Microfinancing

The advantages of small businesses have been well stablished. They encourage creativity and innovation due to their flexibility and streamlined decision making. They provide increased opportunity: "Small business is the portal through which many people enter the economic mainstream. Business ownership allows individuals, including women and minorities, to achieve financial success, as well as pride in their accomplishments."[2] And most importantly, they increase competition. The direction toward larger companies inevitably leads to fewer choices and eventual monopolies. For these reasons, many nations have programs to encourage and support small businesses. A key factor in promoting small businesses is the availability of appropriate financing.

Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. The term Grameen Bank is Bengali for "Rural" or "Village" Bank. The bank small loans target the poorest of the poor, with a particular emphasis on women, who receive upwards of 95 percent of the bank's loans. Example of the types of loans that Grameen makes are for hand-powered wells, housing, wireless phone services, and seasonal agricultural loans and equipment and livestock to help the poor improve their agriculture. The loans are generally on a low interest, long term payment basis. The bank requires borrowers to participate in organized savings plans. Grameen is primarily a private business initiative, but is backed by Central Bank and the government of Bangladesh. Many other world organizations have been founded following the principles and practices of this bank.

Fraternizing Economics

On May of 2019, Pope Francis wrote a letter to young economists calling for a more just economy:

I am writing to invite you to take part in an initiative very close to my heart.  An event that will allow me to encounter young men and women studying economics and interested in a different kind of economy: one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it... That is why I would like to meet you in Assisi: so that we can promote together, through a common “covenant”, a process of global change. One in which not only believers but all men and women of good will, beyond differences of creed and nationality, can participate, inspired by an ideal of fraternity attentive above all to the poor and excluded.[3]

We have dedicated another website to this initiative, but we will concentrate here on one aspect of this initiative, which has been highlighted by two of these inspired young economists, Pope Francis is calling for "a selection of fraternity as the model of social life. We are called to a reciprocal care and a relational link among all."[4] We can oversimplify this by saying that Pope Francis is seeking to "fraternize" economics.

One good example of an economic project based on fraternity is the support grid organized by the  Jesuit Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean (CPAL). This grid, that has the Spanish name of Red Comparte, (Sharing Grid) consists of 19 centers in 11 countries throughout the area that provides support in the organization and training of small producers. Some examples of resulting successful businesses are the Yomol A’tel coffee producer and the APPROCAP cacao producer.

Yomol A’tel is a phrase which means "working together." It is a non-profit organization based in Chiapas, Mexico as a group of cooperatives. It tries to add value to the basic products of indigenous communities by integrating cultivation, processing and merchandizing rather that selling the raw agricultural produce. The cooperatives function as communities that encourage wide participation, and women are given full access to leadership functions. Many of the small producers that are part of the project also grow many of their own consumption items.