Resources

This report describes in detail the structure and operation of village institutions in Katheka Sublocation in Machakos, Kenya, with regard to natural resources management. It concludes that the village is an effective organisational unit to foster participation in project planning and implementation. villagers understand the relation between improved natural resource management and sustainable food production, and institutional structures are already in place in many countries. What is needed is organising and mobilising village institutions. This can be done through training of village leaders, for example by using 'exemplar' villages, carrying out PRAs and developing village resource management plans.

This document includes, details of the process used to review ActionAids programme in Somaliland and provides both a summary and details of the findings. The review was carried out by a group of both men and women composed of community based organisation members, village elders, staff from government institutions and other professionals. Mapping, interviews and small group discussions were used to elicit data on availability, relevance, accessibility, utilisation, coverage, quality, effort, efficiency and impact indicators.

The Mahaweli Authority Sri Lanka was established to implement the largest multi-purpose Integrated Development Programme ever launched in the country. It is responsible for engineering construction work as well as the establishment of human settlements providing irrigation facilities, social infrastructure, post settlement services, maintenance and management of the settlements and their infrastructure. The MASL system has traditionally had a topdown approach which has contributed to dependancy as well as incurring a high financial cost. Since 1994 the MASL strategy has aimed at a gradual transfer of management of settlements to farmer organisations, thereby overcoming dependancy through empowerment of the farmers, using participatory methods. This has required time, and attitude and behavioral changes at all levels of MASL. This seminar paper details the MASL system and the move towards a sustainable management system based on farmer participation.

The effects of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and the subsequent 10 years' worth of rain which fell in five days brought environmental and agricultural devastation to Central America. World Neighbors (WN) had worked for many years on the promotion of soil and water conservation; the hurricane provided an opportunity for WN to study the effectiveness of this work in combating the disastrous effects of a potentially destructive climate and this newsletter gives details their work. They decided to carry out Participatory Action Research (PAR), a level of study which not only allowed the involvement of those most greatly affected by the climate - the local people - but other participants who expanded their own knowledge through the research methods and results. The system used was a pairing of plots with similar characteristics such as location and vegetation, but which provided a sharing of data through a direct comparison of agro-ecological and conventional cultivation. Other organizations were invited to participate in the study and form teams with the farmers, and all participants attended a workshop to learn methodologies. The methods used to analyse different variables such as slope, top soil thickness, texture, organic matter, insect and animal life, vegetation, erosion, landslides, and conservation practices are detailed along with the findings and lessons learned.