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North-Eastern Region Rural Development Project
The project addresses the issue of growing stress in Syria between available natural resources and a rapidly increasing population. Its aims are to reverse the country’s severe water deficit and improve irrigation use. It supports the government’s efforts to improve the socio-economic well being of poor rural households and conserve the natural resource base in the economically depressed governorates of Deir Ezzor, Hassakeh and Raqqa. The target group includes poor smallholders, tenant farmers, landless people, rural women and unemployed youths.
The principal objectives are to:
- increase household income and food security
- increase employment and empower poor rural communities
- improve participatory management of natural resources, especially water
- promote a sustainable microfinance system
- establish partnerships with the private sector for exports of high value and organic products
Project activities focus on:
- improving communities’ capacity to organize and manage their own development through community-based organizations such as water users’ associations, and to provide community members with the technical and managerial capacity to improve their living standards
- supporting the government’s programme to increase and improve irrigation and conserve water by empowering smallholders to reap the benefits of the programme, promoting optimal use of groundwater and water harvesting, and developing advanced water use technologies
- improving poor farmers’ access to the services and technology they need to increase productivity and raise their incomes
- providing support for the development of small enterprises and micro-enterprises through a sustainable microfinance system and advisory services
To create a sustainable and fully participatory system for water management, and to facilitate the formation of water users’ associations, the project supports the establishment of an irrigation water management policy development unit within the Ministry of Agriculture.
Among the project’s innovative features are:
- promoting sustainable access to financial services
- introducing a market-driven, business-oriented approach to agricultural production that links private exporters to producers though contracts with farmers’ associations
- promoting participatory water resource management through water users’ associations
Source: IFAD
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| Contact information |
Mr Abdelhamid Abdouli
Country programme manager
IFAD
Via Paolo di Dono, 44
00142 Rome, Italy
Tel: +39 0654592248
Fax: +39 0654593248
a.abdouli@ifad.org |
| Facts and figures |
Total cost: US$58.1 million
IFAD loan: US$20.1 million
Cofinancing: OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) (US$17.0 million)
Duration: seven years
Geographical area: north-eastern region of Syria
Directly benefiting: 190,000 households
Status: not effective
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