Project ID: 1349
Executive Board document: EB-2005-85-R-24-Rev-1

Sustainable Development Project for Rural and Indgenous Communities of the Semi-Arid North-West

Who are the beneficiaries? The target population consists of 57 300 potential beneficiaries from 19 municipalities and 57 micro-watersheds in four states of Mexico’s semi-arid north-west: Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Sonora. The project’s 35 500 direct beneficiaries comprise: small poor farmers (communal-land farmers and smallholders); landless farmers and rural labourers; rural microentrepreneurs, including people from communities that have the potential to develop small businesses from nature-based tourism activities; and rural and indigenous women and youth. It has been estimated that at least 30% of the direct and indirect beneficiaries will be from indigenous communities, namely the Cucapah, Guajios, Kiliwa, Kumiai, Pai Pai, Pimas, Raramuri, Seri, Tepehuano and Yaqui groups.

Why are they poor? Mexico’s semi-arid north-west region has a high incidence of localized rural poverty, that is caused – and worsened – by its environment and constrained natural-resource base. Rural populations survive under conditions of social, economic and environmental vulnerability, using traditional technologies and production practices in environmentally degraded territories. These target groups have to contend with limited coverage and poor-quality social services, including severe limitations in education, health and nutrition, and, over recent decades, food insecurity. Rural poverty is associated with lack of access to land, extreme fragmentation of land holdings, deterioration of natural resources and limited access to productive resources.

What do they expect from the project? The project will aim to improve the productive capacity of land and natural resources in the target areas by undertaking selected fieldworks and introducing new production and conservation technologies at the micro-watershed level, while facilitating enhanced community control of assets, including lands, agro-biodiversity and the natural landscape. The project will also seek to achieve social capitalization and institutional development by promoting the decision-making and implementation capacity and self-reliance of communities, individuals and trained, local development teams, and to enhance operational and technical support from the executing agency. The beneficiaries will derive greater incomes and employment from environmentalservice payments, and from rural and nature-based tourism microenterprises to be established through project-sponsored microenterprise business plans. These latter initiatives will be financed by ongoing government programmes and formal and emerging microfinancial systems. Through inter-institutional coordination and concurrent investments by other government entities – at the local, municipal and micro-watershed levels – the project will catalyse the provision of health, nutrition and other services and investments in rural infrastructure and housing.

Loan amount:
SDR 17.25 million (equivalent to approximately USD 25.0 million)

Total project cost: USD 32.9 million

Project ID: 1268
Executive Board document: EB-2003-80-R-34-Rev-1

Strengthening Project for the National Micro Watershed Plan

The overall project goal is a significant reduction in poverty, marginalization and discrimination among the poorest indigenous and non-indigenous groups in rural communities located in micro-watersheds in the eight selected states. This will be achieved through the socio-economic development of micro-watershed areas in a comprehensive, economically and environmentally sustainable manner. Specific objectives include: (i) strengthening human and social resources in poor rural communities; (ii) improvements in soil, water and vegetation conservation and management using the territorial definition of the micro-watershed as the basic intervention unit; (iii) increased income levels for beneficiaries families through improvements in the production and marketing of forestry, crop, livestock and microenterprise products, achieved in an economically and environmentally sustainable way; and (iv) strengthening of NMWP capacity for participatory planning and implementation of local development and natural resource conservation actions, and increasing municipal, state and federal institutional coordination capacity.

Loan Amount:

SDR 10.50 million (approximately USD 15.0 million) on ordinary terms

Total project cost: estimated at USD 28.0 million, of which beneficiaries will provide about USD 2.0 million, GEF USD 4.0 million, and national Government USD 7.0 million.

Cooperating Institution:

UNOPS

Project ID: 1141
Executive Board Document: EB-2000-69-R-25-Rev-1

Rural Development Project for Rubber-Producing Regions of Mexico

The overall goal of this eight-year IFAD-initiated project is to bring about a sustainable improvement in the economic and social conditions of poor small farmers from ejidos and indigenous communities in rubber-producing regions. The projects general objective is to improve the productive and social management capacity of beneficiary families, forge efficient links to local/national markets and manage productive activities in agriculture, processing and marketing in an efficient and sustainable manner. The specific objectives are to:

(i) develop and strengthen the managerial and organizational ability of beneficiary families;

(ii) enhance private, demand-led local technical support services with an approach oriented towards whole-farm planning, income, markets and natural resource conservation;

(iii) develop financial support mechanisms to provide small farmers with capital resources for rubber and related crops, livestock and agricultural/non-agricultural small rural enterprises;

(iv) establish and strengthen links and coordinating mechanisms between organized beneficiaries and local and national rubber-processing industries; and

(v) strengthen local, rural development mechanisms with a view to integrating beneficiary civil, economic and social organizations with the public and private sectors.

All project activities will have a gender-balance focus and approach. The project area comprises 46 municipalities located in the States of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Veracruz where 156 000 families live in conditions of poverty. The target group will comprise poor small farmers of both sexes, located in rubber-producing agro-ecological areas, with a family income below the poverty line of two minimum salaries per capita per day, i.e., USD 1.18/day. The project beneficiaries will comprise small individual farmers, members of indigenous communities (it is estimated that at least 13 000 men and women beneficiaries are members of indigenous ethnic groups), ejidos and women heads of households engaged in agricultural and rubber production. The project will provide investment funds, training and development services to an estimated 20 000 rural families (2 800 women heads of households and 17 200 men heads of households, including 2 600 smallholders wives directly responsible for agricultural production due to their husbands migration or non-farm activities).

Innovative features:

This project will employ a participatory, demand-driven planning approach, which includes private-sector delivery of training and technical services. It also emphasizes conservation of biodiversity at the farm level, as well as linking small farmers with local and international processing industries. The project promotes the cultivation of a permanent crop, rubber, as a long-term capitalization instrument (30 years) for small farms.

Loan amount:

SDR 18.6 million (approximately USD 25.0 million) on ordinary terms.

Total project costs:

Estimated at USD 55.0 million, of which USD 25.0 million will be provided by the Government and USD 5.0 million by the beneficiaries.

Cooperating institution:

UNOPS.