The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) Delegation in Guyana has successfully foraged a relationship with the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF) of the Ministry of Finance. Funds for this project are derived mostly from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). This relationship between the BNTF and IICA was initiated with the IICA Guyana Office submitting a concept note for Shade House development and monitoring inclusive of training targeting community groups and family farmers. The concept note focused on targeting farmers who may have an aspect of vulnerability to climate change. The project aims to target eight of the ten regions in Guyana targeting Regions 1,2,3,4,5,6,9 and 10. It is envisaged to provide 26-18 ft. X 24 ft. Shade Houses, plumbing accessories and the first set of plants to the participants.
The project was initiated with reconnaissance visits to selected community groups and individuals in the various Regions.
The Project entitled “Building Climate Resilience through Climate Smart Agriculture” is expected to use shade house and innovative technologies to ensure food security and create sustainable rural income, recognizing climate change impacts.
Lessons learnt from Reconnaissance visits
To ensure a sustainable livelihood program it is imperative to ensure the following:
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That the livelihood program improve those venerable the ability to protect and promote their economic conditions, reducing risk and maximize income.
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The inclusion of market-oriented livelihood intervention, the use of value chain approach for priority setting could guide the beneficiaries in identifying opportunities in the market, and consider the constraints to exploiting these opportunities.
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Provision of business advisory support services, including access to market information, financing facilitation, technology transfer, business counselling, marketing and product development, rather than working with traditional business support systems.
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The engagement of national and local government, non-government organizations and the private sector to facilitate the necessary support services, particularly in the provision of technical and financial assistance for the scaling up of production and business operations.
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Ensuring a holistic approach for gender mainstreaming in livelihood intervention of any kind to build deeper attitudinal and behavioural changes and greater levels of economic empowerment and participation in enterprise decision-making.
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Intensive monitoring and evaluation to track beneficiaries and partners graduate to the next level of results. Monitoring evaluation will keep track of progress of the beneficiaries’ enterprises and provide much-needed focused support.
Overall, the reconnaissance garnered that the co-benefits resulting from the use CSA technology straddled the key pillars of sustainability (economic, social, environmental and cultural) while encompassing the wider scope of climate resilience. Beneficiaries have agreed that ingenuity and the tenacity to address issues of climate variability and livelihood challenges can produce a mixture of locally designed technological adaptations that are sustainable, scalable and viable and as such these systems can impart similar benefits if adopted across vulnerable regions.
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