This project is part of the Government’s overall policies for poverty alleviation and part of its specific policies directed towards poverty alleviation and the economic and social development of the indigenous communities that belong to the poorest of the rural population of Mexico. The main objective of the project is to improve, mainly through the fostering of productive activities, the living conditions and incomes of approximately 17 000 poor rural families presently living in some 400 indigenous communities in the project area identified as one of the poorest rural areas of Mexico. This objective is complemented with actions aimed at strengthening existing indigenous communities’ grass-roots organizations as the best means of achieving significant improvements in agricultural productivity levels and diversification of production and marketing conditions. The project stresses the introduction of policies and mechanisms devised to implement the effective promotion of both household food security and rural women’s participation and development.

Some of the specific project aims are: (i) to contribute to local food security by improving the productivity of main crops and livestock by increasing the efficiency of technology transfer systems and ensuring adequate credit facilities to finance the provision of the required inputs; (ii) to diversify agricultural and rural non- agricultural production through the provision of new agricultural research activities and adequate extension services; (iii) to ensure the long-term self-sustainability of financial grass-roots organizations by means of the provision of adequate technical assistance, equipment, training, financial resources and supervision; (iv) to improve marketing systems and channels through the provision of adequate financing and technical assistance; (v) to improve the transportation conditions of selected rural areas by means of the construction and/or rehabilitation of a network of feeder roads; (vi) to construct and rehabilitate small irrigation schemes in selected plots of arid regions in the project area by means of granting all required pre-investment studies and financing such works through credit; and (vii) to introduce natural resources conservation technology in selected zones of the project area.