Funding cuts
The Agenda of the GEN Board meeting reflected the challenging times which face the organization. One of these challenges is how to fund the overall organization. The principal funders of the GEN have been the Gaia Trust, in Denmark, and they have advised that funding to the organization will be cut by 40% in the next financial year. This is not a surprise – the funding has always been provided as a ‘seed grant’, rather than as an ongoing endowment.

While various components of the GEN have found funding for specific projects, such as the Living & Learning Centres in Brazil and Sri Lanka, the efforts by GEN’s various fundraisers over the years have not yet found a new donor to fund the global organization of the GEN. The problem is, of course, that donors generally are happier to fund limited projects with very visible results – PV systems in the South, for instance. In Australia, the funding culture is very focused towards the Southern Australian states of Victoria and NSW - and towards sport. (If only we were a Victorian sports team, how the dollars would roll in……!) The GEN Europe team have managed to gain some funding for their activities in Europe from the European Union, but again this is limited to a specific area and tasks. However, no new funding sources for the global GEN organization have been found.

Ecovillage concept spread
In the time since GEN was first formed, back in 1995, the concept of ecovillages has spread around the world. The term is now commonly known, even within the United Nations, (though it seems it is not always understood perfectly!), and the networking and educational activities of the GEN have provided much assistance for town planners, developers and would-be ecovillagers. Perhaps GEN has fulfilled its function, and may now retire from the lists, leaving the new generation of ecovillage enthusiasts to carry on.

However, we feel that there is still a need for a central organization to coordinate efforts and share information, and to bring the concepts of sustainable development to the attention of the Powers That Be.

All this means that the GEN Board meeting in Crystal Waters had to face some fairly major issues, and make some difficult decisions, but – with the assistance of Jill Jordan, a most extraordinarily talented facilitator – the meeting was felt to be successful, and ended with deciding on positive steps for the future of GEN.

United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development
One of the decisions reached at the GEN Board meeting related to the United Nations’ next ‘big’ summit—the ‘Rio+10’ World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) meetings in Johannesburg in September 2002. While GEN Board members expressed concern about the effectiveness of these large UN meetings, and the high cost of attending them, it was agreed that it might be beneficial for GEN to provide information about the ecovillage concept to this potentially very large and influential audience. The GEN’s participation in the UN’s “Habitat II” conference in Istanbul back in 1995 did have a positive effect, and thus it seems possible that the Rio+10 Summit might be useful.

It was decided that if GEN attends some of the costs could be recouped via offering workshops to participants. After all, it is not often that so many experienced ecovillage designers and/or residents are together and able to offer their services in this way.

Ecovillage News to end?
GENOA learned early that funding was going to be difficult to access, and has thus always concentrated on building its fund-earning possibilities. Over the years GENOA has supplemented the grant received from Gaia Trust with funds earned via running courses and providing consultancy services.

The fund earning activities of GENOA have allowed us to continue to provide services such as this newsletter (distributed free to many organizations and individuals, particularly in the South), web pages, free advice and the occasional bursary.

While we will maintain as many of these free services as possible, it is sadly no longer possible to continue to put out this newsletter quarterly. Our subscription drives have not been successful, and our funding is being reduced. These are the realities that we must work with. We are therefore making the Ecovillage News a twice-yearly publication for now, and will review its usefulness again in due course. We need to spend our limited funds in the most effective manner. With increased access to the internet in our region, perhaps it is now time to review the need for a printed version of this newsletter...