List of Acronyms
USAID- United States Agency for International Development
DAI PESA - Development Alternatives Inc. Private Enterprise Support Activities
GNP - Gross National Product
PQLI- Physical Quality of Life Index
SACCOS- Savings and Credit Cooperative Society
MSE’s. – Micro and Small Enterprises
ILO – International Labour Organisation
GoT- Government of
MKUKUTA- Mkakati wa Kukuza Uchumi na Kuondoa Umaskini
MKUZA- Mkakati wa Kukuza Uchumi na Kuondoa Umaskini
DAI - Development Alternatives, Inc
ECI. - Ebony Consulting International
TCCA -
RTS - Report Tracking System
ADPF- Agricultural Sector Development Programme Support through Basket Fund
FAO - Food and Agriculture Organisation (of the United Nations)
MDG’s- Millennium Development Goals
PRS- Poverty Reduction Strategy
UPATU – A Kiswahili acronym for members’ savings and credit
EPA- economic Partnership for
WTO- World Trade Organisation
ACP-African
EU- European
Table of Contents
List of Acronyms Page
1.0 Introduction 4
1.1 Conceptualization and Purpose 5
1.2 Basic Needs and Poverty 5
1.3 Rural poverty is usually un perceived 5
2.0 How is
3.0 USAID’s Country Strategy to Agricultural Development 6
4.0 The DAI PESA Project 7
4.1 USAID’s Country Strategy related to Agricultural Development 7
4.2 The Context and Project area 7
4.3 Analysis of the Objectives, Project design and Strategies 7
5.0 DAI PESA Project Analysis 8
5.1 How Project addressed the causes of poverty in the implementation 8
5.2 Poverty Analysis using Development Goals 9
5.3 Development Indicators 10
6.0 DAI PESA Project: A Critical Analysis 11
7.0 Conclusion 15
List of Bibliography 17
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Conceptualization and Purpose: This paper will have some conceptual framework on poverty and its causes, poverty measurement and the experiences of
The concept of poverty has been defined by several scholars and development workers. For example Burkey (1993) shares that the development workers of Uganda described “absolute poverty” as the inability of an individual, a community or a nation to satisfactorily meet basic needs and “relative poverty” as conditions where basic needs are met but there is inability to meet other perceived or desired needs. He also defines the concept of “the poorest of the poor” as those individuals with physical challenges such that they can’t meet basic needs on their own. This leads to the concept of “external assistance” which addresses different groups differently like giving immediate relief to those living in absolute poverty, and donating developing assistance for those living in relative poverty so that they become independent while survival of the poorest of the poor depends on charitable sources. However, a successful intervention on poverty is the one that is systematic by analyzing the effects or symptoms, causes, how they are addressed and also relate them to how they contribute to development goals to be able to shortlist development indicators. This is what this paper is about.
1.2 Basic Needs and Poverty: Burkey discusses the relationship between basic needs and poverty. Basic needs for survival refer to clean unpolluted air and water, adequate and balanced food, physical and emotional security, physical and mental rest and culturally and climatically appropriate clothing and shelter. He adds that the survival of human race is a variable of the survival of whole communities not individuals. Also Burkey mentions the basic needs approach to development adopted by the ILO in 1976 entailing the meeting of the basic needs of the poor and the recent trend which contributes to the transformation of an effective social and economic development. He refers to Hettne’s need for autonomy in communities to make own decisions and this gives rise to community economic development.
1.3 Rural poverty is usually not perceived. Chamber’s in his book on “Rural Development: Putting the last first” analyses why rural poverty is unperceived and how development (or projects) can rectify it. His concern is regarding poverty that is manifested by human suffering arising under such conditions as drought, floods, and civil wars. Unfortunately, many people living away from the rural areas tend to be unaware of the severity of poverty. These are the outsiders who have never tasted poverty because they live in the urban areas where most basic needs are available. We can fight poverty by staying with the poor and with them analyse issues around poverty in their community and assist them to come up with ways of addressing unfavorable circumstances.
2.0 How is
Several attempts to fight poverty were tried out since
At the policy level, in the National Development and Poverty Reduction Goals, it is stipulated in the Joint Assistance Strategy (2006) that the Government is highly committed to sustainable development and poverty reduction involving domestic and international stakeholders. The country’s development framework and long term social and economic development goals are in the National Vision 2025 and Zanzibar Vision 2020.
The DAI PESA Project has contributed greatly to these goals and some analysis is presented below after introducing the USAID country strategy.
3.0 USAID’s Country Strategy to Agricultural Development: According to USAID’s Country Programme Materials www.usaid,gov/locations/subsahara africa/countries/tanzania”, the USAID Mission to
4.0 THE DAI PESA Project
4.1 Project Overview as presented by USAID (2005): Award of Project was through the total original Funding of 12 million US Dollars but was reduced to 8.4 million US Dollars. Masawe and Sullivan (2006) share that the Project was signed in October 2002 Contract Number PCE–1-817-99-0002-00 and Task Order 817. It was inaugurated in February 2003. The number of beneficiary farmers is 21,000 – 22,000. The project worked with producers, traders and processors organizations in the sub sectors of onions, rice paprika, sugar , citrus , vegetables, sunflower oil and seeds. To diversify incomes and minimize risks, the farmers are also growing chilies, beans, artemisia and others.
4.2 The Context and Project area: In 1992 there was a situation Analysis with a shift in
The head office is in
4.3 The Objectives, Project design and Strategies of the Project: The overall objective was, “Incomes of Small Farmers increased in selected Community Sub-sectors”. The emphasis was on increasing productivity and trade of selected commodities. It was a performance-based task order with identified results.
Overall Strategies: Dai employed a strategy called the Integrated Sub sector Development (ISD) methodology with four stages namely, sub sector selection of screening all sub sectors based on same criteria. The focus was on training of Producer Organisations to operate businesses that could market a range of products and to help agribusiness to produce a specific crop. Another strategy was to involve women and lower income farmers to make them produce commercial and food crops. Another one was to establish strong extension forces as project staff or seconded government staff. These lived and worked with the poor in their communities to alleviate rural poverty. Also there was monitoring income gains by POs using their profit/loss statements and advocating at district level by farmers to improve their incomes through reduction of local taxes in collaboration with the district and regional chapters of the TCCA.
5.0 DAI PESA Project Analysis
5.1 How the DAI PESA Project addressed the causes of Poverty in the Implemention
The causes of poverty can be physical, social, economic and political. Also there are primary and secondary causes of poverty as suggested by Burkey.. These can be localized at a micro level, or be at a national and international levels. Causes go with effects or symptoms. The following analysis will be based on the above causes of poverty before the project and how they were addressed by the DAI project.
Physical causes: These are environmental factors like natural resources which can hamper development unless they are acted upon at a local level. The main effect was low agricultural productivity and low sales due to the immediate causes like lack of all weather passable roads, electricity and other infrastructure. The primary cause was poor access in mountainous areas or other remote areas. For example some associations like the Mgeta farmers of Morogoro located on the slopes of the
Social causes: This entails inability to acess appropriate education and sharing and can be discussed both at local and national levels. The main effect here was use of poor farming methods caused by lack of skills due to lack of knowledge, eposure and cooperation. Most farmers were ignorant of modern farming approaches and had poor communication with outsiders. The project introduced a training package for members on new farming technology, produce associations, budgeting and marketing skills and this facilitated realization of some of the development indicators. Another contribution was the work on the market linkages providing price information and business alliances as well as provision of extension or access to inputs and increasing ability of producer associations to lobby, improve group dynamics and cohesion linking producers to markets.
Economic: This could be discussed at local, national and international levels and the macro economic conditions. The main effect was low income among the farmers caused by low production, lack of markets, failure to compete effectively with imported agricultural products with the underlying causes of lack of capital, lack of credit, lack of savings, lack of skills and cooperation. Another cause was inflation. All these hampered the growth of agriculture in the target area. The project introduced access to credit through SACCOS, access to markets and improved seed and other inputs through the apex organizations TCCA. Also many products reached the international markets.
Political causes-national: This is related to issues of governance. The main effect was poor living conditions, low income, inability to influence government policy at district level, caused by high commodity taxes, bureaucracy, exploitation by moneylenders, and unfavourable policies at the macro level. The cashew nuts growers in particular were supported by the apex organisations with lobbying for farmer friendly policies towards marketing and home production since farmers in other countries were being supported.
Political causes-International: This is related to macro economic conditions, and historical factors. Here the main effect was also poor living conditions coupled with low income caused by lack of lobbying skills to influence fairness in trade conditions and macro level policies on import trade and historical exploitation which left many areas undeveloped. The farmers especially those based in Morogoro were linked with the South African chain of supermarkets based in
5.2 Poverty Analysis using Development Goals: The goals referred to here are those of the Tanzanian Development Vision (2025) and the Millennium Development Goals. According to USAID reports, the sub-projects showed incremental changes in income to MSEs which could imply a goal of improved quality of livelihood. This appears to be the area that benefited more. Another goal was based on developing a learning society whereby farmers raised their incomes by increasing the crop area with new technologies. The evaluation showed that the producers introduced new crops like paprika in former maize farms and acreage increased by five acres more for each farmer. It also provided a training input of SACCOS and household budgeting of expenses among the farmers. This enabled the farmers to adopt new seed varieties for example of sunflower, onions and vegetables.
It also caused a change in percentage of areas cultivated under improved technology and methods and implied another goal of reducing extreme poverty and hunger and increasing food security. Another one was on enhancing good governance by establishing producers’ associations and introducing policies to improve the business environment. Moreover, an assessment done by Uliva and Fischer (2004) remarked that the producer organizations represented a way forward for small scale Tanzanian farmers. The project established a broad base of associations in 6 regions. Also the grading system was introduced to provide the associations with indicators on product improvement and how to receive higher revenues.
Moreover, the gender equality and women empowerment goal was also addressed by giving women some roles in associations and they became more integrated in household decisions. All these supported the goal of having a competitive economy capable of producing sustainable growth and shared benefits. Also there was a relationship between rural income growth and nutrition. These sub goals are linked to the Tanzania Development Goals of improving the economy, livelihood, ongoing learning and governance and the MDG’s eradication of poverty and hunger, promote gender equality and women empowerment However it is not certain if the community was involved in setting development indicators the factor that is necessary in participatory approaches. A cause and effect analysis enables us to work out ways of addressing the causes either through local or national initiatives.
5.3 Development Indicators: The evaluation by Massawe and Sullivan indicated increased production of paddy; sugar cane sub commodities represented 86% of the estimated incremental gross revenues from project interventions. Also results of cost effective analysis indicated that each dollar invested in DAI PESA results in US$ 1.82 incremental gross revenues to producers. Furthermore, gross revenues increased for all commodity sub- projects. The value of products marketed by producer organizations rose from US Dollar 12.49 million at the end of 2005 and increased by 10%. Also there was increased volume of production marketed by producer organizations. They marketed 228,219 metric tons in 2005 and the plan for 2006 was 239,630 MTS. Improved technologies among the new trained producers totaling 44,939 in 2005. Also small holders reported gain in valuable information. There was significant increase in yields like sugarcane in Kilombero by out growers. However, yields in rice and paprika remained low. As for policy, the number of policy forums organized by producer organizations were more than 12 by end of 2005 and the target for end of 2006 was 20. Business growth: the number of new business partnerships established was growing. Financial Flow: For 12 months ending July 2007, farmers sold more than TS 4 billion worth of cash crops,
6.0 DAI PESA Project: A Critical Analysis: Generally, as it can be seen, the project objectives were met and the implementation reflected the proposal. However, there are better ways the project could have employed to solve the issue of poverty among the target communities and bring development. This section will critically analyses the DAI PESA project with various tools/principles based on CED by, Poverty analysis models by Burkey, and participatory approaches advocated by FAO’s Participation in Practice (1997) for agricultural projects. There will be suggestions of how the communities would have benefited better if the principles were applied.
Firstly, the project has to be people driven, bottom up and not imposed: Although the project allowed the poor rural farmers to organize themselves, there was no participatory analysis of the causes of poverty from the proposal process and project design. In the project implementation, the project applied a sub sector approach to critical mass commodities that were identified in the initial sub sector studies. There is nothing in the literature to show if the process involved was participatory or not. However the case of the rice growers sub sector of Mbarali has a small evidence of their experience. These were previously at the mercy of local money lenders who supplied capital and demanded crop as repayment from the poor farmers and there was little chances of economic advancement. One elder remarked, “We were in a deep hole and didn’t know how to climb out”. But now with the support of the USAID - funded PESA the Mbarali farmers are controlling their own economic future. Apparently, there was a missed opportunity for the farmers to participate in the project design and build their community resilience, confidence and ownership and determine their economic future. The project was actually imposed on the farmers. This explains why some of the underlying causes of poverty like infrastructure were overlooked. With involvement, the farmers could have voiced their concern for the roads, electricity and water and other development .
Secondly the community members have to organize themselves, reflect together in groups towards production and resource utilisation: According to Massawe and Sullivan, the project formed small holder agricultural producer associations in 6 regions associations. This could have been done in a participatory manner by facilitating the farmers to discuss and come out with their plans on the resources they have, what they want to grow and market in different seasons, infrastructural needs and how they should organize themselves. This builds community resilience. In the Community Resilience Manual. A Resource for Rural Recovery, (2000) consideration is made that “building any resource that is truly useful to communities is a significant challenge”. Therefore, while addressing poverty, it is important to ensure the target community is engaged in Community Economic Development dialogue. Through community resilience people become motivated and mobilized to invest in community resources. Therefore, communities must be empowered to adapt new circumstances and take steps for surviving crisis, influencing change becoming healthy and achieving more durable and cost effective results from their investment of time, talent and resources.
Thirdly, is the diversified and shared vision in the community: All farmers’ dreams were to access credit and grow. Although all associations were linked with SACCOS to facilitate access to credit and loans, this is not the only answer to the poverty stricken communities. In a shared vision they could have in a transparent manner come up with low cost credit systems like Upatu which allows members to decide on how to contribute and how the credit will be organized. Uliwa and Fischer (2004) refer to ‘Upatu” as the simplest financial institution. The members of these rotating savings and Credit association or group save their own money and then lend it out to each member in succession. SACCOS has strings of interest rates which are imposed on the communities thus constraining them.
Fourthly, the project should address the low level of education/knowledge and technology through training and linkages: For 5 years, the apex organizations among other things had to oversee technical training linkage information, marketing, inputs, policy advocacy and maintained a Report Tracking System. The group approach facilitated farmers’ access to training, extension and other services. However, training could have been part and parcel of the whole programme from project design to implementation, business management, cost effectiveness to ensure maximum returns, policy advocacy, group cohesion, transformational leadership, monitoring and evaluation and functional literacy since some farmers must have been illiterate. This prevents Bureaucratic stifling of development including non promotion of local initiatives;
Fifthly, project has to be self-reliant and Sustainable: Massawe and Sullivan (2006) observed that Dai referred to “producer associations” as the platform for sustainable farmer development.” The best thing could have been to allow farmers to “believe in themselves” as J. K Nyerere once said, by planning for themselves and avoiding middlemen wherever possible. It could have promoted local initiatives. Actually by the dependency theory, communities get blocked, fail to make own decisions and develop.
The sixth is the project’s promotion of women and inclusion of other marginalized groups in development: The project had some gender strategy with women’s participation by about 40% and men being the leading decision makers. One principle of CED is inclusion of all groups in addressing poverty engaging them in collective activities, development planning and decision making. The project was supposed to promote women’s leadership opportunities, plan for other disadvantaged groups like the widows, the single parents, people with challenged abilities, the children heading homesteads and the poor men.
Another one was building collaborations with others like implementing agencies: DAI and Apex organizations supported the project implementation and several government extension workers. However, sometimes this could deprive the community from setting their own priorities and retard independent thinking. Actually the balance of power should be left with the farmers rather than the buyers. Communities should be empowered to identify their own causes of poverty and design local interventions to address them and ask for external support and not have the support designed for them. The local government should have stepped in for infrastructural and other support.
Also there is the Monitoring and Evaluation. The Project Monitoring Plan was to engage experts of Project team partners DAI, Techno serve and Enterprise Works and others. Also there was a staff in charge of Monitoring and Evaluation. Important target indicators were set as gross sales, revenue and house hold income. However, according to Masawe and Sullivan, the Project did not use participatory tools. Also it didn’t clearly track household poverty related results. It could have been important to apply the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation by involving and empowering the community in the design of indicators, techniques, actual data collection, analysis and dissemination to fellow community members and other stakeholders. Also regular reflections by farmers could have made them learn from their achievements and work on challenges to sustain future projects
Next, the External Evaluation had a team of experts that reviewed documents and conducted personal interviews, on site visits and used a questionnaire to evaluate key issues. They also used Rapid Appraisal techniques, Key informant interviews, site observations and mini surveys. Evaluation participants included, project staff, extension agent’s beneficiaries’ representatives and other stake holders, producer associations and apex organizations. The evaluation focused on program impacts and on the cost effectiveness of its delivery of services. Masawe and Sullivan observed that out of 47 associations evaluated stake holders in 25 organizations (53%) said their association would survive after DAI PESA. Reasons given were strong leadership, training, market linkages, prior existence, access to credit. Many members reported that they were empowered enough to make budgets. All in all, the evaluation reflected some participation and the document is available to track measurable changes. The improvement could be to focus the evaluation on beneficiary communities’ views on ownership and also retraining and readjustment after getting feedback
Moreover, the project should act as a mediator of policies between the macro level and the micro levels to minimize bureaucracy and the conditions of globalization which were not farmer friendly since they removed agricultural subsidies and closed agricultural processing industries. The farmers could have been empowered to lobby for the government’s political will to reduce taxes and promote increased income on exports and good governance and transparency.
Also there was need for Mainstreaming cross cutting issues like HIV and AIDS, environmental conservation, and gender sensitivity. The project should have included these in the planning since they affect development and may turn the poverty clock back. They could have been used in communication by labeling fertilizers bags with appropriate messages or including them in the meeting agendas. These and other mentioned issues could have accelerated community economic development.
Finally, the project could have considered community development sub projects like social support to the poor, the orphans, the elderly or even construction of a school, a dispensary a market, boreholes to cater for the growing population’s social problems.
8.0 Conclusion
The above analysis shows that apparently sub sector productivity has capacity to affect income in agricultural production. Burkey’s narration of the different perceptions and theories around development is that it is important to address the underlying causes that stand in the way to development and also to address the sustainability of existing donor funded programmes. Moreover, there is need to use participatory approaches from the project design onwards in order to enhance ownership of community economic development by the community members. I agree with Paulo Freire who sees development as whether or not the society is ‘the being for itself’ with its political, economic and cultural decision making power located within.
Moreover, beneficiaries could be empowered to design their own development indicators and have both the internal and external evaluation reports shared with them to get the lessons and challenges and own the evaluation process. Also it is important for the evaluation to go beyond the project and find out what was happening in community after project has ended. This calls for another need to strengthen the private- public development of policies to even involve farmers in agricultural budgeting in
In the Guardian of September 28th, an article read. “Stop EU trade links with ex colonies- protesters” The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) viewed as a “balanced and equitable trade initiative between the EU and the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) is facing conflict with the civil society who want a full involvement of farmers as major stakeholders who will suffer the consequences when the agreement is signed by December 31st. Also, the removal of tariffs as ordered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) will end up favouring the European counterparts. The leaders appear to be moving forward by ignoring the masses, especially the farmers.
Furthermore, the role of rural women should be strategized in rural development programming to give them a voice in decision-making since they are the leading producers. Obviously, rural communities in
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