VIE/028
Western Nghe An Rural Development Project - Phase III

The project is a consolidation phase of the previous interventions, designed to integrate lessons learnt and to capitalise on the successes of Western Nghe An agricultural Development Project.

Western Nghe An Rural Development Project-Phase III targets the same three districts as the Western Nghe An agricultural Development Project: Con Cuong, Tuong Duong and Ky Son. The novelty of this project consists in the systematic targeting of the poorest communities in the project area, and categorically applying strong sustainability criteria.

The development objective is Rural Poverty alleviation in three mountainous districts of Western Nghe An province, which means to improve rural livelihoods in a sustainable way and through appropriate and diversified agricultural production and related infrastructure.

The expected results of the project are:

• Local capacity to deliver appropriate sustain- able agricultural development services is being strengthened;
• Rural households benefit from the adoption of appropriate and diversified sustainable agricultural practices;
• Rural communities’ access to goods and services is improved.

In recognition of the diversity of activities that affect the rural livelihoods in the project area, the project adopted an integrated approach to agricultural development. A key component of the project is capacity building within the local agricultural departments in order to allow them to provide an appropriate and demand-driven service to farmers.

Latest news

• Vietnam: Dealing with violence against women in Nghe An province

  Published on 4 June 2014    By Hans Bissdorf, Hang Nguyen, Estelle Lyon Chaudron   

  Violence against women is a persistent and prevalent problem in Vietnam and the rates of domestic violence and abuse have reached epidemic proportions as stated by the Vietnam National Study on Domestic Violence in 2010. Indeed this study revealed that almost two thirds of married women experienced at least one type of domestic violence at some point in their lives.

  Project VIE/028 – “Western Nghe An Rural Development Project”, which targets the poorest communities in three districts of Nghe An (Con Cuong, Tuong Duong and Ky Son), has been raising awareness among the staff of the project, governmental partners, stakeholders and especially villagers on issues related to gender equity.

  

  Since 2011, trainings on gender, workshops and study tours have been organised in several communes of the project area. A wide range of educational tools such as games, scripts, stories, pictures and short-films on gender intend to improve people’s awareness. The gender training not only concentrated on issues related to domestic violence but also focused on women’s participation in decision making, leadership, their participation in project activities, etc.

  The trainings highlighted that women in most cases were not even aware of their own rights and so it’s not surprising that also their husbands were not aware of the fact that women had any. Only after a gender analysis regarding the distribution of labour in the family, husbands and wives realised that women carry a greater workload than men, and that changes should be made. Moreover the local authorities have often no idea what kind of activities and support they could offer to address inequality.

  In 2013, the project widened the scope of gender awareness by including new communes and adding more local departments and units to the trainings. Training of trainer’s sessions were held among the Police Force, Women’s Union, Farmer’s Union, Youth Union, culture centres, schoolteachers and key persons of the communes. Training topics looked at concepts related to gender, gender equity, gender equality law and gender integration in the project activities. These included agriculture, income generation, environment and climate change, infrastructure and laws on domestic violence. Those who were trained in turn provided trainings on gender issues to their colleagues to ensure wide dissemination of the subject at hand. Hence, the activity was able to reach more than a thousand persons.

  Furthermore, to create more impact on gender awareness, the project supported the organisation of a campaign on gender equality and domestic violence across several communes in the three targeted districts. The motorcade included busses, cars and hundreds of motorcycles and during the trip other cars and motorcycles joined the parade. People’s Committees of the participating districts and communes, police and different departments and units supported the motorcade. In addition, messages were transmitted on mass media such as radio and television stations. During the parade, messages through loudspeakers were disseminated by the district radios. About 4 000 leaflets on gender equality and prevention of domestic violence were distributed to the people along the road. A multitude of people spontaneously joined the parade in their respective communes and some villagers explained that they had never seen such a campaign.

  

  As an immediate result of the campaign, the district police requested support from the project to help their local officers to be trained on gender issues, so that they would be able to address domestic disputes more adequately. Also, the project was asked to repeat the campaign in 2014.

  Through these various awareness-raising activities, women gathered more self-esteem and became more confident about their roles and rights. It has been noticed that women now increasingly use their mobile phones to complain to local authorities, especially if they feel, that they were not properly consulted or heard in a decision making process.

   

  Estelle Lyon Chaudron

• Vietnam: Farmers get SALT

  Published on 22 April 2014    By Estelle Lyon Chaudron, Hans Bissdorf, Le Viet Nhan   

  

  For 14 years now Luxembourg has been cooperating with Nghe An Province in Vietnam. The most western and mountainous districts of Con Cuong, Tuong Duong and Ky Son, the latter bordering with Laos, have been at the centre of this rural development programme.

  Throughout the years, Luxembourg development cooperation supported local authorities in building small and medium infrastructure (wells, weirs, biogas digesters, water supply, electricity supply, community houses, rural roads, bridges and irrigation schemes) hereby focusing on building agricultural development services’ capacity in order to deliver appropriate services to rural households to fully benefit from the adoption of appropriate and diversified sustainable agricultural practices.

  Due to the geological characteristics of these mountainous districts, soil erosion remains a big problem in the project area. The current project (VIE/028) re-introduced Sloping Agriculture Land Technology (SALT) to minimise erosion effects on the arable land. The SALT approach was invented in the Philippines where about 70% of the total land area is characterised by sloping. SALT mainly consists of using leguminous trees to improve the fertility and stability of agricultural soils. It’s a simple low-cost method for upland farming, which was especially developed for small farmers with few tools, little capital and little knowledge of modern agriculture.

  Since the first SALT model was mainly developed for soil conservation and fertility improvement, new models were developed with the integration of livestock, fruit trees and the forest. These improved models allowed the farmers to significantly increase their household income by diversifying their crops. In 2013, the VIE/028 project in partnership with the Northern Mountainous Agriculture and Forestry Science Institute implemented a new SALT model called Sustainable Agricultural Land Technology. One-hectare demonstration plots were established in all three districts. The new SALT establishes contour lines by planting fodder grasses and legumes along the hedgerows for livestock. The contouring of slopes also addresses the erosion problem.

  The beneficiaries were introduced to SALT techniques such as: seed selection, crop rotation, land preparation methods and intercropping techniques to improve soil fertility, among others. They were provided with seeds and plant protection inputs for different crop varieties (like maize and black beans). After 3-4 months of implementation, the yields increased: maize was about 6 tons/ha, groundnut 1,6 tons/ha, cassava 25-28 tons/ha and upland rice, banana and beans also produced significantly higher outcomes.

  

  To conclude, SALT models have enabled local farmers not only to access adapted and sustainable farming systems, but also new intercropping techniques with short-term cash crops. These interventions will also help to reduce the rate of deforestation together with slash and burn practices but most importantly, it create a surplus to the household incomes of the vulnerable populations (mostly ethnic minorities) in Western Nghe An.