Indigenous Peoples Safeguards Monitoring Report
Project No. 40534-013 Semi Annual Report August 2015
2649-BAN (SF): Second Crop Diversification Project
Prepared by Department Of Agricultural Extension for the Asian Development Bank.
This social monitoring report is a document of the borrower. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of ADB's Board of Directors, Management, or staff, and may be preliminary in nature.
In preparing any country program or strategy, financing any project, or by making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area in this document, the Asian Development Bank does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.
Second Crop Diversification Project –SCDP
Small Ethnic Community Safeguards Monitoring Report
Department Of Agricultural Extension Middle Building (6th Floor), Khamarbari Farmgate, Dhaka-1215
August-2015 Contents 1. Project Background ...... 1 2. Indigenous People in Project Area ...... 1 3. Introduction ...... 2 4. Organizing IPs under SFGs (Group formation) ...... 2 5. Credit accessibility ...... 3 6. Utilization of Credit ...... 4 7. Accessibility in production technology ...... 4 7.1 Technology Training ...... 4 7.2 Demonstration ...... 5 8. Planned Technology Transfer Support for IP Population in 2015-16 ...... 5 8.1 Technology Training ...... 5 8.2 Crop Demonstration ...... 6 9. Adverse Impact of Project Intervention in Livelihoods of IPs ...... 6 10. Conclusion ...... 7
Acronym
MFI Microfinance Institute BRAC Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee ADB Asian Development Bank SFG Small Farmers Group OFSSI On Farm Small Scale Infrastructure NGO Non Government Organization HVC High Value Crop
ii
Second Crop Diversification Project (SCDP)
Monitoring Report Project Intervention in Indigenous Community
1. Project Background
The project officially launched in June 2010 but field operations commenced in Feb 2012 after recruiting of MFI/BRAC and BRAC started SFG formation in July 2012 when full swing field activities was under operation after completing the recruitment of necessary manpower and consultant. The project is being operated in 43 Upazilas of 18 districts of south and south-west and 9 Upazilas of 9 districts in the northwest since June 2010 with the aim to reduce poverty by i pro i g far ers’ i o es. The proje t is fosteri g o er ializatio of agri ulture through interventions to promote diversification into high value crops (HVC) and value addition. The prime objective of the project is to raise farm incomes, alleviate poverty and stimulate the economy of both southwest and northwest through high value crop production among the small and medium farm households.
2. Indigenous People in Project Area
As per census report 2011, total indigenous households in the country are 3,56,175 with 15,86,141 (7,97,477 male and 7,88,664 female) population. As reported by the Upazila Agricultural Offices a o g the proje ts’ Upazilas the indigenous people are living in Godagari and Chapai Sadar Upazilas of Rajshahi districts and Birampur of Dinajpur district. In Godagari 7,671 households with 42,132 indigenous People (IP), in Chapai sadar 105 households with 425 people and in Birampur 2,593 households with 12,107 people are living in the remote areas of the Upazilas. The indigenous people living in the project area are mostly belongs to Santal, Orao, Saren, Kisku, Mardi and Tudu. Generally development initiative does not benefit the IPs equally and particularly at times they are adversely affected and marginalized by development processes. In some instances IPs face eviction, loss of resources for livelihoods etc. During project design it has been clearly mentioned that the IPs should have to be treated equally as of lo al populatio . Follo i g the ADB’s e safeguard poli y the proje t i luded the IPs as
1
project target population and started to form SFGs in the locality even though the area is comparatively remote and difficult to operate credit programs.
Table 1: Indigenous People (IP) in the project area IP Population (#) Sl # Location # IP Household Male Female Total
1 Godagari 7671 21022 21110 42132
2 Chapai Sadar 105 210 215 425
3 Birampur 2593 6037 6070 12107
All 10369 27269 27395 54664
3. Introduction
The report is prepared as part of regular project activity and reporting systems. Following the design of the project, monitoring report on IP (Indigenous People) is being published biannually since 2013-14. This progress report is compiled based on the data collected through field officials of the project (Program Associates) in June 2015. The report is mainly focused on Credit and Technical support of the project towards IP population. As reported earlier the need assessment of training and demonstrations had been done through special drive by organizing campaigns of IPs one in Godagari, Rajshahi and another in Chapai sadar of Chapai Nawabganj district during January to June 2014.
4. Organizing IPs under SFGs (Group formation)
The project started formation of SFG since July 2015 and till June 2015, 29 indigenous groups have been formed by the partner MFI with 458 members. Out of 29 SFGs (Indigenous People) 18 formed in Godagari Upazila and 6 in Chapai Sadar Upazilas of Rajshahi district and 5 in Birampur Upazila of Dinajpur district. Of 29 groups 10 are male with 270 members and rest 19 female groups with 295 members. In Godagari (18) and Birampur (5) number of IP groups not increased but in Chapai it increased from 2 to 6. As informed, BRAC is not in a position to increase the numbers of SFGs at this stage as target of 12000 already fulfilled. However the number of group members has increased than earlier to 458. Details are shown in table 1 below.
2
Table 2: Number of adibashi group/member organized under the project till June 2015 Number of group Number of member Sl # Location Male Female Total Male Female Total
1 Godagari 5 13 18 75 195 270
2 Chapai Sadar 2 4 6 52 85 137
3 Birampur 3 2 5 36 15 51
All 10 19 29 163 295 458
5. Credit accessibility
As in other locations of the project BRAC is to mobilize production credit into the IP SFGs to promote high value crops in their locality and to increase the family income as well. The responses of the participants in respect of credit utilization still are not very encouraging though there is improvement than the last quarter. In earlier report only 11% IPs were reported as credit recipient, which increased to 15% by June 2015. In both Godagari and Chapai Sadar Upazilas no male members received credit only female used credit for crop cultivation while in Birampur the situation is reverse 22% male members received credit against 8% female members. Out of 59 enrolled members in Birampur more than 50% received credit while in Godagari the loan operation is very poor, only 9% of the enrolled members taken credit and in Chapai sadar only 12% members used loan money so far. During IP campaign in Nov 2014 the BRAC representative informed that they have opened three new branches in the IP areas to intensify production credit among the interested members, but no reflection of such initiatives yet visible into the IP communities.
Table 3: Credit mobilization into the IP SFGs till June 2015
Number of loanee # SFG member % Member Average loan Sl # Location Male Female Total enrolled received credit size/member (Tk)
1 Godagari 0 25 25 270 9 2000 Chapai 2 0 28 28 237 12 2500 Sadar 3 Birampur 22 8 30 51 59 10000
All 22 61 83 558 15 4833
3
6. Utilization of Credit
As informed during the discussion and report provided by the BRAC and Upazila Agriculture Officer majority of the credit recipient in Godagari and Chapai sadar Upazilas have been used their money in producing tomato and brinjal. While in Birampur, Dinajpur the IP SFGs used their credit in cultivating brinjal, chili, maize and potato. The loan utilization indicates the popularly grown commercial crops in those particular Upazilas, so in designing the technology transfer activities care should be paid to this information.
7. Accessibility in production technology
The accessibility of participants to the production technology through demonstration and technology training is assessed by the data collected from the Upazilas Agriculture Office. After the IP campaign in November 2014 and visit of ADB mission in the IP areas the technology transfer activities have been increased significantly by the agriculture offices of the respective Upazilas.
7.1 Technology Training
By June 2015 by and large 65% enrolled members received training on production technologies, of which 80% reported by Birampur, 70% by Chapai Sadar and 59% by Godagari Upazilas. The enrolled member in Godagari is much higher than the other two locations and as such percentage of training recipient is found slightly lower than the other locations. The distribution of male and female trainees is more or less 50%. Though the enrollment of female members is higher than the males but in case of training operations it has not been reflected. In earlier report the training recipient was 26% only. The details of training participants are shown in the following table 4.
Table 4: Number of trainees among the IP SFGs
# Member received training # Member % Member received Sl # Location Male Female Total enroll training
1 Godagari 70 90 160 270 59
2 Chapai Sadar 48 48 96 137 70
3 Birampur 31 10 41 51 80
All 149 148 297 458 65
4
7.2 Demonstration
The setting of technology demonstrations into the IP SFGs gets momentum after the campaign of IP in November 2014 in Godagari Upazila, Rajshahi district. During the campaign one short assessment revealed that only 3% participants received demonstrations of 200 IP enrolled members. By this time (June 2015) the situation has been changed and average 12% enrolled members received demonstrations on varying crops with improved technologies. The Agriculture office put importance on IP communities and set 35 demonstrations in Godagari, 9 demos in each Upazila of Chapai sadar and Birampur. The DAE sets more numbers of demonstrations with male members than the female members. Though female members are more and received credit but in contrary more numbers of demonstrations set with male members. However it is expected that this should be minimized in the next successive cropping seasons.
Table 5: Number of demonstration sets in the IP SFGs Number of demo received Sl # Location # Member % Member received Male Female Total enroll demo 1 Godagari 22 13 35 270 13 2 Chapai Sadar 7 2 9 137 7 3 Birampur 9 0 9 51 18 All 38 15 53 458 12
8. Planned Technology Transfer Support for IP Population in 2015-16
The project started to provide separate technology training and crop demonstrations for the IP groups in 2014-15, which is being continued for the current cropping year too. In current year special thrust programs on technology transfer activities have been identified for the IP population. The programs are:
8.1 Technology Training
During planning session for 2015-16 of the project in June 2015 the following training activities were identified for the IP SFGs in the concerned 3 Upazilas (Godagari, Chapai Sadar and Birampur) where IP groups are available. These training sessions are exclusively designed for
5
the IP groups. Details of the training programs with number of batches to be trained are shown in the following table 6.
Table 6: Training programs to be conducted in IP SFGs during 2015-16 Number of batch (25 participant in each batch) Sl # Location HVC Gender Post Climate Production Homestead development harvest change Total 1 Godagari 5 2 1 1 1 10 2 Chapai Sadar 2 1 1 1 1 6 3 Birampur 1 1 1 1 1 5 All 8 4 3 3 3 21
8.2 Crop Demonstration
The project is treating IP population with special attention and designed separate crop demonstrations for them for the cropping year 2015-16. Crop demonstrations designed for the year 2015-16 (Kharif II, Rabi and Kharif I seasons) are shown in the following table 7.
Table 7: Crop demonstrations to be conducted in IP SFGs in 2015-16 Kharif II Rabi Kharif I Homestead Brinjal Papaya Brinjal Tomato Chili Garlic Homestead Bean Location Tot Tota Space Phero Total Phero Space Summer GAP GAP GAP Variety al utilization trap trap utilization var Godagari 1 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 1 16 3 23 Chapai 1 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 1 16 3 23 Sadar Birampur 1 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 1 16 3 23 Total 3 9 12 9 9 9 9 9 3 48 9 69
The IP communities are comparatively poor inhabitants living mostly as agriculture farm laborers. Some of them have small pieces of cultivated land where they can produce very traditional local crops. Considering the socio-economic conditions of the people demonstrations are planned for crops feasible for them to cultivate without much investment. Maximum members are not yet using the production credit available for them. As they are mostly laborer, so, not courageous to get credit from NGOs at this stage, rather needs more facilitation works.
9. Adverse Impact of Project Intervention in Livelihoods of IPs
During FGD session community consultation is made with the people around (besides the group members) to identify the negative impact of project interventions towards livelihoods of the IP 6 populations. The project has civil works component including construction of OFSSI (On Farm Small Scale Infrastructure) but in Godagari there is no civil works except OFSSIs (two). One OFSSI is planned to be constructed in Gopalpur village where there is IP households but the site as found 1.5 to 2.0 km away from the residence of the IP communities. As such there is least possibility of sound hazards or any other pollution of construction for the IP communities. During consultation with the key informant people o egati e i pa t as e tio ed y the o u ities due to other proje ts’ i ter e tio s like credit operations, crop demonstrations, technology training etc. At this stage it could be concluded that so far no project activities have been identified that can impact negatively to the livelihoods of indigenous people.
10. Conclusion
The baseline survey on IP population in the project area is captured the intensity of IP population in the project area and their challenges towards livelihood improvement. This progress monitoring report elaborated the activities already been done for their (IP) improvement and opportunities of crop production into the IP communities. This is the 2nd monitoring report of its kind on activities being done into the IP villages.
7