Basement blues

Saturday, 23 January 2010. The final day to wrap it all up. We spend the full and only day in the hotel basement, a kind of behaviour that has probably not yet been seen in Cusco, the tourism capital of Peru. Maria is back with us, having overcome the altitude sickness.

The first session, a left-over from yesterday, draws conclusions from the rural financial services in the project. The overall feeling is that the savings-based approach is very sound and sustainable, and that the combination of savings with micro-insurance, especially life insurance, is very powerful in assisting the rural poor to acquire assets while making sure no calamity throws them back to square one. It was suggested to limit the savings subsidies in time, and to include an insurance package in the savings products similarly to the credit products.

Lunch is spent preparing the innovation plans with which we hope to put the learned bits and pieces to practice in our own work, without which the entire tour is useless, as Ariel reminds us.

Making sense of it all

The Rwanda team kicks of with a joint proposal to integrate CLARs and competitions to provide capacity building grants through 2 IFAD-financed projects and one financed by Belgium. The plan would use local structures already being set up, but with a new focus on popular presentations of the proposals and results to be assessed by CLARs. An innovation would be the strong involvement of community innovation centres (CCIs) as secretariat to the CLARs supported by project staff, thereby supporting sustainability. The plan is explicit in its implementation plan, aiming at organising the first community competitions in December 2010.

Next is Venezuela. Their innovation plans promoting rural financial services, especially a savings culture, starting with a few pilot MFIs (cajas rurales), by providing subsidies to savers and additionally using competitions between savers (especially women) to allocate credit to the most performing savers that request credit. This sounds like a very interesting combination of elements of the SSDP. Marcela suggests undertaking exchange visits with Colombia.

The Colombians themselves, true ambassadors of their country, start their presentation with a publicity movie on Colombia. They continue with a talking map, evidently having learned something on the trip. It proposes:

• a pilot activity on including cultural identity in the business promotion, also to respond to the cultural diversity of the clients;
• the inclusion of micro-insurance with small subsidies; and
• the promotion of local talents. Finally, Marcela from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Colombia, plans to orient the local authorities in its development efforts, carry out exchange visits and to promote rural savings strategies.

The Irrigation and Rural Livelihoods Development Project (IRLDP) in Malawi wants to pilot some activities in 3 districts. The project team wants to move from project-driven grants for inputs and materials to CLAR-type allocation systems, include services by talents through direct sourcing in the these grants, link farmers to microfinance institutions and improve community-level marketing, and use PRAs to develop talking maps for natural resource management. Ariel suggests that convincing the authorities of the changes will be a challenge, and we propose that the project look for allies to support the cause.

Elizabeth Farmosi’s proposal is called Alliance Sierra Sur – Mother Earth. It is targeted at the Sierra Sur project, with new mechanisms for the population to access resources, alliances with public and private institutions, and improvements to the conditions of the competitions in favour of the poorer members of the participating communities. Good stuff, but possibly the recommendations are a little late for the project and can rather flow into the next design.

Maria Hartl proposes a Learning Route on rural financial services in Peru, targeted at IFAD-financed projects, IFAD staff (especially field staff) and other partners, covering savings, credit, insurance and leasing. Recommendations to Maria were to include remittances, and to match well the innovation needs and experiences available. I wonder how many of us are considering whether this should be their next route.

The final stretch is the auto-evaluation of the Learning Route, which I find really embarrassing: how can you just praise everything. In desperation, I propose organizing the background material so that it’s a little easier to work with. But honestly, the organization and contents was terrific, and now it’s on us to implement the learning plan, as otherwise Ariel will come back some day and tell us that it was all futile. I hope we can count on some ongoing support from PROCASUR and the project for that.

The last night we spend at Chicha, a restaurant specialising in refined traditional dishes. The tour ends with a fun round of surprise awards of certificates between routeros, at which it becomes clear to us that we’ve become a close group of friends that has shared a very intense experience.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that this tour was the best thing I did this year.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager, IFAD

Learning about territorial rural development, cultural maps and ecotourism

Wednesday, 20 January 2010. Departure from Chivay to Sibayo. Breathtaking landscape with rugged mountains, steep gorges, stone walls, some alpaca and cattle, very few people. We arrive in the small town that is in a process of reconstruction, fully on the basis of its low stone houses and thatched roofs. Martin from Malawi likes the place so much he'd like to stay. Today it’s Maria Hartl’s time to get altitude sick, and Lorena from the Lima office takes good care of her, after a visit to the health post Maria retreats to the room. This is also the town that won the support for the underground electricity connections with its elaborate play at the CLAR yesterday. We visit the Sumac Pallay handicraft association that has managed to start a medium-scale business processing the wool of the 20 members. With a local trainer and some matching grant support, their lives have clearly improved. Yet for further growth they are still dependent on grants, and for the assets they own it's surprising that the only financial service they use is a savings account. All seems to be targeted at tourism. It intrigues me that there aren't any tourists, but Raúl, the mayor, assures me they come in organised tours by the busload year-round.

We continue through the picturesque town, past stone walls on which cacti were planted to discourage animals from climbing across. Next is a company of 10 local partners producing trout in many large tanks built and owned by the municipality. The tanks are managed by the company under a contract, without rent, and have a capacity to produce 5 t of fresh fish per month. The business is new, albeit well operational, and according to Raúl it represents a model for economic development. However, for an investment as large as this it appears that more partners could be involved, and possibly it might have been more equitable and less risky to set it up as smaller units.

He then proceeds to give a passionate presentation in a thatch hall, outlining his development approach in working with local associations and companies that need to compete for public support. He likes incentives. The municipality provided a laptop to the best scholar of the agricultural college, it subsidises thatched roofs, English courses, daily pay for road works for residents, lots of things. And he likes competitions. Any support the municipality provides it allocates through public competitions: pasture improvements, rehabilitation of houses, reforestation. What could be a sleepy little town is actually a dynamic local capital that manages to leverage 14 Sol for every Sol of its budget, and a participatory budget at that.

After the warm midday sun the cold sets in. We follow a couple of presentations on the concept of territorial rural development, cultural maps and ecotourism, and after a good round of comments and questions disappear with our host families to their rustic guest houses where we'll spend the night. Janvier, Benson and I are staying with Dora, a little lady in her 50s with traditional dress, and share a room that fits just about 3 beds and a table. Very homely, simple, clean. We help ourselves to coca tea, and for the joint dinner in the town hall Elizabeth Farmosi arrives in traditional Colca dress. After dinner there’s music with a local group, we move out to the log fire that struggles badly with the thin air, but when it finally gets going there’s dancing around the fireplace until we’re all warm and tired.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager, Rwanda

Africa conquers the Andes

Monday, 18 February 2010. At 3h45 the phone rings, I fall out of bed, it’s the director of an NGO in Madagascar. He tells me the two staff that have just arrived in Kigali have been arrested by the police and locked up in a cell, he doesn’t know why. He also couldn’t know I’m in a different time zone. The two are to work with the Support Project for the Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture (PAPSTA), but I can’t call Janvier, the project coordinator, as he’s with us on the tour. So I call André, field coordinator of KWAMP, who says he’ll look into this. At 4h10, when I call Madagascar again to calm them down I hear that the problem has already been resolved, it was something connected to the visas, we don’t know the details and at this point we don’t need to know.

Short sleep till 5h30, fall out of bed, get ready, back on the road. We pull out of Arequipa after a quick trip through the colonial centre with its white stones, and start climbing the cordillera. Arequipa itself is at 2300 m, the surrounding snow-peaked volcanoes more than 6500. At 3000 m, Beatrice, our guide, start a coca chewing demonstration and distributes small plastic bags of leaves. At around 3000m, tucking our little bundles of coca leaves away in the cheek pockets, we drive past road signs saying "zona de neblina", but I think the two are unconnected.

With strong arguments about preventing the altitude sickness, Beatrice manages to convince all Africans to give it a try, except Janvier, who is apprehensive for the proximity to cocaine. Martin from Malawi claims feeling high, which is probably the altitude. At 4040 m, he doesn't feel any better. Beatrice prescribes chocolate. Here we also pass vicunas grazing next to the road. These camelids belong to the government, but the locals own the wool. We pass the Aguas and Salinas Blancas National Reserve, and Martin starts feeling better. A little further up, going through the crater of the Chucura vulcano, we encounter two intriguing plants adapted to extreme conditions: bright green lumps called Asorela compacta, and Pecnofilium that resembles a yellow-greenish pancake. Shortly afterwards we pass the highest point at Patapampa, 4910 m, and thanks to Beatrice's tricks not a single soul feels sick.

Alpaca country

However, upon arrival in Chivay, Véridianne gets hit by altitude sickness. Again the PROCASUR experts jump in, conjure an oxygen bottle out of somewhere, reassure her and advise to rest.

Meanwhile, the session starts. Carlos Leyton, ex-minister of agriculture, gives a presentation on challenges of the Southern region of Peru. The crops of opportunity per micro-region smack a bit of the priority crops declared by government in Rwanda. A real dilemma is the conflict between farmers and mining businesses, including individual miners that have no links to the place they mine and no interest in not polluting the water.

But time is short, we are rushed off to the municipality and administration of Caylloma Provine, were we are surprised by a reception with brass band, traditional dancers with men comically disguised as women. Having been invited by the group to dance on the main street outside the municipality, we are invited in. Long and fiery speeches are made, and each routero is presented with a large decorated heart of bread as a sign of friendship. The endless ceremony again moves on to joint dancing, a little surreal with giant bread hearts, and before we know it we have moved from relatively to badly behind schedule.

Back at the hotel, we are glad to find Véridianne feeling much better. In the conference room, we learn about the general setup of the Southern Highlands Project, its impact and outreach, and enjoy a short film on the project. The ensuing discussion clarifies many issues (on financing details, sustainability, poverty focus, obligations of winners of competitions, women representation, etc.) and keeps the level of attention well high with full participation until 20h00. A full day ending with a rush to the cybercafé to send my blog on its way. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a connection tomorrow, so please bear with me.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager, Rwanda