| Support to Local Development |
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| Wednesday, 24 December 2008 09:56 |
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The EU-UNDP Enhancement of Living
Standards in Fergana region (ELS) improves the knowledge of development
practitioners and policymakers of local development needs and solutions
by combining pilot interventions and policy advice.
The project
mobilizes policy makers and communities by using the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) as a starting point to identify the main
development problems and how to overcome them. The project supports and
encourages 50 communities in 4 districts of Fergana region to play an
active role in their own development. This is an innovative approach in
Uzbekistan, where society is discovering individual involvement in
public life and private entrepreneurship after decades of Soviet
centralized economy.
 The
project operates at three interconnected levels. First, it promotes
dialogue between regional authorities and local communities’ for the
preparation and implementation of local development strategies that
respond to people’s needs in a way that they can understand and
measure. Second, the project works side by side with local communities
to find affordable and long-terms solutions for improved social
welfare. This is done directly by communities through self-help schemes
to rehabilitate basic social services infrastructures. Third, the
project seeks to complement dialogue for improved regional planning and
rehabilitation of infrastructures for increased welfare with income
generation and diversification. The project does this by combining
support to pilot microcredit schemes to rural and urban population with
support to small agricultural cooperatives in an effort to improve and
diversify the quality of the existing sources of local income, and job
creation as the main engines for rural development.As seen in many countries, small
agricultural cooperatives, also known as ‘western style’ cooperatives
can offer a concrete incentive for local development by bringing
together small scale agricultural producers to purchase, produce and
market on a collective basis. Through agricultural cooperatives a
greater share of the total profits accrues directly to the producers.
Cooperatives facilitate increased investment in ‘rural non-farm’
businesses such as food processing, packaging, transportation and
storing of agricultural products, as well as eco-tourism thereby
providing local population with a viable alternative to farming.
Finally, rural cooperative enterprises have shown to engender
trust-based business interactions, equitable labour and remuneration
standards and gender equality.
 The
‘western style’ cooperative however is a new concept in Uzbekistan and
not yet fully understood. To fill in the gap and create a demand among
farmers, the project has adopted the ’limited liability company’
modality as the most appropriate in the present local circumstances.
After carrying out a rapid assessment of the capacities of 12 existing
farmers groups (also called focus groups), the project is now selecting
the best groups for direct grant support and training. In addition to
training, roundtables and seminars on the in-and-outs of setting-up a
business, accessing credit and ensuring the sustainability of
agricultural enterprises, the project will complement these activities
by offering practical demonstrations in soil fertility, small
irrigation, and household based hydraulic water pumping. Since these
enterprises are pilot initiatives, lessons learned and experiences will
be studied closely by regional authorities and communities to see
whether they can be replicated in future on a credit basis rather than
through grants.Similar initiatives were carried out by a
sister project, the Enhancement of Living Standards project in
Karakalpakstan and Namangan region (2005-2006) also financed by the
European Union. Five agricultural enterprises in Karakalpakstan and
three in Namangan region received initial start up support and
equipment for food processing (pasta and flour production) and
bio-logical pest control. The farmers’ ability to contribute to better
living standards in the regions was a decisive factor that guided the
selection of the enterprise to be supported by the project. Bio-pest
control has proved to be a success which has quickly filled in a niche
in the local market and provided farmers in the regions with affordable
alternative to expensive and potentially hazardous chemical pesticides.
The ELS project in Fergana has organized a number of visits to
neighbouring Namangan to learn from the experience and exchange notes
on the success of these ELS supported pilot initiatives.
Those who are interested to know more about these enterprises can contact the ELS project in Tashkent (Laylo Zokirova). |
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