'To remain always a child'

Video documentation in Latin America highlights lessoned learned from projects past and present
Learning from our past to guide how we work in the future is a central pillar to IFAD's operations and knowledge management practices in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. Truly, as Cicero taught us… "To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it be woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?"

In order to expand this knowledge base, learn from our history and promote inter-institutional dialogue, we are making a concerted effort to share the lessons learned from the projects we fund across the region through video documentaries, reports, newsletters and more.

One of the first steps here has been resuscitating the video documentaries from projects we’ve funded in the past. In the embedded video playlists below, you’ll find see over 40 videos that document rural empowerment projects in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. We hope these videos serve as an institutional record and historic marker as we continue our efforts to learn from our past and build on our future. 

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil

Colombia

Haiti

Nicaragua

Mexico

Peru

Uruguay

Venezuela


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Leveraging information and communications technologies

Rural communities in Peru look toward technology and competition as a catalyst for rural development
What happens when you combine information and communication technology with grassroots development initiatives and good old fashioned free-market competition? For poor rural people in Peru, this winning combination is changing lives, one virtual network (and one computer) at a time.

The story goes back to 2007, when the Andean Regional Studies Centre Bartolome de Las Casas (CBC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) began carrying out a project to facilitate access to information and communication technologies in the rural areas of Cusco and Puno, Peru.

“By building rural internet centres in various municipalities throughout Peru, this program is working to integrate families living in the remote corners of the country into the society as whole,” says IFAD’s Country Program Manager for Peru, Roberto Haudry. “These primarily indigenous communities have centuries of traditions, know-how and wisdom, but lacked the platforms to share this information freely – or to be part of the national discourse - so we began creating community information centres and grassroots networks to share these experiences.”

Taking advantage of the experience accumulated by IFAD in the Puno – Cusco Corredor and through the KUTIPAY trade promotion system, the program is being adapted and expanded within the IFAD-backed Sierra Sur and Sierra Norte projects in Peru.

“Overall, the experience developed by the project shows that the creation of information centres in these rural communities is a powerful tool to promote rural development and social inclusion,” Haudry says.

Competitive processes
But simply building a community centre does little to develop the ‘software’ that powers this information exchange. And in order to spur demand-driven development, the project looked toward the free-market.

This July, they hosted a competition designed to streamline information and communication technologies by providing co-financing to winning proposals. “The winning programs will enhance access to internet technologies, promote digital literacy, serve as an instrument for municipal transparency, and will facilitate learning and sharing between various groups,” Haudry says.

A look at the winning innovations
First Place: Innovation Audio-Visual Centre. A pilot project to develop a methodology for the strengthening of the Aymara identity within virtual spaces, presented by the Municipality of Socca Acora.

Second Place (tie): Wireless Municipal Networks. Implementing a wireless network between educational institutions and the municipality, this project seeks to strengthen classroom teaching innovations with the implementation of computers and educational software, presented by the Municipality of Macari.

Second Place (tie): Information Management. This project looked toward capacity building in information and communications technologies in the district of Pucyura.

Third Place: Community ITC. This will strengthen information and communication technologies in the community of Patabamba, district of Coya, Calca Province.

To see how these new initiatives are working throughout Peru, check out their new website at www.ticsurandino.net.

Speak Spanish? See how information systems are being leveraged throughout Peru in this CEPES study.

Graph It!





This graph from World Bank data shows how internet access has grown in Latin America over the past two decades.

Value of cross-continental learning route

by Nguyen Thanh Tung


After flying from Hanoi across Asian, African and Latin American countries and taking long transit hours in Kuala Lumpur, Cape Town and Buenos Aires we finally landed in Lima, Peru after 44 long hours. Our team of 11 people including provincial leaders, IFAD project directors and staffs from Vietnam then climbed to Arequipa, Chivay and Sibayo in the Andes mountains and wondered if the intercontinental trip would have learning value. “I thought farmers in my province suffer harsh conditions, but really here their livelihood is much more challenging, the area has more stones than we have ”, said Mr. Tien, Vice-Chairman of Ha Giang Province when he saw the land surface in the southern region of Peru made up only of stone like on the moon.

We were surprised from the first day of the Learning Route, by the cold climate in the highlands at altitudes of 3,800 meter and above and by such a warm atmosphere of the community’s dynamics and ownership of development. “No need for reading the project completion report or any of monitoring and evaluation, the presentation skills and understandings on business management by the women’s groups we met in the villages and during a CLAR contest showed us the successes of the IFAD project”, concluded Ms. Vien, IMPP Project Director from Tra Vinh province after the four-day visit to women’s household-tourism and handicraft associations in Sibayo and their actual participation in the final CLAR contest on poverty reduction impacts of their activities. Recalling similar Cham ethnic minority women in her province who are shy and reluctant to talk at community meetings, Ms. Vien added: “I do think that the CLAR mechanism makes the local poor women change their capacities and we need to learn from this from Peru for replication under IFAD projects in Vietnam”.


Why the CLAR mechanism was so attractive to the Vietnamese team? CLAR in Spanish is “Comité Local de Asignación de Recursos” (local resources allocation committee), in which community groups compete with their business ideas and plans for accessing pubic resources that they will own and manage to procure technical assistance and build up infrastructure they need. CLAR members are representatives of the beneficiary communities and enterprise associations and information on the CLAR process and decisions are publicly announced. Resources allocated by the CLAR are up to the 80% of the total budget of a business plan and the other 20% is invested by the local communities, so both become partners. This factor makes the community groups the real owners of their business plans, e.g. they decide to hire someone locally available to teach poor women weaving handcrafts or cooking food for tourists. There is no need to wait for training services by government staffs.


The principle of competition in the CLAR contest is also a key factor, motivating creation of new business ideas and assurance of product quality. Trade fairs, integrated with the CLAR contest, generate opportunities for producer’s associations to promote the marketing of their products in urban areas. All these factors were discussed by our team during analysis workshops conducted during the Learning Route right after each day of field visits and interviews with local stakeholders. The more we learned about the CLAR mechanism the more we fell in love with this tool and asked for its detailed guidelines. We believe that this tool may overcome the current constraints to development of producer’s associations under IFAD projects in Vietnam, in particular in their access to financial and technical assistance due to bureaucratic and top-down mechanisms of public service management.


“I found CLAR a very effective and efficient system for pro-poor public resource management. However, adopting CLAR in Vietnam will need the political commitment of local government for introducing changes like in Peru. Thank you, IFAD and PROCASUR very much for helping me in crossing the world’s continents to learn many new things that we are ready to replicate in Vietnam”, said Vice-Chairman Tien during the final workshop of the Learning Route in which each of us presented our follow-up innovation plans based on the Peru experience.

We all fully in agree with Vice-Chairman Tien that we learnt more than expected. In addition to the CLAR itself we learnt in Peru how to develop sustainable community-based tourism and off-farm activities in remote and difficult areas, how to conserve indigenous techniques among ethnic minority groups and integrate the production workshops within tourism activities, how to promote public private partnerships (PPP) in development of saving groups in cooperation with private banks, provision of training to government staffs and communities by private mining companies, etc. but there are more and more interesting things to list here. For example Vice-Chairman Tien was most happy when he saw in the Peruvian household he stayed with in Sibayo village the model of wood-saving stove that he was looking for promoting in his province.

Saying goodbye with warmest hugs with our Peruvian friends we invited them to join us soon in a Learning Route to IFAD projects in Vietnam since we believe that sharing knowledge does need to be organized focused on key innovation that we want to bring back home, and in face-to-face interactions with project stakeholders, in particular the poorest ethnic minority women in the most disadvantaged areas.

Competing to overcome rural poverty

By Giulia Pedone

This morning the main square of Chivay is a celebration of colours: representatives of rural producers’ associations, mostly women in their traditional clothes, gathered to compete in a CLAR (Resource Allocation Local Committees) contest. The establishment of CLAR is one of the most successful innovations introduced by the Sierra Sur Project in the Southern Highlands of Peru, which is now being scaled-up in the frame of the Sierra Norte IFAD- funded project.

CLAR consists in a transparent, competitive and democratic way to allocate resources to local associations through public contests. Local talents (individual or associated) are invited to present their business plans to the CLAR jury, composed by representatives of local authorities, women associations, micro-enterprises and peasant communities. The evaluation of the business plans is accompanied by a field visit, during which the CLAR jury directly assesses the results described by local associations in their plans. On this base, the best associations are selected to participate at the final competition. In this occasion, local associations are asked to present their own business plans in a public place, generally the main city square, to be evaluated by the jury at the presence of a large public.

The final evaluation takes into account a broad rage of factors, including the recovery of cultural assets (such as the use of indigenous languages and traditional vestments), the degree of coordination and organization among associations’ members, the efforts made to reach the presented results and the possibility of their scaling-up.

Therefore, the public contest becomes a joyful and colourful event, where rural associations get together to share their experiences and learn from the others.

This morning we are pleased to assist to a very special CLAR, since the competing associations have been already recognized as the best organizations from all Caylloma province. Handicrafts, foodstuff and other local products are nicely exposed in the associations’ stands; we have the chance to walk around, taste local food, admire the women’ dresses finely embroidered and learn about the successful local experiences directly from rural producers.

The case of the a women association from Chivay particularly called our attention. Thanks to the establishment of a saving group, these ex-housewives (with no access to financial resources) have been able to put together a common capital and to invest in small rural businesses. The ladies are now managing an informal communal bank, providing credits to those women that can not have access to banks. The interests are cumulated to make the capital growing, while part of the savings are invested in the production and trade of local products. Membership, credit and business are funded on the mutual trust among participants. As women pointed out, the project gave them the opportunity to change their lives, not only in term of incomes but also for the self-esteem they acquired during the process and power decision they were able to get within their community.

This only one of the several successful experiences we have had the chance to learn from during the day and many others could be listed.

Perhaps, the red thread that links all these experiences (making CLAR a such an innovative mechanism) can be summarized in few key elements: added value to local knowledge (including the opportunity to make business out of it), increased inclusiveness and local participation, built citizenship and ensured transparency in funds allocation thanks to a competitive approach.

Public contests have demonstrated to be excellent tools to promote transparency, social control and improve partnerships between different actors of rural development at local level, such as communities, governments, public and private enterprises, among others. Furthermore, these contests promote the participation of local “champions” (or local talents, as they are called in Latin America) in the “market of knowledge”, investing in the people’s capabilities.

However, a special ingredient that couldn’t be missed out is the “political commitment to change”: on the one hand, this implies having a political space favourable for the replication of these experiences and their scaling-up in the frame of regional and national policies; on the other hand, this means counting on the commitment of local people to engage together to overcome rural poverty. As it was pointed out: overcome poverty together, not individually.

Some lessons learned from the Route

After one week of being together, sharing ideas, doubts, meals and mountain roads, we feel happy and a bit tired. Despite of the first obstacles due to the different climate conditions and alimentation, our Vietnamese colleagues finally look relaxed. Under the alpaca hats they have bought to survive to the freezing wind of the Sierra, they are smiling.

The first lesson learned is the power of the Learning Routes themselves, as special moments to get people together, learn from others, change perspective and strengthen alliances. A Learning Route is much more than a simple field visit, it stimulates to critically reflect on the learning process while you are living it, providing at the same time the methodological tools to transform ideas in proposals, inputs in innovations. This conceptual exercise, made of listening and asking, observing and reflecting, getting inspired and being creative is the first achievement we are taking back home with us.

There are also other conclusions we can draw from this specific learning experience. As it will be remarked during the closing session of the Learning Route, one important lesson is “flexibility”. IFAD- funded projects in Peru have been designed and implemented with some degree of flexibility, allowing to adapt projects’ principles and approaches to local reality. In this sense, Sierra Sur is an example of demand-driven project that responds to people’s needs and aspirations. This has made possible to build mutual trust between local people, project staff and authorities. This process implied a change in perspective, meaning to consider local people not only like beneficiaries but also as partners of project activities.

The allocation of resources through public contests demonstrated to be a key element to strengthen people participation and empower local communities, showing that the best results in overcoming rural poverty are those based on local people’s initiatives and self-capacities. Recognizing and enhancing people’s capabilities and knowledge is thus a first step to eradicate rural poverty.

This change in perspective allows to make another step further, meaning focussing on what people have (and that can increase) instead of what they lack. The glass is half full, not half empty.

As Ariel Halpern from PROCASUR pointed out, we need to learn to hear and learn to learn, what will also increase our self-esteem as professionals. In this sense, we should be prepared to learn from other people’s ideas, facilitating processes but also giving to others the chance to make mistakes, and therefore, to learn. The risk is part of the investment.

Develop an attitude for human understanding also means to let innovations and ideas circulate, and this is much more efficient when people are vehicle of knowledge transfer, instead of papers.

By changing our perspective and opening up our minds we can better ensure the construction of a rural world with more opportunities for everybody.

IFAD Innovations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The case of Peru

By Giulia Pedone


Day 1. Quequeña
Getting together

It was 6am when we left Lima and the salty breeze of the coast to fly towards Arequipa, over 2000 metres in the Southern Highlands of Peru. Here our journey begins, a one week Learning Route that will guide us through the rural areas of the Arequipa Department offering the opportunity to learn from the successful experiences supported by the SIERRA SUR IFAD-funded project directly from the people that are managing and implementing these activities.

We are a heterogeneous group, mostly composed by Vietnamese representatives from IFAD projects, which have been travelling during more than 2 days crossing the globe from East to West to reach the shining mountains of the Sierra, and by the management team of the IFAD Sierra Norte Project, Peru. Despite of the tiredness and the few hours of sleep, our Vietnamese colleagues look fresh and excited to participate at this unique experience of mutual learning.

The Learning Route has been designed by PROCASUR jointly with the local management team of IFAD projects in Vietnam to explicitly respond to Vietnamese’ needs. In this framework, 3 main topics have been identified as priority areas to be addressed during the Route: 1. public, transparent and competitive ways for allocating resources through public contests; 2. development of rural business and access to market and; 3. public and private partnerships for rural development. These issues will be framed within a broader context, which will include value chains, cultural assets, gender, NRM and participatory planning under territorial approaches, among others.

The first day of the Route is intended to brief participants on IFAD long term trajectory and operations in Peru, main achievements and current challenges, and to define the context in which the Route will be articulated. But, even more, this first day provides the opportunity to get together and break the ice, know each other and from each other, strengthening among participants the feeling of being part of a group which will share ideas, meals and mountain roads during the following days.

We reach Quequeña by road, passing through the white city of Arequipa and the mountainous, dried landscapes of the Sierra; our Vietnamese colleagues are amazed by seeing how local people was able to take advantage of such apparently hostile natural environment.. as it will be remarked, this is an example of the power of local knowledge we have to capitalise on!
We just stepped into the Route, but we are already Learning..

Day 2. Sibayo

The bus climbs up the twisting roads of the Sierra during more than 4 hours before reaching the village of Sibayo, province Caylloma, Arequipa Department. The name Sibayo in Quechua means “the city of stones” and actually the community is made up of low stone houses with thatched roof. The stones shine under the bright light of midday and the altitude makes a bit hard to breath (we are almost at 3810 meters over the sea level); the place is clean and peaceful, surrounded by green mountains. We are warmly welcomed by the women and men of the ASITUR Association, which since 2006 is managing the experience of “convivial tourism” with Sibayo’s families.

During the day we have the chance to get together with the members of ASITUR, as well as with local authorities and with the local association of women artisans, and to learn from them about the innovative experience of Sibayo, or to say it in other words, about how Sibayo’s population was able to step out from poverty by revitalizing and investing in their own culture.

Indeed, when the idea of investing in sustainable tourism first came out, Sibayo’s community was close to collapse. The presence of gold mines, the increasing traffic on the main (close) road and the lack of opportunity for local people had led to a progressive depopulation of the area. It has been thanks to the long-term vision of capable local authorities, the commitment of local population and the support of the SIERRA SUR Project that tourism activities first started to be developed. Within a few years, the situation of Sibayo has radically changed. Today, there are approximately 25 “hosting” families directly involved in tourism activities, while others indirectly benefit from tourism by selling their products (mostly trout, local vegetables and alpaca’s meat) and handicraft or organizing excursions, trekking and rafting activities for the foreign guests. The revenues are invested in training aimed at improving the quality of the service, as well as in improvements in infrastructures, education and savings. From this year, the tourism experience is completely sustainable and the Association is using its own money to pay for external training services.

Tourism didn’t bring only money: thanks to this experience, local people has been incentivized to recover their own cultural patrimony, to improve the quality of their alimentation and to progressively acquire self-confidence in their own capabilities. This has been particularly key for women that have been able to overcome their initial resistance to speak in front of foreign peoples, and therefore to present and sell their products out of the village. Women started to recover the ancient art of embroidery and to participate to local, regional and national fairs to sell their handicrafts, getting more and more experience and success.

Indeed, the successful experience of Sibayo has been made possible thanks to the conjunction of a set of positive factors, such as the presence of a fertile social environment, the commitment of rural people to get together and collaborate and the positive attitude of local authorities, which have been able to recognize the potentiality of this experience and to invest in it since the very beginning. As Raul Mamani, major of Sibayo Municipality pointed out, the strengthening of synergies between authorities and local people and the active participation of this last in project’s activities are fundamental in order to ensure the sustainable development of new income-generating activities.
So, a first lesson we can learn from Sibayo’s experience, is the need of creating opportunities for rural people by combining these two aspects, local people participation and policy dialogue. Indeed, successful experiences are those that respond to people’s needs and ambitions and that therefore can count on the engagement and long-term commitment of the people that will directly benefit from them. At the same time, it is important to raise awareness among local governments, bridging the gap between people and their authorities and opening up opportunities for collaboration with mutual benefits, so to create a political environment able to respond to local people’s needs.

(to be continued…)

Dedicado a la mejor bordadora del valle del colca, Simona Cutipa, en el día internacional de la mujer

Conocí a Simona Cutipa durante la Ruta de Aprendizaje del FIDA organizada por PROCASUR en Perú del 17 al 23 de enero de 2010. Su vida, su historia y su trabajo me conmovieron y creo que merecen ser compartidos con otros hombres y mujeres y más en estos días que se brinda tributo a las mujeres en ocasión del Día Internacional de la Mujer. Vi como bordaba delante de una máquina de coser y me fascinó. Sus dedos se deslizaban sobre la tela con una precisión increíble, bordaba de memoria: pájaros, flores, plantas y otros adornos típicos de su cultura, del Valle del Colca, sin ningún dibujo que la ayudara. Los pianistas son apreciados por la maestría con que tocan el piano y entonces pensé por qué no brindar tributo a la maestría y el arte de Simona, la mejor artesana bordadora del valle del Colca. Simona nació en Coporaque, vive en Chivay con su esposo y tiene cinco hijos. Simona empezó a demostrar su talento desde pequeña pues le encantaba dibujar. Comenzó a bordar con 13 años. Sus padres hacían bordados antiguos achocha (bordados de flores). Simona se siente sumamente orgullosa de sus raíces, de su tierra y de su cultura y la mejor herencia que le dejaron sus padres, según ella, fue su cultura: “la cultura de mis padres estaba en un cofre”.

El proyecto Sierra Sur tiene por finalidad potenciar los recursos humanos, naturales, materiales, financieros y sociales de los hombres y mujeres que se dedican a pequeñas actividades agrícolas y no agrícolas en la sierra sur como forma de mejorar sus medios de subsistencia y promover la creación de oportunidades de generar ingresos. Uno de los mecanismos utilizados para el fortalecimiento de los mercados es la contratación de servicios de asistencia técnica por parte de los beneficiarios del proyecto. Fue así como Simona empezó a colaborar con el FIDA en el proyecto Sierra Sur como capacitadora o proveedora de servicios privados de asistencia técnica.

Por un momento y ante la creatividad y el arte de Simona no pude resistir la tentación de entrevistarla durante unos minutos, a pesar de no ser una periodista.

A mi pregunta de qué había significado para ella y su familia haber participado y ganado un concurso de asistencia técnica del CLAR (Comité Local de Asignación de Recursos), Simona me contestó: “Yo me he presentado así cuando hicieron llamar por la radio. Dije: ‘voy a ver, voy a ver’. Varios se presentaron. Dentro de ellos aprobaron para mí y mi persona. Económicamente me ha ayudado bastante pues comencé a ganar un poquito más. Cuando me eligieron comencé a dar cursos. Mi fin eran ya ellos. Me dije: ‘voy a enseñarles a ver si algún día llegan a exportar siquiera un monedero o una cartera’. Una vez que aprendan ellos y ya se pueden enlazar en ese negocio”.

Simona, ¿qué sintió en ese momento cuando ganó el concurso de asistencia técnica? ¿Qué impacto tuvo en su trabajo como bordadora y capacitadora? ¿Qué impacto tuvo en acrecentar su autoestima y en aumentar los ingresos de su familia?

Los ojos de Simona se iluminaron y, sonriéndome, me contestó: “Para mí ha sido una alegría poder enseñar a un grupo de mujeres. Las mujeres en realidad estamos en la casa no más. Los hombres a veces trabajan y son machistas por el hecho que ellos trabajan y nosotras en casa no más. Yo siempre he pensado cómo se podía reunir a las señoras para yo enseñarles pero no tenía esa oportunidad, pero ahora con Sierra Sur ha habido pues y estuve alegre. Estuve alegre para que ellas pudieran obtener y llevar para la casa como yo lo llevé y ya en la casa ya tienen lo suficiente y ya pueden comer fruta que antes no se podían comer”.

Por lo que me dice, Simona, su trabajo ha tenido un impacto positivo en la alimentación de la familia, ¿es así?
“Sí, en la alimentación de la familia. Eso es como un pan de diario el arte que tengo.”

Y ¿cuál fue la reacción de su familia, de su esposo, ante su trabajo de capacitadora? ¿Estaban contentos?

“Sí, él estaba contento, también mis hijos contentos. ‘Enséñales, mami, que tienen que aprender’, me decían. A veces me tocaban en las temporadas bajas hacer cursos entonces no hay negocio. Entonces mi familia ya tenía para vivir y mejoró, mejoró.”

Simona, ¿y cómo ve su trabajo la Comunidad del Valle del Colca?, ¿cómo la ven, la aprecian?
“Bueno, la mayoría me aprecian. Antiguamente no se vendía, y ellos vendían su tostadito, su tunita. Entonces yo veía una vez que fui abajo, dije por qué no les dejo mi ‘arte’. ‘No tenemos plata’, nos decían. ‘Yo misma con mis manos, si no tienen plata, yo les dejo. Vénganse 15 días y en 15 días me lo traen.’ Entonces así sucesivamente les he dejado a las señoras la artesanía para que se vendan (¡hasta hamacas!) y después de vender me devolvían el dinero. Así hemos podido mejorar. Para mí eran felices, ¿no?, porque ellas también que se lleven algo y también va a llover para mí y también he abierto un mercado en Yanque. En Yanque no había ni un artesano. Entonces yo fui a Yanque, dicen que hay turismo. ‘Mejor en la madrugada bajo, agarro un taxi con mi máquina. Bajo y me pongo a vender, y así que me ven las señoras, ellas también van a hacer esfuerzo para que se venda.’ Me fui de viaje a España y cuando regresé de España donde estuve en una fiera, ya había tres señoras vendiendo artesanía en la Plaza de Armas en Yanque. Ya ves.”

Simona, cuénteme qué le parece: ¿cómo percibe usted y su comunidad el trabajo del proyecto Sierra Sur?, ¿con el proyecto han ganado las mujeres?
“Para mí está muy bien, Sierra Sur está bien porque ha entrado en buena hora y ahora las señoras ya trabajan, ya llevan algo a la casa, ya tienen su entrada, y tienen ya para decir, acá yo también tengo mi parte, pongo mi parte. Y ha sido bueno porque yo realmente me he dado cuenta que hasta para mí, para todas ellas ha sido bueno. Ha sido bueno.”

Simona, ¿y ha tenido un impacto también en, digamos, en el presupuesto de la familia, para la comida, educación y salud?
“Si, en la salud, hasta ahorros. Yo también estoy en el grupo de las mujeres ahorradoras. Entonces ha sido bueno. Todas saben bordar y aun así no estamos llenando el mercado. Porque hay muchos. Toditos ya saben. Todo el Valle ya sabemos, porque antes en esta parte alta no sabían nada, no sabían nada. Para mí no hay competencia, no disminuye mi trabajo.”

Simona, por último: ¿hay alguna cosa que le gustaría hacer o que le falta por hacer? “Sí, como yo podría enseñar a los niños en la escuela. O sea, desde niños ya uno debe de aprender para que no se pierda esta cultura. Esa es mi meta que tengo, porque hay niños también que quieren aprender.”


Elizabeth Farmosi

Airlifted from Machu Picchu

Remember Elizabeth from Claus' blogpost? Well, after finishing their extraordinary Learning Route experience, Elizabeth and Maria decided to visit the marvelous Machu Picchu over the weekend.

As you may remember, last week heavy rains triggered massive landslides causing the railway between Machu Picchu and Cuzco to be blocked. Elizabeth and Maria were two of the many blocked because of the landslide. On Thursday, when they were finally evacuated, Elizabeth sent this message:

"Just a few lines to let you all know that we have just arrived to Cusco. It's nearly 21.00. Both Maria and myself are safe. It has been an incredible experience. The evacuation only started on Monday afternoon and we have been going every day to the station where people had to gather for the evacuation. Priority was given to sick and elderly people, pregnant women and people with young children.

Today we went very early to the station but no sign of helicopters until 13.00 pm because of the weather conditions and other factors (fuel, etc) and also because the whole region is affected by landslides and flooding. Our colleagues from UNDP and UNIDO have been working as volunteers for the last three days and have been in contact with UNDSS. Colleagues from UNDSS (Lima) have been in touch with us daily to make sure that we were okay. They spoke with the "coronel" of the army to indicate that there were four UN officers in the area to see whether they could accelerate our evacuation. We thought we could not make it today since there are still hundreds of people blocked. Food started being scarce since everything comes from outside. At around 5.00 pm we got signals from our UNDP/UNIDO colleagues to move fast and get to the queue. We moved together with another 15-18 people and Peruvian soldiers to the ground field where the helicopter was awaiting. We crossed a long path in the middle of a thick forest (sort of jungle) while local people were bringing basic food supplies from the helicoper to the station. It was unreal. I thought it was like a Rambo film with Silvester Stallone.

I got a bit emotional thinking about all those who were still left behind. I hope they can accelerate the evacuation plans to get them out soon. Local people are also quite concerned because the river is getting very close to the houses and some areas have been evacuated. Others are concerned because it will take a couple of months (at least) until they will be in a position to repair the railway since the water is covering certain paths. All the food is brought by train since there is no land suitable for agriculture. The area is surrounded by high and rocky mountains.

The flight by helicopter was incredible but God was on our side and we all arrived safely to a small village where a bus was waiting for us to bring us to Cusco. If we manage to change the flights tomorrow we would like to go to Lima and then take the flight to Rome. Let's see whether we succeed since there have been many flight cancellations these days and the situation is very critical in this area.

Thanks to all of you for your concern. I will keep in touch."

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

Maps that can talk

Friday, 21 January 2010. After a long wait for the bus in front of our rather basic hotel on the unpaved roads of Yauri, a town that should be rich with mining revenues, we all meet for breakfast at the Katamaran restaurant with its peacocks running around outside. Bellies filled, we’re off to the Comunidad Campesina de Antaccollana, which presents its development plans that include many elements of natural resource management. A number of sub-committees manage different aspects: tractor management, irrigation, mirocredit, playschool, etc.

After this brief introduction that included not only traditional music but collective dancing, we jump in the buses to have a look at one of the small hand-dug reservoirs. Now in the rainy season, it's hard to imagine how crucial its water will be during the 9-month dry season.

As we discuss water and pasture management, our drivers turn the buses around and get them both stuck in the mud. Immediately they get different and even contradicting proposals, it seems in Africa and Latin America the approaches to this quite common situation are rather different. As the former throw stones under the wheels, the latter take them out again and replace them with grass. But somehow we push the two busses out, and continue to different families that demonstrate sound natural resource management at household level. I join the group visiting Lorenza, a lady whose exemplary improvements to her cattle, pasture, silage, compost, weaving, cooking and cheese making activities leave us all well-impressed. You name it, she's improved it.

What’s more, she goes around encouraging and teaching others all the various skills she learned from the local trainers contracted by the community. And to top it, her personal development plan, skilfully painted by her nephew, illustrates so well what she's already done and what's still up. We leave her thoroughly impressed.

Heaps of alpaca for lunch back at the Katamaran. Thereafter, it's not exactly easy to continue with a 4-person working session on the Rwanda innovation plan, with which we want to adopt the CLARs. But it's well productive, and we continue in the entire group with an analytical round on the territorial development, the talking maps and business plans. All well-appreciated tools, effectively applied by the project. Of course the group also has recommendations to make to the project team, although the heavy rain on the roof makes communication rather difficult. A particularly tough time for the interpreters.

Just before dark we board the buses for Cusco. The rid takes ages, partly due to the heavy rain, partly as the accompanying pickup has a double puncture and we stay together. I happen to be on the bus without heating, and it feels more like a mobile fridge. By midnight, we pull into Cusco, and are more than glad to be back to warmth and wireless.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager, IFAD

The marvels of Peruvian rural businesses

Thursday, 21 January 2010. At sunrise, I go for a walk up the hill behind the church. A couple is already weeding potatoes and a girl fetches firewood by chopping branches and roots off the thola bush. The view is spectacular. Back in town, I realise that it's this herb that's giving the aromatic morning flavour to the thin air.

We start with a breakfast working session in which we analyse the CLAR and the rural businesses we met at the fair on Tuesday. All routeros see them as great development mechanisms that can promote local ownership and capacities at both local government and community levels, and thus achieve higher levels of efficiency and sustainability than conventional project implementation approaches. Clearly, one of the preconditions for a functioning CLAR is a relationship of trust between the local administration and the rural population. The participants made a number of practical suggestions that may strengthen the CLARs further. These include more illustrative documents to be used for consideration by the CLAR, feedback to the groups, and the transfer early on of many management aspects of the CLAR to the local government.

On the enterprise, the routeros felt that they had clearly improved people's lives, not least through elements of scale. One of the main shortcomings seems to be marketing, which is often thought about too late. Many businesses would also benefit from better linkages to banks and MFIs.

Despite having started our session at 6h30, we depart with the usual 2-hour delay to climb up the Tisco pass, which we cross at 4800 m. The castle-like rock formations are absolutely stunning, the only other traffic on the dirt road is trucks from the silver and copper mines, that have no linkages whatsoever with the local communities. After hours of knocking about the almost uninhabited and beautiful countryside, we pass a mountain flank disfigured by artisanal gold mining, and just before pulling into Yauri a huge copper and gold mine. The sheer size of the mining operations illustrate quite well the power imbalance in any conflict with agricultural land use.

After a late lunch Maria continues to Cusco to cure the altitude sickness, she’s not really recovered after 3 days and at this point it’s better to seek sound medical advice. The rest of us are off to the comunidad campesina Huisa Ccollana (yes, 2 c’s), a conglomerate of 200 milk producing farmers. As the average farmer owns around 20 heads of cattle and cultivates between 5 and 60 ha, a few of us have the feeling that we may have a targeting problem here. We continue to a progressive association that has trained two members in milk processing and artificial insemination. So far so good, but when we hear that the land in jointly owned and there seems to be no member who's not closely related, it becomes clear this is not an association, but a family. That's not the idea of the CLAR support. No doubt the training investment is very useful and even reaps a multiplication effect, but should one force the trainees into bogus associations?

As last event of the day we hold a discussion round with rural savings groups, MFIs and a microinsurance company. The project is encouraging a savings cultures through providing access and different subsidies. While the clients gladly take the subsidies, I’m not fully convinced that these transfers are required to convince rural women of the advantages of formal savings. But there’s no doubt, the savings introduction changes many aspects of women’s life to the better. Maria would have loved to see this. Similarly the life insurance, once people see its utility they will probably not be discouraged by a price of 5 USD per year and person. While the age of the joining person is the most important factor for the insurance company, HIV/AIDS is no big topic here. However, in Rwanda and many other African countries it would probably require higher premiums.

Another full day ends, albeit not in such a picturesque little town as Sibayo.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager, Rwanda

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

Learning across continents: Latin America sharing knowledge with Africa

Tuesday, 19 January 2010. Today we start with the real thing. A CLAR in action, this is what we came for, so it’s difficult to hide the collective excitement. Plus it’s a warm sunny day, much in contrast to yesterday’s cold rain. But first we go off to the project office, strangely by bus, as we could have easily walked the 300 m.
A casual chat with project staff. Maria Hartl enquires about the definition of communities, and it turns out that the ancestral laws have found their way into modern Peruvian legislation. These extended families have legal status, and are dealt with by the project just as other registered groups and companies. Mary from Rwanda asks about the collaboration with local government, which is promoted in the SSDP by facilitators in each municipality. Staff fluctuations in the municipalities are a problem. For communication with communities, the project’s events in the main squares are the best advertisement for its initiatives. Benson, the vice mayor of Kirehe in Rwanda, really likes the idea of using the CLAR competitions to build up local support, after all this can be very helpful in local elections.

We move back to the main square, where the CLAR session is already in full swing, together with the rural enterprise fair. The fair has been built up across the street from the municipality, a row of colourful booths offering mainly handicraft and cheese, in front of which a tent has been pitched to accommodate the members of the CLAR. Behind them the local project office has set up a mobile office to provide administrative support. In front of this tent, one group after another does not only a presentation of what they’d like to do (and for ongoing ones, what they’ve achieved so far), but full-blown shows with dancing, singing, flower-clad bodies and – the absolute killer – a complete play with several stages and an array of actors including human houses and real tourists. Only the development worker was missing! The groups further show that they manage the project by showing maps and accounts, and by answering questions from CLAR members. Once all are through, the CLAR will declare its verdict on each request for funds. As clouds and some raindrops come over the surrounding peaks, the plaza clears conspicuously and the day’s results get announced: most projects are approved; the group representatives receive the announcements with relief. We flee for lunch, and I guess our groups are not indulging in such a lavish meal, with causas, trout and alpaca.

But no time to relax, Ariel rushes us on to the discussion round with CLAR and group members. We learn how dead easy the voting works, that the community groups hire local TA to prepare their progress reports, that they receive occasional unannounced visits by CLAR members, and how small the CLAR members’ allowances are. Véridianne declares she is deeply impressed with the competitions with judges from different interest groups and client groups that present their own plans and reports.

After a short preparatory break we run the first analytical workshop, at which we jointly analyse the overall project. Our praise is so comprehensive, it almost feels awkward to keep repeating it. There is a genuine feeling that it is amongst the project types of the future. Luckily, to keep things somewhat balanced, we also found some weaknesses, including some targeting aspects, the strong involvement by the project unit, the credit gap for successful enterprises and the low involvement of the communities in preparing and revising their business plans. Nonetheless, the overall feeling is that the Southern Highlands project is too good to be true, and having reached 20h00 again we decide our communal nackerdness has reached a level that doesn’t allow us to launch the final item of the day, an analytical round of the CLARs and the enterprise fair we witnessed today. We keep that for tomorrow, and a group of cold Africans forms around the mobile gas heater as we wait for dinner.

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

Africa meets the New World

Sunday, 17 January. Today, our long-awaited Learning Route to Peru finally started. Having flown into Lima from Rome the night before seemed like a long haul, but when I met the 6 Rwandan participants in Amsterdam they had already spent more than a night flying. In Lima, they would have had every right to look like zombies, but surprisingly they didn’t. As we kicked off, there was some excitement in the air in getting to know the project staff from the New World. It’s not the fault of the Malawians that to “us Africans” Colombia and Venezuela are more exotic than they are. Anyway, I had the impression that we did the introductions with more curiosity than normally on such occasions.

Soon it became technical, and more participative than some had thought. As Rwandans, we were to come clear on not only our objectives from the route, but also what action points we would put in practice upon return. Very refreshing to move quickly beyond presenting project objectives and activities, and to do some actual thinking about what we had come here for. Janvier, the project coordinator, knows all too well that the concept of community competitions had been integrated in the Kirehe Community-based Watershed Management Project (KWAMP) on the basis of the experience in Peru. This is what we wanted to see in action. The core phrase in his presentation brings out what we believe to be the key to making it happen in Rwanda: to assist the communities in developing confidence for their own initiatives. Confidence, of course, has many facets, but I’m not going into any of that now.

The PROCASUR team confirms my impression of professionalism in organising this multicultural multilingual tour. They are firmly in control. In fact, the effective air with which Ariel solves the teething problems of the audio system and the relaxed simultaneous translators who go through hours of translating into English and French without a break (little Rwanda can be demanding with its two international languages) were finally topped by the hassle-free departure to the airport despite running half an hour behind schedule. And this first day, which I thought risks being quite boring with a couple of dry presentations, wasn’t that at all. Despite our jetlag, we were riveted by the series of presentation that felt more like erudite university lectures that gave answers to questions it seems we had carried around with us for a long time.

When the head of Agro Rural of the Ministry of Agriculture kicked off, it didn’t take long to dawn that what we’re about to visit is backed by an institutional might we are not used to, at least us Africans are not. The monitoring capacity Agro Rural established to track its investments is simply impressive, and a ministry desperate to give away its spending power to local committees is also not easy to find. Can this work in Rwanda?, I think to myself. But Rome was also not built in a day, what’s important is to start.

The other speakers were not less sure of being on the right track, which is probably the most convincing position a presenter can have: Juan Moreno of PROCASUR outlined his philosophy of development through professional visits. Roberto Haudry, whose PDT recommendation of building community competitions into KWAMP had gotten us here in the first place, gave us the historic context in which the CLARs (Local Resource Allocation Committees) slowly evolved to an approach now fully adopted by government, plus his concept of citizens with democratic and social rights instead of a herd of beneficiaries, and the mistakes they had made of initially not letting the CLARs finance small investments. Finally Ricardo Vergara, a consultant, outlined that the social monitoring by communities is in fact still more valuable than its highly effective allocation of funds. His argument of why a poor farmer is the best decision maker when it comes to investments concerning his livelihood was so clear: because he has a real interest in improving the lives of his family. And that the same farmer is perfectly capable of passing judgement when supervising the implementation: just like anybody can tell whether a doctors’ treatment works or not. It was quite clear, at least in a conference room in Lima, thus no questions for which we also didn’t have any time, honestly, as it was now a quick rush to the airport to catch the flight to Arequipa in the southern highlands. Tomorrow morning it’s breakfast at 6, so we quickly fall into the luxurious beds of the Hotel El Lago.

So far, it couldn’t be more promising. I’m most curious for tomorrow. To be continued.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager for Rwanda