Annual Narrative Report Of Project 018 Final Report 2018 I.1. Name(s) of person(s) in-charge of project management in SCLC in 2017-18 Niroj Shrestha, Project Coordinator I.2. Context and background of the project in 2017-18 Describe the context of the project, the problems to be addressed and the recommended solutions Nepal is a poor and difficult to access country with poorly developed economic infrastructures. Agriculture employs 80% of the working population but generates only 35% of GDP because the cultivation methods are archaic and the family farms are scattered in isolated areas. Poverty, illiteracy, lack of infrastructure and health care, unemployment and lack of vocational qualifications are all additional challenges that young people and adults in rural areas have to cope with, and which push them to emigrate massively to accept unsafe and low-paid jobs. The project area is a suitable area for agriculture, with a favourable climate, rich biodiversity, and abundant water sources. Potential for establishing/strengthening farms is important enough to catch the interest of young people and adults but requires awareness and prior training. In addition, the rapid development of the tourism industry and the growing demand of hotels and restaurants for quality and organic products offer many prospects for small farms. Promoting the agricultural sector is also part of the Government of Nepal's strategy to fight poverty and ensure food sovereignty. Our local partner SCLC has created a non-formal learning center and model farm to help young people and adults: • Learn about modern, efficient and sustainable agricultural techniques (avoiding the use of chemicals) • Acquire the skills and confidence to create an income-generating agricultural activity. Describe the methodology (participative, simple request) used in the planning and managing of the project and, notably, the extent to which the stakeholders have been involved in this process. The project was designed by Shikharapur CLC with its experience of a decade of working in community in an informal way. While working with many self-help groups, women's group, agriculture groups, this project concept came as emerging as their need. Therefore, the concept of the agriculture development, the need and importance of organic farming and the use of technology in agriculture etc were thought as essential part of development. Few schools, college and some farmer's network group were involved to discuss about the concept. Annual Narrative Report Of Project 018 Final Report 2018 After the approval of the project by ONGD-FNEL, we have involved local government; municipality, District Coordination Committee, DCC (previously District Development Committee), local cooperatives, farmers' network group etc were involved to implement the project. This has helped to form new farmer's group and also to work with the new steps of project implementation. Therefore, we can say, this project has involved stakeholders for the implementation of project. During the project years, there was local election and the total system of Nepal changed, therefore, we need to include Ward Office and Municipality Office in most of the activities. In the trainings, meetings, workshops, seminars etc, the locally elected people's participation became a must. But, we took this as very positive and we also tried our best to make them take the ownership of the project. This is because, our entire project activities are to support some parts of the municipality, we are helping them. So, their ownership and their positive participation became inevitable. This process took some time but again, it has been very helpful to complete all our activities. And again, this is going to be helpful for our upcoming 5 years project. How have the various project stakeholders (institutional actors, local authorities, beneficiaries...) been involved? Please describe the planning and consultation process used. Formal meetings, sharing workshops, official visits were organized by the project team to share the concept and implementation strategy of the project. We also provided all the stakeholder local government bodies and municipalities with the project documents, budget and our implementation strategy, This process has helped us to take approval of project from DCC. Our regular meeting with our own staffs will guide them to disseminate the information of the project to the stakeholders. More importantly, we have sit meetings with the stakeholders both in their own office and our office (mainly in project site). We also organized preliminary and other frequent meetings with the beneficiaries both to share the project ideas and also the formation of farmers group. This is going to help us with the selection of good and active farmers for our future activities. We have also involved the members of the local government bodies, municipalities, farmers cooperative, farmers' coordination committee in our project steering committee. A 7 member steering committee has been formed as below Project Steering Committee 1. Project Coordinator: Niroj Shrestha 1 2. Chairperson of the organization: Shyam Bahadur KC 1 3. Member of Ward no 5, Dakshinkali Municipality 1 4. District Coordination Committee, Kathmandu: Member 1 5. District Agriculture Development Office : Member 1 6. Dakshinkali Municipality Member 1 7. Representative of Farmer's Coordination Committee : Member 1 Annual Narrative Report Of Project 018 Final Report 2018 Describe SCLC areas of competence and expertise, which your intend to contribute to the realisation of this project. The main competence of SCLC is community support, mobilization of expertise from community and also from central line agencies. The coordination of SCLC with DCC, DADO, Local Government Bodies, locally formed agriculture group and their coordination committee are mainly the capacities. This practice seems very much sustainable, because when we work with government bodies, they feel very easy to work in community. Community people also know about the subsidies of government, they are aware of the government programs, which they share in our meeting and workshops. Every stakeholders and community beneficiary parts are convinced that the need of the project is emerging one and they all wanted to support this cause. In totality, we can say that the competent staffs, enthusiastic board members, volunteers, and supportive line agency managers from Nepal Government etc are very much helping to meet the objective. They also support the advocacy of this issue in the community in their respective fields. Were the assumptions, in a way or another, influenced the course of the project? Yes, the assumptions which project forecasted influenced the course of project. Mainly, the local election has hampered the project activities in many ways. Though the election was for few days, the elected related activities in grass-root level disturbed the project activities and we need to stop it for at least two week. Youth's interest in agriculture is another part of the assumption. This is also difficult task to involve the youths in this field because of the insecure economy of Nepal, the instable politics and also low level of income from agriculture. But we have been doing our best to motivate them to involve them into agriculture. Project has taken initiative to involve college level students to utilize their leisure time to train themselves in agriculture. Normally in Nepal, college time is morning shift, so that the youths can utilize their day time leisure to be involved in agriculture. Another assumption is mobilizing youths from open school. Open school is that where the school dropouts study. SCLC has been running this special class since 7 years, so there is decreasing number of open school participants. Other things are going smoothly as per the project objective. Interest of youths in agriculture is another thing to think about. It is hard to bring back the youths in field. It has been always risk for any projects. But, the social incentives, educational benefits, the distance of schools and home have been some factors which has played positive roles in bringing youths in agriculture. And, the motivational actions and stories always help them to be empowered towards agriculture development. Were there cross-fertilization synergy effects between the different activities? Community itself is an idea bank. We learn from community. SCLC creates platform for discussing new ideas and implement them in good way for better result. The project plans for the integrated approach for the best result from it. We have integrated and complementary activities which is helping the beneficiaries to gain better knowledge in the field. For example, the agriculture training, business plan training, marketing training etc are integrated to develop the skills of farmers. Therefore, it creates the synergy effect. Annual Narrative Report Of Project 018 Final Report 2018 Lessons learned from the project in 2017-18 "Community itself is an open school where we can learn and share our experience." This is our main slogan while we work in community. Therefore, community based project will give much learning to us in a frequent manner. The main lesson that we learn from the project in 2017-18 is the issue that we raised to work with it. The issue of need of agriculture development, the importance of organic farming, mobilization of open school participants for their better skill, mobilizing college students to motivate themselves into self employment etc are genuine issues which we must bring in community. All the stakeholders, beneficiaries and even partners are happy to learn about the project concept and its relevancy in the community. Other learning is time management. Time has been very crucial for us to pace up with the project activities. The local election has given us the learning since we are little back with our progress due to it. And as an underdeveloped country like Nepal, we have massive political influences in community that people do not work during pre-election environment, all are involved and they would like to influence the project in many ways which is not necessary.