study in Ghana when he made an alarming discovery. Schools, lacking books and teaching materials, were also lacking the most precious resource: teachers. In a majority of classes, teachers, underpaid and overburdened, were outnumbered by a ratio of 150 to 200 students to two teachers. Colin was compelled to leave the trip with more than just empty promises. “Long term, it’s obvious we need to train more teachers,” Colin said. “But in the short term, these kids would really benefit from an education now. International people coming in to help fill those teaching gaps seemed like the next step. So that’s when I went, ‘Wow, there’s actually a real need for volunteers. ‘” Upon returning home, Colin continued working his full-time job while, with the help of his wife, Jo Salisbury, began laying the foundations for GVN during everyone else’s happy hour. “It took me a year working nights to figure out how I could make this idea work,” Colin said. “I didn’t share it with anyone until I got it going. ” In his research, Colin found that other organizations charged high fees to volunteer, and vowed to make his organization as accessible as possible. “I got frustrated with the fact that a lot of organizations just wanted people’s money and nothing else,” he said. “I wanted to give people the opportunity to get their body there, as opposed to just paying their dollar a day. ” Colin was also adamant that his organization would align with the idea of “local solutions to local problems,” working at the grassroots level to achieve their goals. “Local people are the ones who live in those communities, so they know their needs and how best to address them,” Colin said. “What they need is support in doing that, not someone else coming in and setting up an infrastructure when a lot of those infrastructures already exist. ” Colin and Jo officially launched GVN in 2002 with a web site that now brings snickers in the increasingly computer-savvy office. And with help from the first hired staffers who worked out of Colin’s spare bedroom, GVN began sending volunteers to programs in Ghana, Nepal and Ecuador. With growth that would surprise even the staunchest GVN supporter, the organization leaped from sending just 240 volunteers its first year to 1,520 volunteers two years later. “I had no idea how well it would go,” Colin said. “It was kind of like, let’s set it up and put our marketing in place and hope it will take off. And it really did. As demand grew, we added more programs, and we’ve basically been doing that ever since. It was good timing with the Internet becoming available; it meant that we could provide lower cost volunteer opportunities than other organizations that were around before the Internet that have different cost structures. ” And with the growth of GVN came a proper office and an expanded staff team of 20 people to help administer volunteer applications and coordinate country programs. The map on the wall of the meeting room now has 19 pushpins denoting GVN’s programs in Alaska, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Honduras, India, Kenya, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam. Volunteers, who work anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months, are involved in programs at orphanages, schools, wildlife sanctuaries, nature reserves and refugee camps. And the GVN network continues to expand. The GVN Community Fund was established in 2004 to support the work of GVN’s partners with resources so they are able to continue and enhance their work in their local communities. The Community Fund plans the fundraising treks to Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Everest base camp, Machu Picchu and New Zealand’s South Island. The treks, a mix of adventure sport and humanitarian aid, add a new twist to the “sponsor my walk” fund-raiser, with every dollar earned going to support a project in the foothills of the peaks, such as a new school in Uganda. The Office It’s an odd day if Colin’s four-year-old daughter isn’t riding her tricycle around the office, weaving in and out of desks as if they were traffic cones. Staff members enjoy Ping-Pong breathers, take hot drink orders and get infuriated during Sudoku competitions. “Our partner in Vietnam just sent us pictures of his baby,” Program Coordinator Graham Fyfe announces to the office, who crowd around his desk and croon. Out the window, only a few feet away, young guys work lackadaisically on a line of cars waiting to be washed and waxed. The office, like a best-kept-secret noodle shop, is tucked among several non-descript warehouses and a car wash. “People often think we’re a big American conglomerate and that we have offices in every corner of the world,” said Anna Wells, the program coordinator for Nepal, China and Romania. “I think if people realized that we were in the back blocks of Lower Hutt, they’d be quite surprised. ” It isn’t all sack races and bean bag throws in the office; GVN gets over 400 e-mails a day and program coordinators are busy sifting through travel questions-Should I take Malaria pills?-to taking phone calls from worried moms. Most of the program coordinators have been volunteers themselves at one time, so their exclamations of volunteerism are genuine. “Volunteering really shows you what a huge difference one person can make in a relatively short period of time,” Anna said. “You can learn so much about a culture by working alongside a community. It’s something you can’t experience any other way. ” Erin Cassidy, GVN’s office manager, volunteered in Uganda for three weeks last year with her five-year-old son. “I saw firsthand what volunteering does and how it helps communities,” Erin said. “It really opens your eyes to how much you have and how much you don’t need. It’s impacted even the way we operate at home. I don’t run the water when I clean my teeth at home. I know that’s just a small thing, but I’m now aware of just how precious that resource is. ” For Charisse Gebhart, the program coordinator for Ghana, South Africa and Uganda, the six months she spent volunteering with GVN in Nepal changed her worldview. “I was barely aware of the poverty and suffering that was out there,” Charisse said. “I’d see the commercials by Sally Struthers, but that was about the extent of it. Witnessing it for yourself is very different from just knowing it’s out there. ” And GVN offers a variety of ways to witness it for oneself, from standing up for the first time in front of a classroom filled with giggling Ghanaian students, to giving dinner to a rescued gibbon at a wildlife sanctuary in Thailand, to baking a cake with an orphan in Romania. “No matter what your skill sets are, there are places where you’re needed and you can contribute,” Graham said. “Volunteering is not a one-way thing. It’s not just going to change the people you’re working with. It’s also going to change you. You’re going to gain more awareness of yourself, of what you’re capable of and what you’re passionate about. It’s worthwhile to put yourself in that position. ” A Catalyst for Change Volunteerism isn’t all journal writing and introspection. The communities where volunteers work are often deeply affected by their presence. After all, it isn’t everyday that someone gives up the comforts of their daily life to pay to work long hours in a new and often demanding environment. “One of the main factors of development is self-esteem and national pride,” said Hanna Butler, an administration staff member and fundraising trek organizer. “When I volunteered in India, sometimes it felt like I really wasn’t doing that much. But in some places, where we were the first foreigners to come there, people realized that they weren’t forgotten. They thought, ‘We’re worth being helped. ‘” It’s often this feeling of self-worth, of recognition during a time of hopelessness, that can jump-start a community into action. When volunteers arrived in India to work in a community gutted by a swift reach of a wave-children separated from parents and homes exploded by a salt-water bullet in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee-they found many people still stunned and unresponsive. “A lot of people were still in shock,” Colin said. “There wasn’t a lot of action happening. But [the volunteers] just got in and started rebuilding the wells and ensuring that there was good water and everything. And as soon as they started, the locals just came and joined in, and in some places, took over because they were better at it than the volunteers. The point being is that volunteers often act as a catalyst. Local people often think, ‘If these people are going to fly half way around the world and pay all the money just to help us, than I think we can help too. ‘” If GVN considers the organization a success, it’s only because of the difference they’ve been able to make in other communities. “In Nepal, we’ve been able to take them from basically zero in terms of volunteers for their projects to 20 or 30 a month,” Colin said. “What that’s meant for them is they’ve been able to have a fantastic impact in providing teachers for the schools and the orphanages. So part of our success is the success that’s meant for others. ” Colin continued, “In Ecuador, GVN supplies half the number of volunteers that the organization has. Since they’ve started working with the volunteers-it’s not always all better instantly-it has had an impact on the environmental policy on the country and the local attitude toward conservation. ” And while volunteerism creates many tangible changes for communities, from new school buildings to cleaner streams, it also helps to bridge a divide left behind by decades of Western imperialism, colonization and exploitation. “Quite often you hear about developed countries taking advantage of developing countries,” Michelle said. “But volunteerism allows developing countries to see that there’s another side to people, and how people want to be in the world. ” The GVN Difference Asking a GVN staffer to tell you the difference between GVN and another organization doing similar work is like asking a child what they want for Christmas; they just can’t stop listing things. “I think that one of the best things about GVN’s programs is that volunteers have a lot of space to use their own initiative,” said Michelle, the program coordinator for Kenya and Tanzania and the administrator for GVN’s travel insurance option. “I think our programs work for someone who has a lot of enthusiasm, energy and wants to see things get done. ” While GVN doesn’t just send volunteers out with a map and a compass, they do allow volunteers to make many of the decisions about how they want to spend their time volunteering. “Other organizations send a guide out with their volunteers and it’s all very set and concrete,” Graham said. “And while that ensures a certain consistency in the program, it’s also really limiting in terms of what you can get done. With GVN, you’re given support but there are no prescribed guidelines. ” Although GVN is a relatively small organization, Graham believes its tight-knit office is actually one of its strengths. “We’re quite responsive and can turn around and gets things done if changes need to be made,” he said. “We don’t have ten layers of administration that you need to go through to get things done. ” And unlike other organizations, GVN’s programs don’t require a second mortgage to take part. Volunteering in Thailand for four weeks costs only $650. “Volunteering is expensive,” Michelle said. “You’ve got to take time off of your own life, but still keep it going. Things just don’t stop when you go overseas. So you want the best value for your time and money. ” Choosing a Partner Being popular isn’t always easy. GVN gets at least two queries a day from organizations that want to partner with them. The task of deciding which partners to invest in is a long one. “We look at the impact that those projects are making,” Michelle said. “We make sure that they’re worthwhile projects, that they’re up to GVN standards and that they make a good impact on the local community. ” Understanding that business practices, cultures and even ethics run the gamut when working with international partners, GVN instituted The Ten Steps of Quality to ensure consistency. The steps, actually a checklist, help GVN set standards as they work toward excellence in all of their programs. “Sometimes partners we work with are really eager to help but they’re not used to running a business the same way we are,” Graham said. “So the Ten Steps of Quality just gives them the tools to be able to do it effectively. ” There are times, however, when opinions differ and partnerships become more exacting rather than symbiotic. GVN, always careful about whom they’re working with, sometimes has to make the tough decision to cancel a partnership. “We had a previous partner in Nepal in the beginning,” Colin said. “Things changed in regards to the way they were working and there was some question as to the use of finances. We had to decide that we couldn’t be involved if that sort of thing was going on. We had to pull the plug. ” Volunteer Expectations: Where’s the Air Conditioning? “I need to change the Info Pack for the Philippines,” said Annika Lindorsson, the program coordinator for India, Philippines and Vietnam. “I think it’s confusing for people to find the taxi from the airport using it. ” Annika had just returned from a five-day trip to the Philippines to meet with one of GVN’s newest partner organization and assess the program. Following the path that a volunteer would take, she discovered a glitch in the directions. “Going to the Philippines has made all the difference in my ability to do my job,” she said. GVN isn’t shy about sending its employees to investigate their programs. For Annika, she brought back more than just a suntan: first-hand knowledge of how her program runs, what accommodation looks like, what volunteers are fed and the general logistics of getting around a country most volunteers have never been to before. “It’s really helpful to see the logistical things, like the airports where the volunteers arrive,” said Graham, who traveled to Vietnam, Ecuador and El Salvador last year to check on his programs. “It’s a lot easier to give advice when you know where they’re going. ” Sharing a meal with a GVN partner also helps to build a relationship that had been solely Internet and phone based. “It really makes it a lot more personal,” Anna said. “You have quite a close relationship with the people you’re working with over there. So to actually meet them makes it a lot more real. ” By seeing the country the way a volunteer would, program coordinators are able to ensure volunteers’ expectations are realistic; there really is no air conditioning in Uganda. Program coordinators also try to relay to volunteers that their trips will be nothing like a backpacker’s excursion to a dude ranch. “Some of the volunteers will think the trip will be a real adventure,” Colin said. “Others think that in the month that they go, they’re going to dramatically change the place. Some views are naïve, some are more realistic and some view it as a holiday. So we try to get people’s expectations in line with reality without deflating them too much. ” Unlike some travel holidays where tourists can view poverty like a circus tent-circling around, pointing, but never joining in-volunteering with GVN makes acclimatizing to the environment a necessity. “For the India program, for instance, accommodation has been selected that is not luxury accommodation,” Michelle said. “You’re actually learning to live another way without the comforts that you’re used to. At the end of the day, we want volunteers to gain a true experience of the country, rather than a tourist view. ” And while volunteers will have the opportunity to explore the country, there’s no mistaking that they work hard. “I think a lot of people think it’s going to be really nice, like wiping sweat off people’s brows,” Hanna said. “But its long, hard work. Sometimes you feel like you’re not getting much done. And some days you think, ‘And I’m doing this for free? What am I doing?’” Would she do it again? “Yes,” she said. Making the Big Leap: Just Go For It “I was terrified,” said Charisse, of her first days volunteer teaching in Nepal. “I had no teaching experience. I was scared about having a classroom full of kids to myself. I didn’t know if I would be able to fill up all the class time and if I would be able to keep them under control. ” And how did it go? “The way you’d expect it to,” she said. “There were some rough days, but it was great. ” The fear that gripped Charisse-How do you command a class full of children who don’t speak the same language?-is universal among volunteers stepping into situations that would make even the most experienced travelers blanch. “Other volunteers have gone feeling the same way,” Charisse said. “In fact, every volunteer will have felt the same way. And you probably don’t always get that from the journals on the web site. But that shouldn’t be a reason to stop you. ” It’s this fearlessness, this nerve and heart and patience that a volunteer embodies that helps to push against a global current of hopelessness, despair, inequality, greed, racism and xenophobia. “There have always been people in need, and unfortunately, I think there always will be,” Anna said. “You just have to help people one person at a time. I’d like to say that the end result is that GVN helps so much that they make themselves obsolete. But all throughout the history of the world, there has always been people who have nothing and people who have something to give. ” The act of giving, of taking on a responsibility for humankind, of declaring that a person whom you have never met has the basic and fundamental right to a life free of suffering, is incomparable to any other gesture. “Yes, it’s tough,” Erin said. “And often there is culture shock. No one can ever prepare you for that. I don’t think you can be totally prepared for it. I’d seen pictures, watched videos, but in the end, the reality was different. But after the first few days, when you get over the jetlag and the change, I can’t see how you would ever regret it. I just can’t. ” And in the passing of a brick, in the chalk-dusted writing of a word, in the gentle rocking of a lonely child, a new world is forged where the universal truths are love, compassion and generosity; a world where photographs-a glimpse, an eye blink-become inspirations become ideas become endeavors become legacies.

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The Kingdom of Thailand draws more visitors than any other country in south East Asia, with its irresistible combination of breathtaking natural beauty, inspiring temples, renowned hospitality, robust cuisine and ruins of ancient kingdoms. Pattaya and Jomtien Beach are considered by some as Thailand’s twin fun paradises based on their beaches, diving, windsurfing, island trips, numerous golf courses, and world renowned nightlife. Pattaya, and especially Jomtien, have been growing at a fast rate. Proof of Pattaya and Jomtien’s popularity is their forever-growing cosmopolitan flavor, with a large contingent of Expats from all over the world who have either settled and retired here, or invested in a holiday home. Many Expats could only have dreamt of buying a property here in Pattaya, looking over the ocean and waking up to the sea breezes, at a fraction of the cost that they would have paid in their home countries. The growth in the residential market has been further boosted by a demand for property from Pattaya locals and other Thai buyers due to the closeness to Bangkok. As a result of the new airport and continued improvements in infrastructure, more property developers are also entering the market to launch a variety of developments, including residential, international chain hotels and retail projects. Based on the number of property developments currently underway, its a clear indicator that this trend is set to continue.

One of the main advantages of living in Pattaya Jomtien Beach, apart from the climate and low cost of living, is their world class infrastructure. Many world travelers we have talked to are impressed with the infrastructure when compared to the Philippines, Costa Rica, and other exotic travel destinations. At Thailiving. net we have scoured the internet for the best information available on Pattaya Jomtien Beach and posted them on our website under “Useful Links”. Our objective, similar to the Pattaya City Expats Club, is to make your stay in our ‘Paradise” as enjoyable as possible. We have divided our “Useful Links” into the following categories:

• Pattaya Festivals and Events

• Pattaya and Jomtien Beach Photos

• Pattaya Sports and Activities

• Pattaya Map

• Pattaya and Jomtien Beach Map

• Pattaya Expat Clubs and Forums

• Pattaya and Thailand Hospitals

• Pattaya Emergency Numbers

• Embassies and Consulates in Thailand

• Banks in Thailand

We hope you find this article as useful and informative as we had fun in researching it. To access the “Useful Links” webpage, please go to http://thailiving. net/pattaya_useful_links. htm

This article has been sponsored by http://thailiving. net/. A specialist in the Pattaya and Jomtien Real Estate market for condos and houses.

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