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Mission & Vision

Our Mission:  To develop solutions with sufficient clarity and understanding that will assist entities within the public and private sectors to make better informed business decisions that increase efficiency, productivity and overall profits.

"Building Sustainable Livelihoods and Communities by Eradicating, Poverty, Hunger, Illiteracy and Human Suffering Through Empowerment, Education, Entrepreneurship, Enterprise Development and Economic Development."

​Our Vision:  NSI intends to be a leading economic development organization that enhances the capabilities of individuals and organizations in private and public sectors through education, training, consultancy, research and policy analysis.

The North-South Institute is an American NGO, a Federal Tax Exempt 501(c) 3
​multidisciplinary group. NSI is not affiliated; neither receives any assistance
or resource from the North South Institute located in Ontario, Canada.

Who We Are
The North-South Institute is an American NGO, a Federal Tax Exempt 501(c) 3 multidisciplinary group. NSI is not affiliated; neither receives any assistance or resource from the North South Institute located in Ontario, Canada.

​The North-South Institute for International Business, Trade and Sustainable Systems (NSI) is a 501(c) 3 multidisciplinary group whose objective is to promote sustainable development systems and foster eco-economic development within an international business and trade framework. These activities target the developing sectors of the southern United States and emerging markets of selected countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. The implementation strategy involves the empowerment and enhancement of the capabilities of individuals, organizations, and industry through education, training, consultancy, research and policy analysis, and asset acquisition towards the development sustainable livelihoods and improved quality of life. 
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​The Institute uses five business units in the delivery of its programs:
• The Center for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (CEED) providing research, technical assistance, training and outreach
• First Development Capital Fund (FDCF), providing financial and risk management services to clients.
• Land Bank & Workforce Investment Facilitation
• Cooperative Development
• Rural & Small Business Development
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In its program implementation it focuses on services in the past to over 3,000 clients (Rural Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), small family farms, marginalized women, youth and the elderly, new American farmers, Women in Business, Veterans in Small Business, Farmers-in-the Middle (Caucasian Farmers in-transition).

The services provided are in the following areas:
•Specialty Food Enterprise Development
•Business Planning, Farm and Agribusiness Management
•On-Farm Solar and Wind Power Generation for Irrigation and Farm Activities
•Resources for Your Farm – Working with USDA and Other Sources
•Skills for Employment in Agriculture and Allied Industries
•Partnership Placement and Apprenticeship Program (PPAP)

Who We Serve

These activities are targeted to developing sectors of the Southern United States (Delta States – AR, MS, LA, and Selected Southern States – AL, GA, FL & SC) and emerging markets of selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and Central Eastern Europe.

The clients served are:
  • Socio Economic, Disadvantage Producers
    • African American
    • Latino and Hispanics
    • Immigrants: Caribbean/West Indian, Latino and Hispanics, and Asians (Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean and Philippino) African
    • Native Americans
    • Creole
    • Women
  • Veterans & Limited Resource Producers
  • Neighborhood Schools, CBO’s, & Outreach Orphanages
  • At Risk Groups- Youth and Non-Violent First Time Offenders

How We Serve

The North-South Institute uses four methods in implementing its programs.  These are:

Opportunity Assessment and Challenge Solving
The Institute conducts hands-on assessments with the client members in identifying what exist, how they can help themselves, what role the Institute should play, and in event of challenges how to assist as a catalyst in helping the client member(s) to solve them.

Technical Assistance and Training
The Institute assembles and facilitates the best cadre of experts with appropriate skills to provide the requisite knowledge and information such that the client members can become empowered, enlightened and develop the capacity to solve the issues at hand.

Asset Acquisition
The Institute facilitates access to resources by the client members to secure assets. Recognizing that training and technical assistance are needed to build capacity, however, if client members are not provided with or create the opportunity to own assets, their livelihoods will not improved. For example assets could include a small piece of land, a few animals, a small building to pack and store products, an animal or a van to transport products, a small piece of machinery or equipment and finance to cover labor costs, etc.

​Partnering and Networking
The Institute recognizes the importance of having the appropriate resources available to best service our client member(s). As a result, we are committed to networking and creating partnerships only with organizations who are like minded in the interest of areas that best serve the needs of our client member(s). The ultimate goal is to implement a successful business plan that will assist in growing their business, products and services, and an increase in revenue. 

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The major implementation activities annually are driven by the natural productive cycle in a given area.  The platforms currently used are as follows:
  • Planning and Assessment Period  - November – December
  • Regional Symposium – January or July
  • Preparation of Technical and Training Material- All Year
  • Extension and Outreach – February  - October
    • Field Activities, On-Site Interventions  and Planning Sessions
    • Echo-Workshops
    • Listening Sessions
    • One-On-One Sessions
    • Business Development Services
    • Field  Days
    • Townhall Meetings
    • Farmer Sharing Sessions
    • Rural Entrepreneur Sharing Sessions
    • Enterprise Management Audits and Assessment  Sessions
    • Quick Response Meetings
    • On-Site  Demonstrations
    • Clearing House & Troubleshooting

Statement of Value
The fourteen (14) Tenets of the NSI -- Statement of Values for Balance Growth Development Strategy (BDGS) through Strategic Principles for Sustainable Livelihoods and Improvement of the Quality of Life:
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  • Balance Growth and Continuous Prosperity are driven by the Principle of Equilibrium, Co-Existence of Nature and the Environment: Humankind through its spiritual, cultural, heritage, social, economic, political, organizational and institutional frameworks must co-exist with nature and the environment. The existence and transversal utility of successive generations and the perpetuation of all species are based on the fact that neither must be allowed to supplant each other, but must co-exist in a balance.
 
  • Living Your Legacy through the Art of Giving Back: Poverty, lack, persistent wants start with a particular mind-set.  You can train and provide technical assistance to build capacity, however, without providing opportunities to stimulate a changing of the mind-set combined with the acquisition of basic assets those conditions will persist.  Those conditions can be eradicated through education, maintaining a healthy mind and body, and enterprise and job creation.  We all must participate in making those things happen.
 
  • Systematic and Rational Use of Resources to Sustain Future Generations: Resources must be used in a systematic and rational manner to allow for renewal where possible and caused-exhaustion where it cannot be avoided, but not at the expense of future generations.
 
  • Development and Innovation of New Technologies Guided by Ethical, Moral and Safe Guarding Principles: New technologies, given their long-term effects of challenging and positive externalities, that cannot be readily assessed in total must be explored given consideration to ethical, moral and safe guarding principles.
 
  • Balancing the Development Process and Production of Waste: Waste, natural or people-made, must be considered in the development process with a view of recycling what can be recycled and/or minimizing that which may be harmful to people, water, soil, animals and the general environment.
 
  • Healthy Humankind in Mind, Body and Spirit: Healthy humankind in mind, body and spirit is one of the primary tenets of our earthly existence.
 
  • Profit is Good and Driven by Sound Cashflow Maximization: Profit is good and is driven by cash flow maximization; however resources must be allocated and used taking into consideration market and non-market values.
 
  • Harmonization of Private and Public Sectors and Interest Groups for Sustainability of the Environment: The private sector, conservationists and governments must work together if the goals of conservation are to be realized given the ever increasing private ownership of land, water, forest resources and the development of private parks globally.
 
  • Energy is the Basis of Existence: Energy is the basis of existence, non-renewable and renewable forms must be utilized. When developed within the context of issues related to water, soil, air, waste and sanitation, a rational mix with proper planning can ensure the sustainability of all species and the environment.
 
  • Inclusion and Diversity in Human Capital: Sustainable communities must build their human capital by attracting outside resources that can be used to foster balanced growth and development.
 
  • Multidisciplinary Holistic Approach in Planning Communities: A multidiscipline/holistic approach in planning communities' in outcomes that are more sustainable than those produced under uni-directional planning.
 
  • Modernization of Life and Business Processes: The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life through the modernization of life and business processes.
 
  • Commercialization a viable vehicles of Sustainability: Commercialization is one of the viable vehicles of sustainability.
 
  • Openness of the Development Process through the Market Exchange Process: Sustainable Community cannot survive as a “Closed-System" and so it must seek to participate in the market-exchange process, i.e., the trading of resources and output.
 
  • Empowerment and Enlightenment is about Individual Choice with Responsibility: Ensuring that the choices and decisions made will result in the improvement of that individual and the community.