Infrastructure and Livelihoods Development in a Decentralisation
Context (2/3)
Sub-component A-2 : Equal and Sustainable Access to Development
Benefits (USD 2.7 million)
Output. Rural inhabitants in Umutara
have balanced and sustainable access to development benefits
without any discrimination.
Sub-component Description
The district is the focal point for coordinating
actions to deal with cross-cutting themes, including: (i) Social
and Economic Integration of the Poor, (ii) Gender Mainstreaming
and Women’s Empowerment, (iii) Unity and Reconciliation,
(iv) Land Tenure/Management, and (v) Environment.
While the district is the implementer of activities and programmes
to promote these themes and achieve targeted results for their
communities, the province also has an important role to play.
As the deconcentrated arm of central government, it is responsible
for ensuring that government policies and strategies concerning
each of these topics are understood and that the programmes
implemented by the districts work towards the objectives stated
in these documents. Similar to other programmes implemented
by the districts, the province will provide expert advice
and backstopping, a role that will also be supported by the
PCU.
Social and Economic Integration of the
Poor. Based on experience gained in the implementation
of the support programme for vulnerable households under UCRIDP
first phase and using the newly completed census, the Programme
will institute a process of poverty mapping in each district
in order to determine how best to ensure that the programmes
and activities promoted by the Programme respond to the different
segments of the rural population (in poverty/livelihood terms).
These would form part of a strategic framework for the Programme
that would: (i) establish a typology of vulnerability
factors and poverty inducing processes; (ii) identify different
segments of poor/vulnerable within rural communities and how
the Programme activities can best target them; (iii) identify
how these segments of the communities can most effectively
be reached within the institutional/cultural framework of
the communities; and (iv) determine the impact of gender,
HIV/AIDS, land security and other factors that influence poverty.
The work will be carried out using participatory processes
and involve both community and district level interaction
and will be done in close collaboration with district local
development advisers, district gender advisers, district water
specialists, district agriculturists and district delegates
of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. The strategic
framework will allow the PCU, working with the district and
the province, to adjust the Programme’s programmes and investment
activities so that they better respond to the needs and constraints
of the poor and vulnerable. It will also indicate where new
approaches and new initiatives could be introduced. Most of
the agreed modifications to Programme activities will be incorporated
right away in the Programme’s interventions. However, new
and untested activities, or major amendments made to existing
programmes, will be piloted on a limited scale in one or two
districts. In addition, bi-annual workshops will be organized
by the Programme to investigate poverty reduction dimensions
of the Programme and the impact of the Programme on rural
livelihoods; as an outcome, the workshop would recommend actions
to be incorporated into the coming year’s Programme activities
and AWPB.
Gender Mainstreaming and Women’s Empowerment.
In contrast to the support provided for in the original
design of the Programme (two free-standing women-in-development
initiatives), a balanced and proactive programme to promote
gender mainstreaming, incorporating women’s empowerment, would
be introduced into the Programme in the second phase. In pursuance
of these goals, the Programme will:
· carry out gender sensitisation and action
definition initiatives for the key staff involved in project
planning and implementation, including: district and provincial
staff, members of the PCU and participating NGOs;
· construct the district women’s centres that were not completed
during the first phase;
· institute an ongoing process of gender
assessment of district development planning and the subsequent
translation of those plans into investment budgets, with the
aim of ensuring that gender constraints and opportunities
experienced by both men and women are adequately dealt with
in the design of activities to be financed;
· provide financing for gender initiatives
within the districts to allow district management to respond
to opportunities for gender-based actions identified either
in the planning process or the monitoring of ongoing development
activities;
· work with the women’s investment groups
formed under the project’s first phase to help make them viable
business enterprises;
· within the land tenure/management initiative
(see below), assess the gender dimension of the new initiatives
with the aim of ensuring that women are fully able to benefit;
· create links to the new Gender Observatory
and Gender Commission so that the districts and the province
are informed about best practices and new initiatives that
could be instituted in the districts using Programme funds
(the gender response fund will used to finance agreed initiatives
coming out of this process);
· institute gender monitoring of all Programme-financed
programmes at district level including those funded through
the CDF from Programme budget support;
· provide gender awareness training of district
and provincial staff and promote recruitment of women into
management positions in district and provincial administrations;
and
· fund the preparation of a detailed gender
strategy and action plan, in consultation with MIGEPRO, to
follow up on the above proposals, provide practical and operational
details, and develop budgets broken down on a district basis
for each of the proposed actions/interventions.
Mainstreaming Youth. The programme
would carry out a study to develop a strategic framework for
mainstreaming youth activities in the Programme and ensure
that youth are able to access programme activities and benefits.
Unity and Reconciliation. To promote
a culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence, and to ensure
that programme activities can contribute to these national
goals, the programme will provide financing for related initiatives.
They could include roving delegates of the National Commission
for Unity and Reconciliation (NCUR), which could be financed
in a limited number of districts initially.
Land Sector Strategy (WP 9). The
aim of this initiative is to strengthen the capacity of districts
to manage land and other natural resources effectively and
sustainably. In so doing, it aims to protect the land rights
of the men and women in Umutara, particularly those of poor
and vulnerable households, in order to reduce poverty and
foster increased economic growth and transformation in the
province. It focuses on a number of principles: matching
programme implementation with national policies and laws,
promote joint district/community ownership, focusing on strengthened
district planning capacities, strengthening land tenure security,
protecting land rights of poor and vulnerable households,
promoting community-driven planning processes, adopting phased
implementation, and promoting gender as a cross-cutting theme.
The programme will provide support to land policy implementation
through: (i) strengthened land-use planning capacities
at the district and provincial levels; (ii) land tenure
security for poor rural households in support of implementation
of National Land Policy and National Land Act; (iii) land
tenure safeguards in UCRIDP; (iv) developed and strengthened
local land dispute resolution through support to the National
Unity and Reconciliation Council. Activities will initially
be implemented in two pilot districts over two years. At the
end of the pilot, a full assessment will identify the human,
technical and logistic resources required to cover the whole
Province.
Environment. The Programme will
require that environmental assessments form part of the criteria
for the infrastructure to be financed by the Programme and
where risk of environmental degradation is indicated, measures
to address the concerns would be recommended. These mitigating
measures would be built into the contracts of the service
providers/engineering firms that would become responsible
for the construction/installation of the agreed water and
road investments. Final payment for these contracts would
be withheld until independent confirmation that the environmental
protection measures have been satisfactorily met. Furthermore,
an annual environmental evaluation would be instituted within
the Programme to assess the environmental performance of the
Programme and its interventions and propose modifications
to any activities that were deemed to have or potentially
have a negative environmental impact.
Financing would be provided as follows:
·Social and Economic Integration of the
Poor (USD 255 000): financing of a strategic framework
for poverty alleviation and the associated poverty mapping,
bi-annual poverty/livelihood workshops, poverty alleviation
initiatives.
· Gender Mainstreaming and Women’s Empowerment
(USD 504 600): gender strategy and action plan,
ongoing process of gender assessments, financing of gender
initiatives, gender awareness training.
· Youth Mainstreaming (USD 55 000): study for a strategic
framework for mainstreaming youth in the programme.
· Unity and Reconciliation (USD 310 000):
Unity and Reconciliation strategy, financing for Unity and
Reconciliation initiatives.
· Land Tenure/Management (USD 1.48 million):
NGO service contracts, training/capacity building, support
to Land Commission, information collection, international
and national TA, salaries for GIS Unit, additional operational
costs (details of the investment activities and their implementation
are presented in Section VIII, Implementation Arrangements).
· Environment (USD 100 000): environment
assessments, bi-annual environment workshops.
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