Designing Community Action Plans

Community led initiatives have a higher chance of success. Working with the community for the community is one of the best ways of ensuring process and results ownership.

In our reference case of Vihiga County, after desseminating results of the baseline survey to the intevention community, with the guidance of all participating partners the locals were allowed to brainstorm and come up with possible feasible interventions.

This largely contributed to the success of the project as the participants enthusiastically made effort to ensure successful implementation and continuity. Some members voluntered their land and other resources towards the project, it beng their very own.

Partners offered some financial support to kick start the project, and also agri nutrition knowledge and skills.

Inclusivity

Collaboration

Community active participation

For an intervention to work best, let it be community owned and actioned from inception, with the guidance of other participating partners like the government and donors.

Collecting Agirnutrition and Konwledge, Attitude and Practice Data

Reliable and recent data about the study community is a key contributor to the success of an intervention.

Data provides prior knowledge of the community and possible areas of collaboration with other exisiting projects, if any exist.

In our Vihiga project, results of the baseline survey informed us of the current situation (exisiting nutritional gaps). The results were also shared with the communities and it is from these findings that the communties based their deliberations and came up with possible ways of tackling the problems found.

For scaling up of the project in Turkana and Ethiopia, we will utilize agrinutrition data collected earlier in both areas.

Data collection in the mid and end will help determine the effectiveness or otherwise of the intervention

  • Selection of a representative sample 
  • Accuracy in data collection, entry and analysis
  • Simplified dissemination of research findings to enable uderstanding by the community hence relevant intervention.
  • It is important to carry out a diagnostic study before any intervention plans in order to establish exisiting gaps
  • Our use of mixed methods in data collection helped in data verification
  • It is important to invest in the whole research process-data collection, cleaning and analysis for accurate representative results.
Institutional anchoring and broad-scaling

Through the elaboration of an EbA Action Program , the EbA approach was institutionally anchored in the protected area “Cananéia-Iguape-Peruíbe”. In addition, the methodological approach will be applied in eleven other protected areas in four federal states of the country through strategic partnerships with the Brazilian Environmental Ministry (MMA), the Brazilian Environmental Agenday (ICMBio) and others. The aspiration is that in the future, all protected area management plans consider EbA as a strategic response to climate change.

  • Agreements with and support from staff responsible for the elaboration and approval of management plans at central level of the protected area authority.
  • Partnerships with other projects and financiers are an important catalyst and trigger point for replication, up- and broad-scaling.
  • It requires time as well as financial and personal resources to develop ready-to-use methodological approaches and to advocate for their dissemination and integration.
  • There is a need to balance generalizable and context-specific issues.
Micro-zoning of the selected plot according to the soil type, the topography and the identification of adapted local plant and tree species

Community members and experts developed a topographic map of the selected plot showing the different soil types and adapted local plant and tree species. Two main soil types have been identified:

  • The soils of the mountainsides: stony surfaces; horizon 1 (0 to 20 cm) is silty sandy with a mixture of stony grains; horizon 2 (20 to 40 cm) is dominated by large stones and a small proportion of soil and horizon 3: (40 to more) was not accessible. For this soil type, the appropriate species are: Acacia (Acacia nilotica, Acacia Sieberiana, Acacia seyal), Neem Azadirachta indica, Anogeissus leiocarpus, Jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana), River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis).
  • The site bed is dominated by vertisols (i.e. soils with a high content of expansive clay minerals) with local withdrawal slots: horizon 1 (0 to 40 cm) composed of silt and clay and horizon 2 (40 to more) a mixture of silt, clay and stony grains. Suitable species include: Khaya (Khaya senegalensis), Cassia (Cassia siamea), African black plum (Vitex doniana), River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camadulensis), Winter thorn (Faidherbia albida), Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) and other fruit trees.

 

Depending on these different soil types, a mini-zoning allowed to delimit 11 blocks occupied by eight selected species.

  • Full involvement of the designated local facilitators who are willing to follow-up on the activities on a daily basis
  • Participatory selection of the plant and tree species to guarantee a useful reforestation
  • Adoption of the micro-zoning approach

It is pivotal to take into account the physical characteristics of the plot for the success of the initiative including soil characteristics and topography by involving local experts. This allows to identify solutions for restoration that are sustainable and profitable in the short, medium and long term.

Establishing a value chain for remote smallholder farmers

Productive hilly land, surrounded by green forests (habitat of wild animals) and interested farmers to shift to commercial organic farming households are a boon to our initiative. The farming of the regular crops, fruits and vegetables such as maize, millet, buckwheat, cauliflower, tomato, turmeric, jackfruit, mango, etc. will be promoted to grow in volume. Also, some high value crops such as kiwi, avocado, chia seed and moringa shall be introduced in the second phase. These products will be directly linked to the closest city areas through farmers markets once and/or twice a week. Consequently, the direct connection of local farmers’ organic produces to the consumers via farmers markets will establish trust and a positive relationship.

The support  provided by IFOAM - Organics International and Rare in the form of hands-on capacity trainings has motivated the community and increased interest in commercial organic farming. Linking these de facto organic farmers to markets will enable the shift into commercial organic farming, which will promote their income generation along with conserving their ecology.

I see huge zeal in the community to uplift their status through commercial organic farming more along with conserving the biodiversity. Establishing personal connections and enabling interpersonal communication about organic through a variety of engaging tools such as songs, billboards, plays and religious texts has helped inspire the community.

Special Loan Products for Machiya Conservation

Since 2010, public interest in machiya conservation has surged and banks have begun offering tailored restoration loans for these bygone architectural artifacts. Recently, the Kyoto Center for Community Collaboration created and issued “Machiya Karte”s, imitating the clinical records used in medical care. By documenting the uniqueness and value of each machiya building in a tangible form, the liquidity of machiya as a tradable good increased significantly. As a result, as of March 2018, three local banks have started special loan products for machiya renovation or utilization. For example, Kyoto Credit Bank provides both consumer (accommodation) loans and corporate loans. The former offers 1-100 million JPY at the interest rate of 1.8-2.0%, as opposed to the normal housing loan requiring 2.675%. The latter offers 30 or 50 million JPY at the interest rate of 1.2-2.3%, depending on the period and whether collateral is provided. From 2011 to 2017, the consumer loan product won 123 contracts, and the corporate loan product won 7 contracts.

  • The Machiya-Karte project documented the uniqueness and value of each machiya building in a tangible form

These loans are made possible by a public-private cooperative agency that certifies structures as legitimate machiya, provides banks with estimates of the necessary restoration work, and subsidizes each restoration project. These loan products, combined with other initiatives by Kyoto City and its partners, are expected to further boost the preservation, restoration, and utilization of machiya.

Establishment and Development Support of Village Level Organizations.

From the execution of the participatory mapping and creation of medium term planning, it’s required to have short term follow up action plans such as:


1. Making the union of farmers, village owned company (Pondok Lada), research group is legally recognized both locally and nationally,

2. Support annual strategies that based on medium term planning, such as:

a. Farmers union is to increase the annual harvest volume, not expand their agriculture in water source protection area, using organic pesticide and fertilizer, grading pepper berries to be sold to the company, Pondok Lada.

b. The company buy graded pepper berries with the fair price that is disscussion with farmers union, producing post harvest product as a instant product, gradually transform to eco-packaging to reduce the impact of plastic waste.

c. Research group to teach how to grade pepper with global standard, teaching how to integrate each type of farming (pepper, fishery) by supplying each other nutrition.

 

This annual planning that is arranged by village has to be synchronized to district and national medium and long term planning in order to have better support from the government.

  • Legalization of formed groups (the company, research groups) regionally to nationally.
  • Creating key persons and support system for regeneration of those groups.
  • Synchronization of annual strategies of those groups to village administration medium term planning, medium and long term regional to national government level planning with collaborations with other local movements, academics, start-up companies, NGOs, etc.
  • Coordination and data sharing with related government institutions to gain support from the planning that is arranged by village.
  • Understand how the line of coordination and legal system works in different regions
  • Collected of various policies, (i.e long term agricultural development plan from Ministry of Agriculture, long term agricultural and energy development plant from province level) to be synchronized to village development plan from each level of government, i.e (National or Regional) Planning and Development Ministry, Village Empowernment Ministry (regional), Agriculture Ministry.
  • Know the key person of each sector from the government, NGOs, academics, i.e. head of directorate of development rural area in National or Regional) Planning and Development Ministry.
Financing management

The Yawi Sumak bike-trip beyond a recreational and sporting event has an environmental awareness objective, it has achieved the interest and economic support of Local Governments (Prefecture of Zamora Chinchipe, Parish Boards), International Cooperation (German Cooperation GIZ), and private business (Maxred Diseños).
For this reason, the cost is subsidized and symbolic. Cyclist pays approximately 40% of the real value of the event, which has contributed significantly to the success in the call. The participant for that fee gets: mobilization, transport of bicycles, food (breakfast, cold sandwiches and lunch), jersey, buff, participation medal, hydration, fruit, prize draw, traffic control, medical assistance and mechanical assistance.
In the last edition there was a difference for men ($ 20) and women ($ 15) as an positive incentive to achieve greater participation of women.

Generate an environmental message (conservation, connectivity) beyond a recreational and sports activity to achieve the interest of international cooperation
Having achieved a great participation of cyclists from the beginning, which is gradually increasing, which has captured the interest of private companies
To have a permanent governance space (Cooperatio System - CPY promoter group) for the management of local government resources.

Private companies are willing to support innovative ideas, as long as they seek common interest and call  participation of a big group of people
The bicycle has a lot of acceptance (to be bikefriendly is cool), for example, public and private entities through transport, ecological, recreational, accessible and social cohesion.
Managing resources in institutions will become easier when they have an orientation on environmental issues, in this case the local Prefect is an indigenous from Saraguro ethnic group, he is a nature advocate who in 2009 through of an local law   where established Zamora Chinchipe province as "Lung of Mother Earth, Source of Water and Life"

Use of social networks and non-traditional media to publicize the initiative

The communication strategy to disseminate the importance and actions of the CPY must be inclusive and innovative, through the creation of a brand and key messages to transmit each year to cyclists, participants should easily identify the main objective of the initiative.
In this sense, we create advertising products such as: press conference, advertising, infographics, maps, posters, jersey, buff, medals that are disclosed during the promotion and the development of events through digital platforms and social networks: website, facebook, twitter, etc. .).
Another space to spread the concept of cycling is that during the tour there are strategic stops for hydration, healthy and natural snacks for cyclists; These spaces are used by local governments and communities to promote the products of their agrobiodiversity and bioemprendimientos.
To socialize the concept of sustainability, during the advertising campaign on social networks, it is indicated that the food will be delivered in sustainable containers (banana leaves) and that the hydration will be delivered in its reusable bottles (plastic bottles should not be used).

Define a clear concept that we want to spread among cyclists.
Maintain the commitment of local governments to promote the products of their agrobiodiversity.
Establish the appropriate communication channels to reach the target group.
Use a registration website for the conceptualization of the event: yawisumak.cicloviajerosec.com / www.ciclorutadelagarua.com
Have a creative graphic designer and aware of the objective to be transmitted.

Having a concept of the bike-trip encourages interest and increases the participation of cyclists.
The dissemination of CPY concepts in advance during the promotion of the event is essential to sensitize cyclists.
The website and social networks are key platforms to have a national reach.
Having a good quality photographic record allows the participants to identify themselves in social networks, tag and share the photos and the message of the event once the event is over.

Preserving Craftsmanship

Kyo-machiya are unique structures, built with an unusual architectural skills and craftsmanship. For keeping the craftsmanship intact, while renovating a Kyo-machiya, various people and organizations pool in their knowledge, including citizen’s groups who take the perspective of the property owner, local financial institutions, and real estate agents.

 

Community Collaboration University, under the aegis of Kyoto Center for Community Collaboration organized Kyo-machiya Revival Seminars. They provide opportunities to learn more about Kyo-machiya, such as - how it constructed, where the traditionally used materials are sourced from, how to manage and maintain it, how to inherit and rent it, and how to make it a better place to live in. These seminars give opportunity to learn about Kyo-machiya as an architectural form familiar to residents and how it can be revived.

  • Revival seminars that provide opportunities to learn more about Kyo-machiya as an architectural form familiar to residents and how it can be revived.

While such efforts have been arduous, special training from architects and craftsmen well versed in traditional Japanese structural design and carpentry, have helped in overcoming the challenges successfully. The trainings have created a platform for the future generations to learn from the machiya architecture and apply some traditional techniques to contemporary work.