NICARAGUA

1. Project Symbol and title: GCP/NIC/020/N0R

Strengthening of the Capacity of Women in the Management of Small - scale Agricultural Production Units.

2. Project Budget: US$1.158.006 (Revision"O" approved)

3. Beginning of Project Operations. June 1994

4.Date of Termination: Operational Closure: 31/08/97

5. Main Objectives:

The main objectives of the project during this phase can be summarized as follows:

· strengthening rural women's participation in their own organization;

· improving rural women's access to productive resources for production diversification;

· reducing women's workload in the household.

The project seeks to respond to the beneficiaries' practical and strategic needs. Responses to practical needs are expressed in actions that tend to reduce women's double work load, strengthen their grassroots organizations, and increase their access to resources for diversification of productive activities, which in turn will satisfy basic dietary needs and generate income, thereby improving the quality of life. Responses to strategic needs include leadership strengthening, the generation of co operative relations between the sexes, making their role as producers visible, and acknowledgment from the state and civil society of the role they play in agricultural sector development through the beneficiaries' incorporation in decision making structures that formulate governmental plans and programs.

To accomplish this objective, the project will promote the coming together of the municipal, departmental, and national levels of agricultural sector institutions, the local development agents, and the beneficiaries themselves.

Immediate objectives:

1 ) Strengthen the participation of female producers in their grassroots organizations, and their participation in decision making and management structures at the municipal, departmental, and national levels.

2) Improve the household working conditions of peasant women and the cooperative relations between men and women within the family to facilitate the women's participation in grassroots and civic organizations.

3) Together with the female producers, establish diversified agricultural production models making rational use of soil and water resources in diverse agroecological zones and

representative production systems.

6. Main inputs of the project (p/m and amount in US$)

a) Personnel US $483.028

b) Equipment US $93.178

c) Various: Official Travel US $101.379

Contractual Services US $13.896

General Operating Services US $88.353

Fellowship US $184.774

Support Costs US $125.399

Total US $1.090.007

Balance US$ 67.999

7. Counterpart agency of the project

The national counterpart is represented by the Nicaraguan Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), which functions include the formulation of land tenure and ownership policies, the support to small scale producers' associations, the planning of land use and the titling of property within the context of the agrarian reform policy. Due to the project influence, INRA is modifying the procedures for identifying beneficiaries of reformed land by issuing definitive titles in the name of the couple or the woman.

The Women's Secretariat of the "Union Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos", which involved more than 12,000 women farmers is one of the national institutions involved.

8. Project evaluation or review/result achieved

Among the most important results obtained in the project areas of Matagalpa, Jinoteca, Esteli, Nueva Segovia and Madriz, were the following: a) training of 76n community leaders (women and men); b) develop of a training programme on gender issues, community organization and agricultural techniques reaching 1,462 farmers in 12 communities; c) establishment and validation of various production models, mainly aimed to production diversification, through a validation fund with 181 women beneficiaries; introduction of measures to alleviate women's housework load, with 202 women beneficiaries.

Through legal training and gender sensitization of the INRA's staff, the project has also had an impact on the Nicaraguan land titling process, and has introduced the use of participatory methodology as a means of reaching out rural communities in an effective manner. As a result of the project also the INRA has established an special unit to follow up on the introduction of gender approach in the Institution's programme and projects, such as the institutionalization of the co ownership (joint titling), desegregation by gender of all statistics related to land titling; introducing institutional mechanisms for identifying women vis a vis with men as landholders.

The participatory nature of the project has provided a valuable and adequate instrument with

which to approach rural development programmes in a participatory and gender sensitive manner. The methodology followed by the project emphasized on: a) dialogue with the organizations at the community level; b) privileged liaison with rural women, although taking into consideration women/men concerns; and c) integration of gender aspects into agrarian system analysis in the community diagnosis. However, this participatory nature has at times caused delays in the project activities.

9. Recommendations for future work

A four year second phase of the project is recommended in order to achieve the sustainability of the activities and broaden the process, by sharing the methodologies and instruments developed with other similar experiences, such as PROCATEPA INTA/NORAD in Nicaragua . A bridge phase is suggested until the second phase is approved. The emphasis during the next two years should be made to finalize the validation processes to obtain first, a valid sample of production options relative to the variety of agro ecological and social conditions of the Nicaraguan central region in co ordination with INTA, and second, to validate the "model" for alternative rural financing with community participation introduced during this phase. Another priority area relates to determining the effects of the measures adopted by INCRA to improve women access to land within the land titling process. This activities will allow the project to create the adequate institutional framework for strengthening the national capacity of local institutions to understand, incorporate and improve agricultural policy formulation in a gender responsive manner, in order to ensure food security and human development within the rural development process.