A new project co-financed by IFAD’s Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) launched in The Gambia
Last week IFAD and the Government of the
Republic of The Gambia launched the Strengthening
Climate Resilience of the National Agricultural Land and Water Management
Development Project (better known as Chosso) and followed with an
inception workshop that lasted two days and involved 120 participants. Chosso
brings a grant of US$ 5 million from ASAP to complement and optimise the effectiveness
the project baseline (known as Nema) in addressing climate-related threats to
smallholder agriculture in the country.
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| ©IFAD/Ilaria Firmian |
Both Nema and Chosso have
their roots in the needs and local knowledge of smallholders. During his opening speech, the IFAD Country
Programme Manager ,Moses Abukari, thanked the individual farmers who inspired
the design teams on the project names. The word Chosso refers to a
traditional early warning system used to inform the community members when the quality
of the river water is degraded. Nema
refers to the prosperity that the project interventions intend to bring to rural
communities in terms of increasing productivity and value addition of rice and vegetable cultivation.
IFAD’s inclusive, consultative and highly
participatory approaches, as well as, its resource mobilisation efforts in the
country were recognised and celebrated by the Ministries of Agriculture, Finance
and Environment & Climate Change in
their speeches. But what made the appreciation to IFAD’s work so tangible, more
than ministerial speeches, was the dedication and the attention devoted to the
workshop by all participants for the entire two days.
Chosso will support many
different innovative activities, including: community water-harvesting
techniques, community agro-forestry, and
climate-proof infrastructure. It will also scale up best practices in mangrove
restoration; community woodlots and smallholder climate information services, in
order to improve the productivity of scarce agricultural lands through
enhancement of watersheds. It was important during the workshop to go through
detailed presentations on these different project aspects, in order to develop
a full and common understanding of the project. This will in turn enable the
team to plan meaningfully and realistically for effective implementation.
Climate
games – an innovative learning approach – were also employed during the
workshop and elicited high enthusiasm among participants. The games are a
simulation of reality where players
experience the daily anxiety faced by smallholder farmers in the face of
increasing climate-related disasters. Using dice to signify climate threats,
and beans to signify currency, participants have to decide what to invest their
capital in - ‘normal’ development versus drought or flood protection - within a
simulated three decades of farm seasons.
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| ©IFAD/Moses Abukari |
The unanimous feedback considered the
games a simple yet effective way to help participants understand the impacts of
climate change and the importance of making resilient investments. Many stakeholders also saw the possibility of
cascading down the application of the game into local communities in the context
of the project.
‘This would give women the opportunity to
make contributions into the decision-making process’ wrote a participant on her
feedback form.
IFAD is determined to pursue this road. Meanwhile Chosso is already moving forward in mainstreaming climate risk management at all levels.
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| ©IFAD/Ilaria Firmian |