LOS FONDOS ROTATORIOS COMO INSTRUMENTO PARA EL ÉXITO DE PROYECTOS DE DESARROLLO RURAL. CASO DE LA CASA CAMPESINA DE CAYAMBE

Abstract

A key element in sustainable rural development is to improve the welfare of communities to enjoy a decent and fair life, which cannot be achieved without an increase of their incomes. To achieve this, it is necessary that rural development projects seek strengthening productive capacities and management of communities as well as achieving the incorporation of funding mechanisms to enable the sustainability of accomplished development. One of them is called "Revolving Funds" for microcredits, which are an example of funding mechanism that has been applied in rural settings to support entrepreneurs that generate productivity. To prove that Revolving Funds is valid mechanism to ensure the sustainability of the improvement in the welfare of communities, in this paper it is gathered experience of Revolving Funds which were implemented in 1994 in the project of Development of “Casa Campesina” in Cayambe (Ecuador) with $16.708 and in 2013 it remains active and has lent more than $4.000.000 of credits; using the two-step research model which analyses the experience from the quantitative (amount and number of credits) and qualitative (impact on beneficiaries) approaches. Keywords: revolving fund; rural development; sustainability; microcredit