While STRO's work has focused during the last 10 years or so mainly on developing countries, local and sustainable economic growth is of course a relevant issue anywhere. As local economic development has become an important issue in the US, we decided to send STRO-employee Camilo Ramada on a field trip to the US to visit local organisations and to see if there is interest for STRO tools to stimulate local economic growth. Below you can read Camilo's report on his visit:

"It is being a very interesting trip! There is a lot of interest for our work. I’ve been to Minneapolis, Detroit, Washington D.C. and the San Francisco Bay area and have not met a single local development organization, credit union, investment fund or social institution that does not immediately understand the relevance and the potential of our work for the local markets in the US."

In Detroit for example, the local economy has been challenged for decades now, and there are many institutions doing very interesting development work. But also in the other regions I visited there is a clear demand for tools that can help to focus purchasing power on local suppliers, offer credit for local businesses and, in general, support a more efficient money allocation.

It was a surprise that also our technological solutions meet a very strong demand, as the market for digital transactions in the US is much less developed than in other countries. People, businesses and governments still use pay-checks and other less efficient forms of payment.
A significant part of the population that has no access to banking services and could very well benefit from the features offered by our software.

At this point we have yet to decide whether the potential opportunities for our work here are serious enough for us to continue focusing our work here. But it would be a very interesting case of bringing tools that have been developed and tested in Latin America and Africa towards more developed markets."