National | PANORAMA

Working with Government & Legal Setup

Successfully establishing and scaling a social enterprise like a pad factory requires careful coordination with government authorities and strict compliance with legal requirements. This building block focuses on creating a strong foundation by building trust, ensuring legality, and protecting the enterprise from future risks.

The first step involves informing local and national government bodies about your project plans and activities. Regular communication not only builds transparency and trust but also makes it easier to gain support when needed. It ensures that the enterprise is seen as a responsible and contributing part of the community's development.

Secondly, it is crucial to coordinate with local or provincial offices to confirm that the factory is located appropriately and meets all zoning, operational, and environmental requirements. Early consultation helps avoid future legal complications and promotes smoother project implementation.

Before any physical construction begins, the enterprise must complete all legal steps, such as securing land use permits, building approvals, and environmental clearances. This process prevents future disputes and ensures that the factory is legally protected at every stage.

If the enterprise plans to import machinery or raw materials from abroad (for example, from India and Chaina), it is essential to follow all import rules, including documentation and tax payments. Compliance with import regulations helps avoid customs delays, penalties, and additional operational costs.

Further, to operate legally in the market, the enterprise must register officially and gain approval to sell its products, such as sanitary pads. Official registration enhances the company’s credibility among customers, partners, and regulatory bodies, opening doors to wider distribution opportunities.

Finally, it is critical to insure the factory, machinery, and assets against potential risks like fire, natural disasters, burglary, or other damages. Having appropriate insurance coverage provides financial protection and ensures business continuity even during unforeseen events.

By following these structured steps, the enterprise not only secures its legal standing but also strengthens its reputation, improves sustainability, and creates a solid platform for growth and social impact.

Transparent Communication: Sharing project plans early with government builds trust.
Understanding Legal Requirements: Knowing laws and regulations ensures smooth operation.
Strong Local Relationships: Good ties with local offices help in faster approvals.
Timely Legal Compliance: Completing permits and registrations early prevents delays.
Insurance Coverage: Protects the enterprise against damages or losses.

Hire Local Staff
Hiring local people provides more than just employment opportunities, it builds trust, improves communication, and creates smoother coordination with community members and local authorities. Locals understand the cultural and political dynamics and can help navigate formal and informal systems more effectively.
Visit Similar Factories First
Before setting up your own facility, visit other factories, especially those producing sanitary pads or similar products. Learning from their challenges and operations can save you from repeating mistakes. You’ll better understand what machinery to use, what space you’ll need, how to manage waste, and how to streamline operations.
Secure and Legalize Land Early
Before starting any construction, ensure that you have the correct amount of land required for your facility. Consider space for production, storage, waste management, and possible future expansion. Make sure land ownership or lease documents are fully legal and registered to avoid future disputes.
Evaluate Surroundings Carefully
Survey the neighboring properties and evaluate your factory’s impact on the local environment and community. Avoid locations too close to residential zones or schools that might raise noise or hygiene concerns. A peaceful relationship with neighbors ensures long-term sustainability.
Ensure Road Access for Transport
A factory must be accessible by road, especially for the transport of raw materials, machinery, and finished products. Good road connectivity reduces logistic costs, speeds up delivery, and enables regular visits from partners, government, or donors.
Start Government Communication Early
Informing local and national government bodies from the beginning builds transparency and trust. Officials who understand your goals are more likely to support your work or provide valuable guidance, making your operations smoother and more credible.
Understand Local Regulations Thoroughly
Be aware of legal requirements such as construction permits, environmental clearances, import duties, and licensing rules. Complying with these from the beginning prevents delays, fines, or shutdowns. Seek legal consultation when needed.
Get Proper Insurance
Factory operations involve risks like fire, theft, and natural disasters. Insuring your buildings, equipment, and products protects you financially and offers peace of mind, especially in emergencies.
Budget for Legal and Administrative Costs
Often underestimated, these costs can include permits, taxes, legal consultations, and registration fees. Having a buffer in your budget for such expenses ensures your progress isn’t stalled by unplanned costs.
Collaborate with Local NGOs and INGOs
Identify local organizations that work on women’s health, empowerment, or education. They can be strong partners for community engagement, awareness campaigns, and advocacy efforts. Their networks and local trust can help scale your impact more quickly.

Promoting the Creation of Supporting Government Schemes

To enable large-scale adoption of the CaaS-model, financial support is needed to lower the high initial investment costs. The pilot initiatives were funded by GIZ and UNDP. However, adoption at scale requires significantly larger volumes of funding, which, in the Indian context, is most realistically achievable through public support mechanisms that can reach smallholder farmers.

To address this, GIC worked closely with its political partners to promote the creation of a government support mechanism under the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH). As part of this effort, GIC collaborated on the development of a cold storage unit at the National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD), which serves as a basis for drafting official guidelines. These guidelines include technical specifications and eligibility criteria for accessing government subsidies for decentralized cold storage systems.

Once adopted, these guidelines will help institutionalize the solution and expand access for smallholder farmers, improving affordability and facilitating wider adoption in remote and underserved areas.

Close collaboration with government partners and bodies like NCCD to develop guidelines and public support mechanisms for smallholder farmers.
Early planning for scaling integrated into the design of the business model and pilot activities.
Existence of relevant government schemes, such as MIDH, that can be leveraged to institutionalize decentralized cold storage solutions.

National

Incentives for community participation in FLR

FLR is a long-term investment and local communities desire short term benefits to support their households and change behaviour. The support from National Bank enabled communities to get jobs for the completion of silvicultural tasks.

Country-specific transformation initiatives

Participants of the Agroecology Leadership Academy work in their country teams during the first International Learning Event in Kisumu, Kenya

Majesan media Production

During the two international learning events, which took place from February to October 2024, participants were tasked with developing country-specific transformation initiatives to work on collaboratively as a team. This activity constituted the core working stream for action in respective countries and was part of the Academy’s Growing phase. The country teams were responsible for developing and implementing at least one joint project aimed at advancing agroecological transition. The nature and topic of the transformation initiative were intentionally left open. Participants reported their progress through a video presentation and shared their results at the second international learning event held in Hawassa.
Participants expressed a profound depth and intensity of learning throughout these initiatives, particularly in areas such as leadership, teamwork, and agroecology. Most of the initiatives were highly successful and will continue beyond the conclusion of the Academy. For example, in India, a roadmap for agroecological transition was developed for a specific district. In Burkina Faso, a tour for journalists was organised, which helped to raise awareness of agroecology within the country.

The initiative provided a general inspiration and framework for the transformation initiatives without being prescriptive regarding their content or processes. This approach allowed participants to learn and self-organise, leading to a greater sense of ownership. Participants noted that this motivated them to develop ideas they felt they could achieve together.
Each country team received support from a local country facilitator throughout this period. Often, these country facilitators acted as a unifying force for the team and their work on the transformation initiatives. Being from the respective countries, the facilitators understood the local context and were able to offer flexible support to participants. They conducted three to five full-day workshops for each country team as needed, helping the group stay focused on their transformation initiative, addressing specific learning needs, fostering both action and reflection, and providing individual support to participants.
While the country facilitators supported their teams, they were also guided in their professional development and facilitation skills by the international facilitation team. This team held seven online meetings for all country facilitators during the Academy. Additionally, the lead facilitators conducted approximately seven one-on-one sessions with each country facilitator.

Some of the transformation initiatives were overly ambitious at the outset and needed to be scaled back. It is recommended to schedule group coaching session at the beginning of the work on the transformation initiatives to help participants assess the feasibility of their projects.
Including the country facilitators in the international learning events is also recommended, allowing them to collaboratively initiate and conclude the country work alongside their teams during these events. Alternatively, a day-long online onboarding session with the facilitators could be arranged at the beginning of the process.
Communication from the organisations organising the Academy regarding options for sustaining and funding the continuation of the transformation initiatives should begin early in the process and remain consistent and proactive. It is advisable to explore ways to actively support networking opportunities for participants with potential funders of their transformation initiatives from the outset.

Implementation

National

The Agroecology Leadership Academy - Aligned Project with Agroecology TPP (acce…

International Learning Events and Online Sessions

Field trip during the first International Learning Event in Kenya

Majesan Media Production

Session during the second International Learning Event in Hawassa, Ethiopia

Eden Teferi - GIZ

Two international four-day learning events framed the Academy, occurring at its beginning and end. The first event took place in February 2024 in Kisumu, Kenya, as part of the Sowing phase of the Academy. The objective of this event was to bring all participants together for the first time in a spirit of collaborative learning and support. It aimed to introduce the participants to the key concepts of leadership and agroecology while laying the foundation for successful work and group cooperation. During this event, participants began developing stakeholder systems maps to advance agroecology in their countries and collaborated to create a vision for change. Additionally, a field visit took participants to a local demonstration farm (BIOGI) and a farm practicing agroforestry, supported by the NGO Trees for the Future.
After several months of learning in country groups and meeting the global cohort online four times, the second event was held in November 2024 in Hawassa, Ethiopia. This marked the final official activity of the Academy and served as the core event of its Harvesting phase, transitioning participants into the Transforming phase. The key objectives of this event were to support country groups and individuals in taking and scaling up action, to deepen the learning from previous months, to discuss the potential for upscaling the initiatives developed during the Academy, and to celebrate and strengthen the networks that had formed.
During this event, participants reflected on and shared learnings with other country teams, exploring key topics such as personal ecology, individual leadership, habit formation, and communication. A field visit included a tour to a local coffee co-operative processing facility and a diversified small-scale farm. Participants also planned their next steps as transformation makers for agroecological change.
The two international learning events were complemented by a total of four online session, each lasting 2,5 hours, which took place in March, May, July and September 2024. These sessions provided participants with additional insights on models and tools for leading transformation initiatives and advancing agroecology, including effective communication, overcoming obstacles, and influencing political narratives. Thus, these online sessions constituted an important component of the Academy’s Growing phase.

Both events featured a highly interactive blend of training and workshops, guided by a pre-set agenda while allowing ample opportunity for participants to influence the programme.
The translation services provided during both live and online events were seamless. Thanks to the excellent interpreters, particularly at the two learning events, language barriers were effectively addressed.
Participants appreciated the field trips, which were made possible by hosting the international learning events in cities that offer access to rural areas, rather than in capital cities.

While the focus between the two in-presence International Learning Events was on country-specific transformation initiatives, the international online meetings provided an opportunity for the entire group to reconvene, maintain collective momentum, and to share insights with one another.
Regarding the field trips, it is preferred for future events to concentrate on a single field visit per learning event, dedicating more time, ideally an entire day – to the farm. Effective and timely coordination with country partners is essential to ensure that suitable locations, logistics, and adequate facilities are available on-site.
The bilingual nature of the events necessitated translation services for all sessions. While this was highly effective during in-person international learning events, the quality of interpretation and the technical setup for translation during online events fell short, creating additional work for facilitators, such as repeating sessions. Therefore, it is recommended to utilise software with easy-friendly translation features (such as Zoom, if permitted by the organising entity of the Academy) and to provide participants with more thorough briefings on overcoming technical challenges.
Thorough logistical preparation is crucial for international learning events. Participants from various countries need to converge at an appropriate location. Important processes, such as obtaining necessary visas and exploring travel options, should be initiated well in advance.

The Agroecology Leadership Academy - Aligned Project with Agroecology TPP (acce…

Building Bridges: The Academy’s Multidimensional, Multistakeholder Approach

The purpose of the Academy was to support participants in developing the skills and experience necessary for leadership in navigating complex systems and fostering agroecological transformation.
A suitable concept to fulfill this purpose was developed over a span of three months (July – September 2023):

Consequently, the purpose was distilled into three key objectives: Learning, Acting, and Networking. These objectives were reflected in the design of each session and supported at three levels: individuals, country teams, and the global cohort.
The methodology of the Agroecology Leadership Academy was based on 7 principles:

A close connection between the topic of Agroecology (the “What”) and Transformation and Leadership (the “How”)
A clear focus on transformation skills and mindset
Transformation initiatives as core learning projects
In-Country facilitators to support the country teams
Linking Learning, Acting and Networking
Systemic, experiential and relational learning
The strong role of communication

The general structure of the Academy was organised into four phases: Sowing, Growing, Harvesting and Transforming. Various learning formats were implemented throughout these phases, including an online kick-off event, two international in-presence learning events, four international online sessions, and individual workshops for the different country teams. These formats concentrated on the aforementioned levels. While the meetings within the country teams emphasised teamwork at the national level, the international sessions facilitated mutual learning among the global cohort.

After the concept development phase, the participant selection process commenced. The goal was to assemble a heterogenous group representing diverse stakeholder groups, skills, ages and genders.
A call for applications was sent out to a pre-defined group of potential participants from agroecology-networks in the respective countries. Following the evaluation of initial applications based on predefined selection criteria, individual selection conversations were conducted to finalise the group composition, with five participants chosen from each country.
In selecting participants, not only individual criteria were considered, but also the need for complementary skills within the group composition. Each participant was expected to contribute something from their personal background that would benefit the group as a whole.
This selection process ensured that different levels of the agricultural and food system were represented - participants included, among others, farmers, founders of agricultural enterprises, university professors, and representatives of ministries of agriculture - as well as ensuring a balanced gender ratio within the group.

Utilising a core model developed during the concept development phase, which was introduced at the beginning of the programme and referenced throughout The core model for Agroecology Leadership was designed in a circular format with multiple rings. The centre of the model, Agroecological Transformation, was to be achieved by interweaving elements of the inner circle – leadership elements at various levels – with the outer circle – agroecological principles.
Implementing a communication action plan to ensure that all participants understood the planned communication tools and materials, alongside establishing frequent communication to share information and include modules on effective communication.
Involving country focal persons in the development and implementation of the Academy to provide context specific support for both the facilitation team and participants.
Adapting the Academy’s curriculum based on participants’ needs to ensure those needs were adequately met. Regular feedback from participants was solicited for this purpose.

The overall structure and duration of the Academy appeared appropriate. The 11-month duration, combined with a mix of live and online events and transformation initiatives, was beneficial for learning.
The participant selection process was effective, as invitations sent through agroecology networks attracted two to three times as many applicants as available spots. The application process utilised simple and streamlined forms, and requesting application videos proved helpful in assessing participants.
Country teams, with diverse representation from various sectors (public sector, start-ups, academia) were highly active and successful. It is essential to emphasise the critical need for farmer representation and participation in forums like this.
The facilitation team demonstrated adaptability in creating a programme that addressed participants’ learning needs. Rather than establishing a fixed curriculum at the outset, topics were developed based on participant feedback, which proved to be effective.
Initially intended to focus solely on creating materials such as videos and factsheets, communication activities became integral to all aspects—from the application process and session preparation to facilitation, documentation, and participant management. Therefore, it is recommended to incorporate the strong role of communication consistently into future Academies from the onset.

Structure of the Agroecology Leadership Academy

Core Model of the Agroecology Leadership Academy

Agroecology Leadership Academy - Aligned Project with Agroecology TPP (access t…

West and Central Africa

North Africa

East and South Africa

Agroecology Leadership Academy

Global Programme

Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security

Building Bridges: The Academy’s Multidimensional, Multistakeholder Approach

International Learning Events and Online Sessions

Country-specific transformation initiatives

Evaluating and Disseminating Outcomes for Continuous Improvement and Sustainability

Uso de cámaras remotas con carnada

De manera específica, una metodología del Protocolo para la recopilación de información y el ejercicio de monitoreo consiste en la instalación de estaciones en acero inoxidable con cámaras que registran una locación particular durante un tiempo determinado. Junto a la cámara se ubica un contenedor de PVC con carnada para atraer a especies carnívoras, pero sin ofrecerles alimento.

Sin duda, un factor elemental es el recurso económico para la instalación de los equipos. El Protocolo sugiere algunas alternativas en caso de no contar con la financiación necesaria para esta técnica de monitoreo, como la ampliación del área de monitoreo de transectos de peces de arrecife.
Al no implicar impactos sobre los hábitos alimenticios de las especies o sobre los ecosistemas en general, se reducen los sesgos y se garantiza que la técnica no es destructiva ni invasiva.

La instalación de cámaras con carnada se ha posicionado como una metodología efectiva y estandarizada, que no atenta contra la integridad de las especies y que se desarrolla de manera independiente a las prácticas de pesca. Esto quiere decir que no implica un impacto ecológico.
A diferencia de otras técnicas como los censos visuales, el monitoreo a través de cámaras genera observaciones más confiables y objetivas, y cubre mayores áreas en términos de profundidad y tiempo de observación.
Es recomendable instalar varias estaciones de manera estratégica, con el fin de cubrir por completo áreas extensas de monitoreo.
De acuerdo con investigaciones, esta técnica está siendo cada vez más utilizada para monitorear especies pelágicas y depredadoras, lo que ha posibilitado comparaciones a nivel global.

Un aspecto importante para continuar incentivando el uso de esta técnica es la correcta disposición de las carnadas una vez que estas ya han sido utilizadas.

Documentation and dissemination of results

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Protocolos para el monitoreo de peces pelágicos y para el monitoreo de mamíferos marinos

Se trata de una herramienta para el monitoreo de grandes peces pelágicos y/o depredadores (especies focales) en Áreas Marinas Protegidas (AMP) del Sistema Nacional de Áreas de Conservación (SINAC) de Costa Rica. Este protocolo cuenta con una selección de indicadores que permitirán evaluar el estado de conservación en el que se encuentran las especies focales año tras año con el fin de identificar cambios a corto plazo y proporcionar alertas tempranas a los tomadores de decisiones. Se proponen técnicas de monitoreo estandarizadas, efectivas y accesibles que no dependan necesariamente de personal científico especializado en el campo. A largo plazo, esta información servirá para evaluar tendencias poblacionales, identificar amenazas y fortalecer la efectividad de las AMP hacia la conservación de un grupo de especies cuya presencia es vital para el funcionamiento y salud de los ecosistemas.

Creación en el 2016 del Programa Nacional de Monitoreo Ecológico (PRONAMEC), con el propósito de generar y difundir información científica sobre el estado de la conservación de la biodiversidad en todo Costa Rica. Esto, como una herramienta para la toma de decisiones a escala local y nacional.

La participación activa y el empoderamiento de los guardaparques son fundamentales para lograr un compromiso efectivo con el monitoreo.
Es esencial dar continuidad al monitoreo, garantizando las capacidades operativas necesarias y el financiamiento de las iniciativas, como una forma de promover la consistencia de los datos y la información.
La falta de embarcaciones dedicadas exclusivamente al monitoreo es un obstáculo que limita la efectividad del programa, ya que depende de recursos que se destinan a otras actividades.
Es importante seguir un método científico riguroso, que incluye observación, formulación de preguntas, generación de hipótesis y análisis de problemas.
Es esencial compartir y publicar los datos obtenidos con la comunidad científica, para asegurar que la información se analice y utilice adecuadamente.
Se presentan dificultades para realizar foto-identificaciones efectivas de las especies debido a su desplazamiento, por lo que es necesario aplicar métodos alternativos de recolección de datos como la obtención de muestras genéticas.

Es necesario hacer recomendaciones de manejo basadas en los datos recopilados para mejorar la gestión de los recursos marinos.

Implementation

National