The sustainable use of dryland agro-pastoral resources requires the application of integrated crop and livestock production systems.
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| Community members at the project's introductory meeting - the first step towards ensuring that local people are fully involved in local development |
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Recognizing the importance of (i) integrating technical, institutional and policy options, (ii) intervening at the community level to foster collective action, and (iii) involving all stakeholders to foster a dialogue and harmonize different interventions in rural communities, the Mashreq / Maghreb project has developed a community approach that was used to determine community constraints and opportunities and to develop agreed action plans for communities to undertake adaptive research and evaluate technology options.
"Community Approach developed in the Mashreq / Maghreb Project" illustrates this approach schematically. |
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Special attention was devoted to understanding the problems of women in dry areas and their evolving roles in household livelihood strategies. For example, in Tunisia, improved ovens for bread-making, and in Lebanon, improved marketing through community fairs for goods produced by women, were both considered as innovative solutions driven by women.
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The community approach provides a promising delivery system to address household and community livelihood strategies and promote the coordination of investment efforts by different stakeholders. Some of the countries are institutionalizing the community approach within their R&S programmes. Algeria is using the approach as the framework for its land reclamation program and its National Program for Agricultural Development (PNDA), in Jordan, the community approach is being integrated into the government's agricultural strategies for the dry areas, and in Tunisia, the community approach is being used within an IFAD rangeland development project (PRODESUD) with technical assistance from the Mashreq / Maghreb project team. |
