Fibre of life

The city-based Global Natural Fibres Forum will help to popularise the use of natural fibres.

The use of cotton, silk and wool to make fabric is well established, but did you know that fabric and other items of human use can also be made from many other natural materials? For instance, from coconut husk or water hyacinth or banana. Not many people know this, which is why tonnes and tonnes of such natural fibre go waste every year.

Also lost are millions of dollars in trade in fabric and other household items made from these natural fibres. (The Food and Agriculture Organisation calculates that the global trade in natural fibres is now worth $30 billion.) Much of this can be earned by poor women in rural areas — globally, 80 per cent of those working in the sector are women — if they are taught how to turn the fibres into marketable products.

This is precisely the objective of the Global Natural Fibres Forum, launched in the city recently — to increase the use of natural fibres and also stimulate demand of natural fibre industries.

The initiative, launched at the Twelfth Commonwealth-India Programme, aims to take natural-fibre products to the mass market, at least in the Commonwealth. Besides this, it will work to also improve opportunities and livelihoods of the poorest women in the rural areas who mostly depend on natural fibres — whether plantain, river grass or pine leaves — as a source of income.

GNFF, which will be based in Bangalore, is supported by the Industree Crafts Foundation, a not-for-profit entity that supports the livelihood of rural artisans through skill development and market access, and the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat. Export-Import Bank of India, Central Bank of India and Corporation Bank, too are supporting the initiative, primarily through loans at concessional interest rates to micro and small businesses and self-help groups, mostly from the natural-fibres sector. The banks and the Secretariat will work with young women between the ages of 18 and 35 to make them bankable and ensure that they get much higher returns for their work.

One key problem identified in the sector was intense competition, so that women selling their produce at local markets were always undercuting each other to sell at the cheapest possible price. The forum will educate producers to sell at a premium by highlighting the benefits of their produce, including its “green” benefits. For a start, Corporation Bank has extended finance to GNFF stakeholders which include several self-help groups engaged in natural fibres production in and around Bangalore. This will help the banks too to meet their financial inclusion mandates. About 7,500 women are currently being trained in India across seven states.

According to a senior Corporation Bank official, “Our association with the natural fibres sector, where many socially- and economically-marginalised women work, is a natural extension of our commitment to empowerment and upliftment of women through enterprise activities.”

Besides these, GNFF has the functional support of various institutions across the globe such as Ubuntu at Work which helps women micro-entrepreneurs in Namibia and South Africa escape poverty; the Geneva-based International Trade Centre which works specifically to promote exports of small businesses in developing countries, besides the governments of Zambia and Mozambique. Post-launch, the next big event is the Asia continent consultation in the city during November 2011.