Gender and Development Field Examples from Asia and the Pacific 2008

India: Sowing the seeds of sustainability: kitchen gardens

In India, women's self-help groups (SHGs) significantly contribute to improving the living conditions of poor households and the surrounding environment. In the IFAD-supported Tejaswini Rural Women’s Empowerment Programme, one important Self Help Group (SHG) programme activity is kitchen gardens, where women cultivate fruits, flowers and vegetables around their homes for consumption and sale.

The Tejaswini Rural Women’s Empowerment Programme is an eight-year IFAD supported initiative in India focusing on women’s development. The programme is supporting and strengthening women’s SHGs and their apex organizations in two states of India – Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. It provides women with access to financial services, fostering linkages with banks and supporting microfinance institutions. The objective is to enable poor women to have a wider range of choices and opportunities in the economic, social and political spheres.

In Maharasthra, one of the programme activities is to help women develop ‘kitchen gardens’ with the view to improving their living conditions, food security and surrounding environment, as well as helping them to earning additional income. In the Hingoli district alone, 514 SHGs (4,234 women) in 155 villages are cultivating kitchen gardens. Most of the SHGs in the project area are beginning their own gardens, with continuous programme support.

The programme helped SHG members to form environment committees to generate awareness about the importance of kitchen gardens. With the help of the Department of Agriculture, women were trained to select seeds that will meet dietary and health needs. Using SHG savings, women have purchased seeds from the Department of Agriculture.

As a result of this initiative, families have fresh fruits and vegetables available regularly, improving their diet and health. By selling their produce from kitchen gardens, women generate additional income for their household and for SHG savings.

Kitchen gardens are also used for managing waste and reducing pollution. Diverting water to gardens helps keep waste water away from homes, where it can create unhealthy conditions. Furthermore, by spreading greenery in the village environment, kitchen gardens reduce pollution, making villages cleaner and prettier.

Villagers are excited about the environmental awareness and new developments in their villages. As a result, the programme has been supporting this activity all over the programme area in the Maharashtra state.

Source: PI Newsletter19 January/February 2009

Bangladesh: Progress in sub-programme 3: innovations in infrastructure development

The infrastructure component of the IFAD-supported Sunamganj Community-Based Resource Management Project, being implemented by LGED, has focused on building village roads to connect communities with the main road network. The first innovation was building concrete roads that are able to stand being flooded without damage.

Innovation in construction methods

Last year, the project made a new innovation. Instead of employing contractors to build roads using reinforced concrete, the project established community groups, known as Labour Contracting Societies (LCS), to build roads using concrete blocks. Omitting reinforcing saves the cost of expensive steel and the design allows for later addition of lateral reinforcing bars in any place where there is evidence of subsidence. Block making can be done over time in advance of laying the road, allowing group members, especially women, to fit this work in with other household tasks.

Construction through LCS increases community involvement and generates a significant amount of employment. Using this approach, the project developed a total of 4.5 km of roads as a pilot scheme. Most block making took place between September and November (the monga period) when little other work was available and fishing areas were closed. Block making provided income to many poor households who normally, at this time of the year, have to reduce food consumption and borrow from money-lenders to survive.

Economic and social benefits

By December 2007, the project had built 69 roads adding up to 93.5 km and connecting 148 villages. Rajanagar village of Jahangirnagar Union, Sadar Upazila is an example of the benefits of village road development. Here, and in a neighbouring union, over the last three years the project built about 10 km of roads. Villagers say the quality of road construction is better than for conventionally constructed roads, as it was supervised by the project community organizations.

People say these roads have had an enormous impact on their lives. To get to the boat ghat at Haluaghat five km away used to take one hour, but now it only takes 15 minutes. Vegetables used to be sold in the village for BDT 10/kg but now sell for BDT 30/kg. The price of aman paddy has risen by BDT 100 per 40kg. It used to per 40kg in the village. Farmers used to hire pack horses to carry paddy to the ghat for sale. Now traders come to the village and buy for the same prices as at the ghat. To hire a van rickshaw for the journey to the ghat used to cost BDT 200, but now costs BDT 70. The cost of transporting a bag of fertiliser from the ghat has fallen from BDT 25 to 8. Many new businesses have started and others expanded..

New roads make it easier for children to get to school, so they are much more inclined to go. Attendance has increased from 40 to 80 per cent of all school age children in the village. Women

have become much more mobile. They now regularly visit Sunamganj town to see the doctor and shop. Last year, the project also re-excavated an eight kilometres long canal. The canal is providing water for irrigation. According to farmers, as a result of the canal, both the irrigated area and yields have doubled. Road and canal development have greatly increased incomes and employment of villagers. Not only is there now no unemployment (including youth unemployment), but there is a shortage of labour.

Source: PI Newsletter March/April 2008

Vietnam: Promotion of gender equality in decision-making

The Gender and Women's Livelihood component of the Rural Income Diversification Project in Tuyen Quang Province, Viet Nam has established a Women's Livelihood Fund (WLF) that enables communes in the project area to finance needs that women themselves have identified. The women's formation and management of WLF village groups, which are grassroots, community-based organizations, has had a significant impact on women's self-confidence in making community decisions, and on their capacity to think through a project from beginning to end. WLF Village Groups have helped women to participate in community decision-making and to learn how to prioritize public, as well as household, development decisions.

Thanks to WLF village groups, women are making collective decisions for the first time and are reflecting collectively on their economically deprived conditions. A review by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) found that the WLF was embraced enthusiastically by the women in the villages. For the first time, women at village level had the power to make decisions about the use of project funds. They liked being able to make community decisions and recognized that having access to funds and control over how the money was to be spent enabled them to assess their situation from a wider perspective. Women decided on criteria for how to ensure that poor people received equal benefits, and reviewed various conditions before making decisions.

WLF village groups will develop better organizational and leadership skills, to ensure the sustainability of these positive results.

Source: PI Newsletter 2005

Tajikistan: ICARDA Project “Community Action in Integrated and Market Oriented Feed-Livestock Production in Central and South Asia. Activity #16: “Value added local processing of goat fibers by women and assessing the characteristics of naturally colored mohair and the potentials for its marketing.”

The project financed through an IFAD grant offers an example of innovative approach to empower rural women. Though a very good and promising initiative, it is still being tested in small groups and its success and prospective for upscaling will have to be verified in the longer term.

This activity is focused on establishing a market chain for mohair yarn which is one of the key export commodities produced by women in the pilot region. During the first project year 2006-2007 research was conducted on the production and marketing of Tajik mohair and mohair yarn and a promising new market for handspun kid mohair yarn in the United States was identified. An access to the this growing US market would allow the Tajik women to earn much higher incomes than by producing coarse, low quality yarns for the Russian market which is currently their main outlet.

The research on livelihoods in the pilot regions showed that the production of mohair and the sale of mohair yarn represents an important means of livelihood and provides an opportunity for rural women to generate income. The research also showed that an alternative market exists especially for kid mohair and fine, handspun yarns in the United States. Based on preliminary price calculations, producing luxury mohair yarns for US yarn shops would lead to much higher earnings for the Tajik women than they currently receive by selling coarse mohair yarn to Russia. The results of testing mohair yarn samples by American knitters verify that the Tajik spinners can produce attractive yarns that can successfully compete with similar production sold in American stores. The ICARDA project continues to work with the artisans and the angora goat farmers to open the American market for knitting yarn to the Tajik spinners and will help them to establish successful, women-led small businesses organized as Fair Trade.

Author: Liba Brent November 26, 2007)