The project Sustainable Livelihoods for the disadvantaged communities Living in the River Basin will build the capacities of the communities in assessing economic risks, adopt coping strategies, and reduce losses in addition to increasing livelihood opportunities through proper planning, quality production, improved market access and collective work. The project will use subsector approaches, promote new agricultural techniques, experiment community insurance and promote cooperatives with a strong focus on women’s participation. As a result of this intervention, it is expected that the community will acquire new skills to increase their livelihood opportunities in a sustainable fashion.
Project Summary
Communities residing in the river basin face a high level of economic risk due to the prevalence of unexpected natural disasters such as floods and landslides. Although these natural disasters are seasonal, yet the communities end up bearing livelihood losses in addition to loss of life, housing and health. This is mostly due to inadequate planning, lack of organizational skills, inaccessible markets and poor mitigation strategies. Under such a situation, the implementing agency (NGO) proposes to implement a set of interventions to reduce the economic risks and increase livelihood opportunities of the poor communities living in the river basin area. The project will build the capacities of the communities in assessing economic risks, adopt coping strategies, and reduce losses in addition to increasing livelihood opportunities through proper planning, quality production, improved market access and collective work. The project will use subsector approaches, promote new agricultural techniques, experiment community insurance and promote cooperatives with a strong focus on women’s participation. As a result of this intervention, it is expected that the community will acquire new skills to increase their livelihood opportunities in a sustainable fashion.
Problem Statement
The low-income and disadvantaged communities, residing in the river basins of the country/region, are open to increasing economic risks, besides facing the hard consequences of natural disasters and climate change. Most of the rivers in the country are snow-fed and flow down from north to south with a high velocity and since the land hosts a complex geographical structure, the seasonal monsoons cause enormous pressure on the environment, leading to unexpected natural disasters every year, especially in the proposed region. Such events have caused severe damage to human life, settlement patterns, local environment and, above all, to the economic sustainability of the river-basin communities. Floods and landslides have spoiled agricultural land, destroyed livestock, displaced biodiversity, reduced productive human health and demolished habitation. These unfortunate periodical incidents increase the vulnerability of poor communities, fracturing their sources of income and undermining their sustainability practices. Further to this, these communities, time and again, adopt unsustainable income-generation activities which are characterized by inadequate planning, inaccessible markets, lack of organizational skills and poor coping strategies. Hence, a holistic intervention is required, in which disaster preparedness is combined with a mechanism that sustains and increases livelihood opportunities for the communities living in the river basin.
Project Description
In response to the request from the donor agency, implementing organization has developed this paper to initiate, design and implement an effective livelihood intervention strategy targeted at the poor and the disadvantaged communities living in the river basin. The strategic approaches, outlined in this concept note, will leverage with the ongoing efforts of other donor-supported projects in mitigating disasters and reducing the vulnerability of the communities. The proposed project will specifically contribute towards increasing livelihood opportunities of the marginalized people in the river basin areas, taking into account the natural risks and disasters and ensuring communities’ long-term livelihood sustainability. The project will examine disaster-prone areas and, on the basis of participatory studies, it will build up strategic efforts to increase skills and knowledge of the targeted beneficiaries in planning income-generation activities, exploiting markets, establishing linkages, enhancing incomes and organizing community-based institutions.
The main features of the project are:
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- Educating the community on economic risks caused due to natural disasters and reducing the impact of natural disasters on livelihood activities.
- Developing the skills of small and marginal farmers, including women, in identifying potential agricultural, NTFP produce and other micro-enterprises, adopting better production techniques and exploiting market opportunities based on sub-sector approach.
- Building the capacities of the community in establishing strong and sustainable cooperatives providing member-based financial services and also facilitating input supply, resource management and collective marketing. The cooperatives will ensure practice of equity, participation, better management and good governance.”
Project Goal
The overall goal of the project is to build sustainable livelihoods for the poor and the disadvantaged communities living in the river basin.
Project Objectives
The specific objectives of the project are:
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- To reduce economic risks, caused due to the natural hazards, of the targeted communities living in the river basin.
- To build capacities of the targeted communities in identification, production, financing and marketing of potential agricultural and non-agricultural products, including micro-enterprises.
- To promote business-oriented community-based organizations, undertaking collective production and marketing techniques for long-term sustainability.
Expected Results
At the end of the project period, the following results are expected to be achieved after the intervention:
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- Increased awareness and knowledge among the communities on the impact of natural disasters on economic sustainability
- Effective participatory mechanisms adopted by the communities to reduce the impact of natural disasters on economic livelihoods.
- Increased capacity of the communities in production, management and marketing of agricultural and non-agricultural products, including micro-enterprises.
- Economically-viable and sustainable community-based organizations are managed by the communities for successful production and marketing.”
Project Methodology
The project will adopt the following components while implementing the methodology to achieve the expected results:
(1) Disaster Preparedness-Awareness and Education
In addition to the existing programmes on disaster preparedness, the project will organize awareness workshops with the community on disaster preparedness and mitigation. Special emphasis will be made on reducing economic risks caused by disasters. Participation will be the key. Community insurance is a significant concept that can be utilized in this intervention. Through community-owned and managed institutions, community insurance can be adopted by the community to lessen the impact of natural disasters on household economy. However, this concept will be developed in consultation with the community after analyzing risks and needs and will develop a participatory package. At this stage, the project will commit itself to undertake research and development of community insurance practices in the project area to evolve a risk coping strategy against economic losses caused due to natural disasters.”
(2) Sub-sectoral Approach for Increased Production and Marketing for Small Farmers
The project will adopt sub-sector approaches to strengthen the livelihoods of the community, residing in the river basin area. The sub-sector approach has been identified as a beneficial tool for farmers with small and scattered land holdings in increasing their productivity levels and establishing linkages with markets in a sustainable manner. This approach will carry out a detailed diagnosis of potential vegetables, NTFPs, and micro-enterprises combined with intensive market studies to examine the demand and supply chains. The studies will be followed by close training programmes and technical support in production and marketing for the community. The process will help address constraints and seize opportunities to improve incomes and sustainability of the community.”
3) Introduction of New Agricultural Techniques
Improved micro-irrigation systems, agriculture and agro-forestry techniques and cash-cropping techniques will be introduced. The community will receive financial and technical support for implementing these techniques. Technical support will be provided in participatory infrastructure management and improved production practices. Study tours will be organized for farmers to agriculture fairs, local markets and other models.”
(4) Building Sustainable Community-Based Organisations
Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) such as cooperatives ensure long-term sustainability of interventions, in addition to promoting concepts of equity, self-reliance and good governance. The project will promote community-based cooperatives to undertake disaster management, production and marketing practices in a more organized manner to reduce risks and increase incomes. Through a set of planned interventions, the project will create awareness and education on cooperatives and help the communities to build them so as to enable them to organize easy, flexible and cost-effective financial services, leverage technical resources, gain input supply, undertake production planning and carry out marketing services in agriculture, NTFP and micro-enterprises.”
Gender as a Cross-Cutting Theme Project
The project will promote greater equality among women and men. It will ensure greater participation of women in all aspects of the intervention such as disaster management, production, marketing and cooperative development. It will enable women and men to collaborate and work together on strategies improving the overall household livelihood situation. The project will focus on building women’s leadership through women’s cooperatives. Gender will be integrated in all reports and documentation.
Project Sustainability
The project emphasizes on the creation and strengthening of community based organizations, which are crucial to build confidence within the community. The project will begin with a withdrawal strategy from day one onwards to practically facilitate the community to own resources and act accordingly. Cooperatives, as well managed institutions, will have high technical capability by the end of the project to undertake planning, pool resources, develop produces, access markets and share profits. The project believes in strengthening the skills of the community in managing resources in a sustainable manner and this will be achieved by intensive capacity-building programs organized during the term of the project.”
Monitoring & Evaluation
The project will develop a monitoring strategy to examine the progress of the interventions and also to document lessons learned. In addition to the monthly and annual reports developed by the project staff based upon a set of pre-identified progressive indicators, the project will organize semi-annual and annual meetings with the community to generate feedback, facilitate planning and promote people’s participation. This will be a two-way approach for the achievement of effective results and ensure community ownership of the activities undertaken. Further, project visits will be undertaken by senior organizational staff and donor agency representatives on regular basis.
The evaluation will be conducted at the end of the project period. In consultation with the donor agency, the evaluation will be carried out by an external agency/resource person. The progressive indicators, identified during the baseline, will be used to compare the project results. Case studies, best practices, lessons learned and other information, including gender disaggregated data will be carefully documented and presented in the final report.
