(PIPAP) Program aims to reduce poverty in the rural communities in the program areas: eight VDCs ( Nocha, Amahi baryati, Sorabhag, Takuwa, Dainiya, Gobindpur, Bardanga & Mahadewa) of Marang district through equitable and sustainable income generation activities. The Program activities are grouped under five broad components consisting of
Program Objective :
The Strategy To implement the program, PAF envisages the following strategies :
Guiding Principles (Five basic guiding principles are followed in the operation of PAF activities):
Program Components :
Component A: Small-Scale Community Infrastructure Projects :
This component provides capacity building support and sub-grants to the community organizations (COs) for community infrastructure projects (e.g. micro-irrigation, engineered trails, footbridges, schools, health posts and other “public goods” which can be managed by community groups). Depending on their maturity stage, the support to COs would focus on ensuring that
Component B: Sustainable Income Generation (SIG):
This component provides capacity building support and sub-grants to the community organizations (COs) for income generation activities (e.g. micro-enterprises, crafts, land productivity, vegetables and animal husbandry) depending upon the maturity stage of the COs. This component provides the opportunity for CO beneficiaries to obtain a sub-loan to invest in income generating livelihood activities on the basis of revolving funds that are managed by the COs. The project has encouraged poor households to channel funds into demand-driven livelihood activities and to manage these activities. Groups are able to increase investments over time with savings and in some cases additional funds leveraged from other programs. The revolving funds have helped strengthen the ability of COs to manage funds and develop institutions of the poor.
Component C: Product Development, Market Linkages and Pilots:
The objective of this component is to support those COs that are more advanced in their undertaking by either already having engaged in higher-level institutional forms or would benefit from doing so at this point. COs have started to form cooperatives, CO networks and federations. The project would support COs in these efforts by providing specific support to the COs that are at such stage of development. This component would also support piloting of CO creation and investment support in a peri- urban setting given that there is a tendency of rural areas becoming more peri-urban around some urban centers in Nepal. This component therefore would engage in the following activities
a. Pocket Area Development:
Building successful interventions and learning from weaknesses, PAF is proposing an activity-based pocket area (spatial) development approach and market linkages to help make community organizations self-sustaining in the long run. PAF will be adopting an activity-based pocket area (spatial) development approach where in the project would identify several geographic areas (pockets) where a group of COs have already organized into higher level institutions or are carrying out a particular activity that would benefit from economies of scale. Special capacity building support would be provided to those COs for product development and also necessary help would be offered in order to link them with the markets, ensuring a stable source of demand to cater to.
b. Support for higher level CO Institutions:
PAF would support COs that have grown and evolved, and are now ready to scale-up their activities to ensure longer term sustainability. The project would help the COs in developing their products (refining and packaging) and establishing strong and stable market linkages, and support COs such that they can link to the formal financial markets in order to ensure their long term sustainability. This entails mobilization of institutions to enter into more specialized services, providing specialized support for the development and marketing of promising products like dairy, seed production, goat activities etc. In addition, this activity would provide assistance to livestock insurance committees to support the build-up of livestock insurance schemes.
c. Peri-urban Pilots:
This component would also pilot the expansion of PAF activities into peri-/urban areas. PAF would target the establishment and support to COs in selected urban centers. The approach would be similar to the PAF current approach of CO mobilization and support, but would be adjusted based on findings during the pilot activities.
Component D: Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening:
This component has been and would remain a core function of the PAF. The component supports the formation and development of COs, CO capacity building support, creation of cooperatives and market alliances. Funds are provided for the contracting of partner organizations that support COs in social mobilization and various capacity building activities including entrepreneurship development, book keeping, maintenance of the revolving fund, participation in local bodies and development towards higher level institutions. The component would promote local resource persons at the community network level, linkages with education, literacy, nutrition and public health training to strengthen outreach through social mobilization. PAF will focus on increasing capacity within communities and reduce dependency on partner organizations by linking COs with each other. The revolving funds would be of particular focus as the capacity of COs to manage these funds sustainably and forge linkages with financial institutions will become critical for institutional growth. IFAD would provide support for knowledge Management activities and strengthening of the COs and higher level institutions in revolving fund management and in accessing the formal financial sector. There are some marginalized communities (representing about two percent of the target population) that have not yet benefitted from PAF services because of their distinct socio-cultural characteristics. Special measures are being implemented to reach out to this special target group building on a new strategy recently adopted by PAF. Under this component targeted capacity building and institutional strengthening activities would be supported for these groups.
Location: NBS Central office Meeting Hall