By 1999 a new challenge had presented itself to David, and he threw himself into meeting it. When David had started making small loans to poor people as a means to help them climb out of poverty, those working within the development field had resisted the notion. David himself had taken to calling himself the black sheep of the development world because of the unpopularity of his ideas. But in the twenty-two years since making his first small loans in Bali, things had changed drastically. David was no longer the black sheep. The approach he had used was now accepted as one of the most effective ways to help the poor out of poverty. As a result, the concept had spread around the world, and all sorts of Christian organizations, aid agencies, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had set up microfinance programs or were planning to. David decided that these organizations and agencies needed training in how to efficiently set up microfinance programs to help the greatest number of people with their resources. He organized the first ever Christian Microenterprise Development Conference, held at the Ambassador Jomtien Hotel, in Pattaya, Thailand. Three hundred people attended, representing one hundred organizations and working in thirty-five countries. The conference was a huge success, with the participants coming away with lots of practical ideas that they could take back and apply to the microfinance programs they were running or planning to set up.
Following the conference David established the Wholistic Transformation Resource Center (WTRC) in Manila. The resource center would act as a clearinghouse for information and best practices related to microfinance programs and microenterprise development. The center began publishing informational books and pamphlets and offering consulting services to churches and organizations working in the field of microenterprise development. David also made plans to hold a second Christian Microenterprise Development Conference in 2001.
As a result of this new focus and challenge, David decided in 2000 that it was time for him to step out of active involvement in Opportunity International. He remained on the board of Opportunity International Australia and continued to support and raise funds for the organization. This was a big change for David. Despite the tensions David had felt within the organization over the past several years regarding his role, the staff and partners of Opportunity International had become like family to him, and he would miss them.
Shortly after leaving active involvement in Opportunity International, on November 10, 2000, David was back in Sydney, gathered with some of his closest friends and his family to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. As he celebrated, David used the event not as an opportunity to look back at all he had accomplished in his life but as a time to look forward to a new chapter in his life and the new challenges it would bring. He was particularly looking forward to attending the next Christian Microenterprise Development Conference and helping other organizations become proficient in the field of microfinance and microeconomic development. He was also looking forward to being at home more with Carol and spending time with an ever-growing cadre of grandchildren. Both Rachel and Natasha had a son and a daughter each, and Natasha’s third child was due the following month.
Chapter 15
New Challenges
The second Christian Microenterprise Development Conference was held in June 2001 in Pattaya, Thailand. This time five hundred people working in forty countries attended the conference. Throughout the conference David was kept busy. When he was not speaking to the gathered crowd, participants sought him out to talk to him or pepper him with questions about microfinance. David was delighted to have Priyadi Reksasiswaya as a speaker at the conference. Priyadi’s knowledge of microeconomic development ran deep, and Priyadi was able to bring the perspective of a non-Westerner working in the field. David was impressed not only by Priyadi’s performance at the conference but also by all Priyadi had been able to achieve in Indonesia. Sixteen lending partner organizations were now spread across Indonesia, and Priyadi had plans to extend farther.
Following the conference, Priyadi returned to Bali. David, Carol, Rachel, Natasha, and their families, whom David had brought with him to the conference, traveled on to Thailand’s Krabi coastal region to vacation. Five days after the conference ended, while the Bussau clan was still vacationing at the beach in Thailand, David received a phone call from Bali. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Priyadi Reksasiswaya was dead. He had collapsed two days before in Bali, apparently from a minor stroke, from which he had been expected to recover. But two days later he died in the hospital of heart failure.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” a stunned David said before he hung up the phone.
The following day David and Carol arrived in Bali. Before setting out from Thailand, David had received the news from Australia that for his service to international development he had received the award of Member, general division, Order of Australia, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. This was a high honor, and David could now put the letters AM after his name. But any excitement he may have felt at receiving the award was tempered by the death of his friend Priyadi. Bali would not be the same without him.
David and Carol attended the funeral services. David spoke at one of them, telling those in attendance, “Priyadi is not lost to us. His ideas and his spirit live on in the lives of the poor Indonesians he served and in those of you who have been motivated by him. His legacy will be passed on for many generations.”
David continued to travel, consulting on microenterprise development projects, and made monthly treks to the offices of the Wholistic Transformation Resource Center in Manila to consult with staff. His trips were now shorter than they used to be. Where he had previously been gone from Sydney for up to eight weeks at a time, now he was usually gone for only three weeks at a time.
One of his trips took David through Singapore, where he met with Hugh Gollan at an Irish pub named Murphy’s. Hugh was a New Zealander who had worked in New York, Moscow, and now Singapore. He was an expert in transitional economies—economies that were moving from being a centralized economy to a market economy, such as was taking place in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Hugh was also a donor to Opportunity International. David found a kindred spirit in Hugh, and the two of them talked at length. In the course of their conversation, they talked about North Korea.
“Wouldn’t it be great to start a microenterprise scheme in North Korea?” David asked as he and Hugh talked. Hugh agreed that it would be good, but both of them also agreed that they were probably thirty years away from North Korea being open enough for such a scheme.
Soon after his meeting with Hugh in Singapore, David found himself back in Bali. On the night of October 12, 2002, terrorists had exploded bombs in the Sari Club and Paddy’s Bar, two of Kuta Beach’s most popular nightspots. Two hundred two people had been killed in the blasts, eighty-eight of them Australians. The blasts had also devastated Bali’s tourist industry along with the Balinese economy.
By the time David arrived in Bali at the end of October, barely a tourist was to be seen. David inspected the site of the bombings and talked with Balinese business owners, many of whose businesses had been funded by one of the lender partner organizations operating in Bali. The business owners were gloomy about the future and wondered whether their businesses would survive. David tried to encourage them as best he could. Bali was a beautiful place, and he was sure that it would not be long before tourists found their way back to the island. Certain that things would get better soon, David encouraged the owners to hang on in any way they could.
Back in Australia at the beginning of 2003, David read in the newspaper that at the invitation of the Australian government, a North Korean delegation was visiting Australia to study tertiary education. A public reception was to be held to meet the delegation. Recalling his conversation with Hugh Gollan several months before, David decided to attend the event. The reception itself turned out to be a rather tedious affair, but as he was leaving, David dropped his business card in the jar at the door.
To his surprise, a month later he received a letter from the North Korean government inviting him to North Korea to explore the possibility of cooperating on some economic programs. David again thought back to his conversation with Hugh. He and Hugh had thought it would take thirty years before such a thing was possible, but here, less than a year later, David was on his way with Hugh to North Korea.
David and Hugh arrived in Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), to talk with government officials and assess the feasibility of operating in the DPRK. Before long they had entered into a contract with the DPRK government to set up a pilot project. Maranatha Trust would partner with DEFMOF, the Ministry of Finance, to set up a number of small enterprises. This was a unique situation. Since there was no private ownership in DPRK, all enterprises were state owned. However, each government department had an executive committee that could operate an enterprise. Maranatha Trust received applications for financing these enterprises, which in turn would generate revenue.
Hugh decided to quit his job in Singapore and came to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to serve as CEO of the joint venture. When he later married, his wife joined him there.
At first, things did not go very well. Since the Ministry of Finance (DEFMOF) seemed more interested in accessing the capital that Maranatha Trust planned to invest in the projects than in growing the enterprises, they agreed to terminate the joint venture. Another government department was soon interested in partnering in the project, however, and things began to move ahead.
A new board of directors consisting of three Koreans and three Australians was formed for the venture, and soon small businesses were being financed—everything from poultry farming and shoemaking to producing plastic bags. Even a small factory was producing pharmaceutical products from urine. The manager of each enterprise was the person accountable to see that the loan used to grow the enterprise was repaid and that the enterprise ran profitably. As an enterprise ran profitably, more capital would be invested into it to expand and create more jobs. In this way, David and Hugh reasoned that the new jobs benefited the workers directly.
Of course, to many in the Western world the DPRK was perceived to be a dark and foreboding place ruled by Communist extremists who were not to be trusted. As a result, there were those who questioned David’s decision to enter into a joint venture with the government of the DPRK. But David saw things differently. He explained to those who questioned his decision that there are basically two things you can do when confronted with a country like the DPRK. You can stand outside and throw rocks at it. That is, you can criticize the country and its rulers for their actions in the hope of shaming or pressuring them to change. Or you can get inside and do something about the situation. As far as David was concerned, throwing rocks at the DPRK hadn’t done much to change things in the country. As a result, he had accepted the invitation and hoped that over time this enterprise approach would bring about the desired change anticipated for the nation.
While David was busy setting things up in the DPRK, back in Australia he was named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year. In May 2004 he and Carol traveled to Monaco to represent Australia for the World Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He was the first social entrepreneur (a person who employs innovative solutions to address some of society’s most pressing social problems) in Australia to receive this honor. While David did not win the title “World Entrepreneur of the Year,” he was the first social entrepreneur initiated into the World Entrepreneur of the Year Academy, and he was kept busy while in Monaco answering questions and giving interviews to news organizations such as CNN and the BBC.
