Last Saturday I participated in the ‘Melbourne Development Un-conference’
hosted by the Melbourne Development Circle. I came across a very interesting
and successful development project that targeted vital development issues
including; economic prosperity, sustainability, nutrition and community
building and infrastructure. The project in question was initiated and run by
Co Design Studios, Agile Development Group and Rural Friends for Community
Development. In conjunction with the local community they designed floating
vegetable gardens for the floating villages on Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia.
Village
residents do not own land and therefore are unable to grow vegetables. This
impacts on how often vegetables are consumed by the community which has obvious
health impacts. The three NGOs found that families on Lake Tonle Sap were
consuming vegetables approximately twice a week, as they had limited access to
vegetables and they were expensive for them to buy on a regular basis. The team worked with a particular community to
design floating vegetable gardens through low cost solutions from recycled and
locally available materials (CoDesign Studio, 2012).
Economic prosperity and economic sustainability are major factors in this development project. As the majority of the families in the Tonle Sap community are classified as ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ by the Cambodian government (CoDesign Studio, 2012), it was important to ensure that the floating vegetable gardens were inexpensive to make (less than $25), and made from local materials that could be easily sourced by the communities. This ensured that floating vegetable gardens could be easily rebuilt if they were damaged without substantial costs.
Environmental sustainability was a vital component in this project. The floating gardens were made from plastic bottles which were used as floatation devices, as well as large rice bags, cane baskets and natural products including wood, bamboo, scrap tin and rubber. Employing waste to produce the floating vegetable gardens helped in reducing the amount of solid waste dumped in and around the lake. Swapan (2009) states that informal waste recovery and recycling is important for developing countries, where public authorities are financially incapable of handling the major proportion of solid waste. Communities recycling and utilising solid waste enables them to produce products that not only offer families economic benefits, but helps to control the destruction of the environment in which they live.
Nutrition and hunger was targeted in the project by allowing families to have access to vegetables, so they could be consumed on a regular basis to help improve health outcomes within the community. Along with improving nutrition, floating vegetable gardens help achieve better food security, reducing the number of people suffering from hunger as well as providing opportunities for productive livelihoods. AusAid (2012) reports that hunger places serious constraints on economic growth as workers are less productive. Improving food security enables the poor to earn an income and become more resilient, allowing them to participate in economic activity and contribute to social development needs including health and education, important for the economic growth of a country. What is also significant to note is how small projects that target individual households can have more success in dealing with issues such as hunger and nutrition, whereas large projects believe nutrition and hunger can be combatted by allowing more produce in the market economy.
Infrastructure development and community building were key features in the success of the project. Community building was initiated by the three NGOs using participatory methods, allowing local Tonle Sap communities to come together and plan the infrastructure of the floating vegetable gardens and to allow communities to witness the finished products. This turned out to be significantly important as other communities on Lake Tonle Sap began making their own floating gardens. When the NGOs returned to evaluate the success of the project, they found that communities had used their own innovation and creative thought, and expanded beyond floating vegetable gardens to creating floating pig stys and floating duck farms. These animals were sold off to other communities and helped in generating extra income for families. The community’s innovation in creating floating livestock gardens demonstrated how the communities had become empowered in developing their own ideas at producing an income and become more resilient.
To ensure economic projects in the developing world have a positive impact, it is vital to ensure that local customs and cultures are not ignored in the process, but instead are included in the development of programs. The NGOs involved in the project did acknowledge cultural barriers and gender issues however, this was not necessarily included in the finished products. In the communities of Tonle Sap, the women already have many responsibilities including fishing, fish processing, cooking, housework, caring for the children and the elderly and educating children. Even though the women liked the idea of the floating gardens they had reservations about them as they felt they would add to their heavy work load (CoDesign Studio, 2012). The women outlined for the floating gardens to be successful, their husbands and children would need to cooperate and help out with maintaining the floating vegetable gardens. As the evaluation stage has not been concluded it is unclear as to whether this issue was overcome in this particular project.
Investing in agriculture and rural development is essential to improve incomes and employment, food security, enterprise opportunities, gender equality and the environment for the majority of the world’s poor who often rely directly on agriculture for subsistence. What is interesting to note about this project is that it was small and relatively inexpensive to conduct, and most importantly it was successful. This illustrates that there is not necessarily a need for vast amounts of endless resources to be pumped into developing countries. What is needed is creativity, initiative and team work between NGOs and the beneficiaries.
Bibliography
Australia Agency for International Development (AusAid). 2012 ‘Sustainable
Economic Development – Improving Food Security’, Thematic Strategy,
Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, Australia, Pg. 1 - 19
CoDesign Studio. 2012 ‘Cambodia Capacity Building Project: Report 1 -
Scoping and Visioning’, CoDesign Studio Limited, Carlton, Australia, Pg. 1 - 28
Swapman, M. 2009 ‘Socio- economic Aspects of Solid Waste Recovery and Recycling in Bangladesh: A Case Study of Khulna City’, The Annual Conference of Australian Sociology Association, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, Pg. 1 – 14
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