III - Support needed for women's development activities
Details concerning: each village can be read in the Annex 4.
Unfortunately only one meeting was as hold in FAO Project areas in Jordan. Consequently this paragraph takes into consideration the findings of the socio-economic surveys carried out in Jordan and focuses on Project areas in Syria .
The main constraints expressed by women are: the lack of technical assistance and extension for agricultural and livestock raising activities, vocational training, the lack of income and financial facilities, the lack of support for income generating activities and in some cases (Jordan) the lack of women's organizations.
Two main target groups can be identified according to their different potentialities and interests:
- Young women who have generally a good level of education (secondary degree) and who are unemployed. Many of them want to stay in the village and develop a craft or business activity. Most of wishes concern sewing, knitting and carpet making (Syria). Then follows other craft activities (such embroidery) and business activities (such hairdressing and nurse). In Jordan food and milk processing are often mentioned (more than in Syria) because this activity is already well developed in some areas Women in Quneitra areas would also want to develop fruit processing. Whenever processing of agricultural products are already traditional activities performed by women for household consumption, they would like to improve productivity and marketing.
- Elder women who have a low level of education or are illiterate. Those are traditional farmers and are interested by improving their agricultural and livestock raising activities. Their priorities are to receive vocational training in the activities they already perform (especially livestock raising, fruit trees) to increase the work productivity and to develop some of them in order to generate income. Their proposals concern the establishment or improvement of small flocks of goats, sheep and cows, poultry raising. home gardens (vegetables. aromatic and medicinal herbs!.
It should be mentioned that the expressed needs are almost the same in all villages.. especially those concerning sewing, knitting and carpet making in Syria. The request of support for vegetable, fruit and milk processing obviously depends on the quantity of the available products in the village. However and although the availability exists, traditional food processing seems to be less developed in Syria than in Jordan.
As we said, participatory approach is poorly developed in both countries. One of the consequences is the lack of original proposals and the often passive behaviour of women in several meetings. Sometimes they did not do any proposal, saying only that the>! were we'. disposed towards an`, kind of activity the Project wanted to develop. Nevertheless in some villages (generally the most remote, like Hadia, Ayn Jourin and Ayn Al-Khatib) the motivation of developing productive activities seem to be very high, especially for young women. Several of them spontaneously suggested that the activity should be implemented at group level (for instance carpet making or knitting units). In Haddar one of the request was
relevant to the support of the Project to organize women who cannot afford an individual knitting machine in self-help groups.
To be coherent the support for women's development should be integrated in the general objectives of the FAO Project, which aims at integrating local populations in natural resources management. Women are the first users of water and wood for example and many of them are responsible for livestock raising. including feeding and watering. They participate in many agricultural activities. For these reasons the integration of women in Project activities is to be considered, especially those concerning the use of fuel wood and grazing improvement. However as it is the case in many projects of that kind natural resources conservation is not considered priority according to the existing short-term constraints since the restricting legislation limits use rights of the populations. Consequently the support of the Project is essential to develop activities relevant to the priority needs of women.
It is essential to clarify the concept of "natural resources management" which is at the present time generally perceived as very restrictive by the communities (with the meaning of banning of grazing cueing trees etc). The objective of natural resources conservation is to implement a sustainable development to help the households to develop themselves and to combat poverty without degradation of the natural productive factors (land forest water). An appropriate message sent to them should bong to the fore the fact that they would be the first beneficiaries of this conservation which allows the increase of agricultural and livestock activities (introduction of food trees and multipurpose trees use of fodder grasses and shrubs for grazing soil erosion control technics knowledge of agroforestry activities and silvicultural actions ) as well as the increase of the food security and the general weld being of the household by implementation of income generating activities.
A long-term programme concerning natural resources management has some chance to be implemented only if it is linked to a short-term priority programme concerning priority wishes of women (at least some of them), elaborated by themselves with the support of the Project. Investment in social basic services and support for productive activities needed by women is a mean of providing a fairly immediate benefit to local people as a return for a longer term investment of effort in resources management.
The Project can support women's development in the following fields: capacity building and vocational training access to extension services income generating activities. Investment in some social activities like literacy and health can be also envisaged. This does not mean that the Project -which remains a forestry; project and in which most staff members are forestry officers will run all activities. It is sure that a multidisciplinary approach is needed and the Project will act as a catalyst and an intermediary; to external competencies. It is therefore important to develop a strategy that works and uses the competencies of the various existing partners: NGOs village leaders private sector extension services. Women's Unions rural development centres in Syria and community centres in Jordan etc). In Jordan the partners should be in priority national and international NGOs (listed in a before paragraph) according to their experience at grass root level' specially with women. In both countries Women's Unions will be the main partners of the Project as it is the only existing women's organization and all actions concerning women should be concerted with them. Moreover the group promotion approach coincides with the Women's Union strategy and should be supported by them.
What follows concerns all rural communities (male and female) and consequently is relevant for the strategy of action which should be implemented in women's development.
A community and participative approach would be carefully initiated from the outset. The community approach allows all women to be beneficiaries of future activities without selection a priori of target groups so the implementation of activities will depend on the interest and mobilisation of women. These activities should be diversified according to the interests of the different groups. In order to guarantee the social cohesion and stability of the village, it is recommended that activities target both main groups previously identified (younger and elder women). The first are daughters of the second and any discrimination could increase the social differentiation between groups and generate family conflicts. what is in contradiction with the community approach. It is important to reach the general agreement of the village for any innovation. Activities should be developed according to the needs expressed by both groups, therefore they can be different. As we have before mentioned. the elder prefer non agricultural activities, as craft and food processing. The strategy to develop at the same time complementary activities (for example, milk production and milk processing, fruit and vegetables production and fruit processing) should be very efficient and involve the village in an integrated. The similarity of the interests of both group is an advantage. Nevertheless, even if both groups have not the same wishes in development of IGAs at the beginning of the Project, it is possible to initiate something with one group providing that there is no opposition of the other group. Such a strategy can act as a catalyst at the village level and give elder women the wish of doing something. Anyhow elder women should not be forgotten in the development process and activities should be suggested as soon as possible (not necessary, directly, run by FAO Project, but FAO can collect the expressed needs and use one's influence with relevant organizations.
The participatory approach would increase the local role in managing development needs. encourage the sense of consultation, involvement and responsibility and strengthen the sustainability of the development effort. It would encourage local initiatives and participation at the local level. Women should be more likely to support development initiatives whenever they have taken into consideration the views and the expressed needs of the intended beneficiaries. The use of "bottom approach" would be also promoted to building unformal group formation especially for income generating activities
Participation by local people in the analysis of their problems, identification of priorities, design of activities, and implementation is meant to be a central plank of the participatory approach. Emphasis is placed in people's participation for several reasons:
- the actions are integrated in the cultural and traditional context of the village;
- many of the failures of projects can be attributed to their lack of attention to local people's needs. the design of activities and definition of objectives having been done by outsiders, who either thought they knew- what local people wanted, or thought they knew better. It is now- understood that projects will have a far greater chance of achieving their objectives if these are set in partnership with local people, rather than being imposed upon them, and
- if implemented activities are to have an, hope of longer term success, they must be designed to work in the interests of local people. Systems of fines and enforcement only work if sufficient resources are allocated to policing them effectively. By contrast, systems of establishing local rights and responsibilities ought to help construct a pattern of interests and incentives which prompt local people to behave in the we! desired of them, by working with, rather than against, the grain of their own interests.
The basis of participatory approach and local development is the establishment of partnership relation between the populations concerned and the authorities, the FAO Project being one of these authorities. This partnership should be based on contract-programme between the most active group of population and authorities. The contract is an agreement which details the nature of actions to be undertaken, the obligations of each partner and the expected results.
In our opinion, the constraints of the implementation of the integrated village development programmes already prepared for some villages might be the following:
- the lack of mobilization of populations, essentially due to the lack of human resources at Project level and particularly to the lack (or weak action) of extensionist agent at village level;
- the absence of contract-programme negotiated between populations and Project and defining the commitments of each partner (the integrated local project is elaborated very, quickly with a weak participation of populations, then these are waiting that the Project implement the activities). In some cases they do not participate in cost-sharing (beekeeping, mushroom cultivation) and the construction of the dam was entirely supported by the Project. The risks of such a strategy is the reinforcement of the "passive participation" and the position of assisted populations:
- the lack of implementation of the bottom-up approach and skilled persons in participatory techniques;
- the lack of villagers' organizations and representative communities of local populations to be partners and negotiate with the Project;
- the lack of sociological investigation aiming at identifying the different decision makers and leadership capacities at area and village levels;
- the weakness of institutional relations between the Project and the agricultural extension services:
- the weakness of partnership relations with, other organizations (public or private) which have appropriate competencies to support the implementation of some activities described in the integrated local programmes.
Participation of populations consist in restituting to them a'' initiate power and a decision making in the definition and the implementation of the actions and programmes which concern their own future. There is a popular participation only if partnership relation is established, with contractual agreements, between the populations and the others actors. This means that the programme is based on a concerted and negotiated diagnosis and its orientations take into account the desires, the objectives and the constraints of the different actors (partners). The first step of the participation is at local level.
The Project will rely on popular participation of the women's community through the mobilization of local capabilities and available resources for promoting cooperation and self-reliance as basic means for local development and progress. This approach to rural development is the least costly and most productive at the economic, social. educational. and political level. In this context, the pilot project aims at building pilot villages which can be repeated elsewhere. The approach is based on an upward development process though the implementation of activities which start at the grass root level.
Groups can be important to be used as extension targets as well as to carry out income generating activities at small-scale level. These groups should be simple unformal with common interests and objectives. In fact the women's community is heterogeneous and groups can deal with only one activity. Self-help are groups in which individuals join together on the basis of common interests and combine their efforts to improve their own living conditions. Self-help organizations are characterized by the following criteria:
- a group of people with at least one common goal;
- joint actions by the groups towards attaining the goal of the group;
- promotion of group members welfare by joint efforts of the members.
The main interest on fanning groups is that the rural poor rather than as individuals are able to combine and make best use of their skills and resources they can exchange views and ideas and choose the best options. One of the main objectives to organize themselves as a group is to increase their income and therefore undertake income generating activities. Higher income allow members to satisfy their needs and in addition working together in income generation is a good we`, for the members to learn cooperating and to achieve other goals.
Till now most of Participatory Rural Appraisal to identify problems and solutions were carry out with women. It is necessary, to include representative women in this first step but we suggest to carry on the work with women this activity being made by a female member of' the project (or a skilled resource parson). Specific programmes aiming at women's development should be integrated in general integrated local programmes at village level (even if the activities are focused on women only a household approach" is relevant according to the before mentioned considerations). However all detailed activities and agreements would be negotiated with women (even if it may occur that some negotiations should be made and agreements obtained at male level). In the villages where FAO has already activities specific women's development programmes should be elaborated.