Pilot Agricultural Services Project

Pilot Agricultural Services Project (PPSA)

This project had the objective of boosting the agricultural sector, thereby allowing the Government to apply the national agricultural strategy as a way of reducing rural poverty.

The project focused on 25 villages spread over the three islands in zones that had not so far benefited from rural development projects.

Its activities consisted of trying out various approaches and services in connection with collecting and disseminating technical information and installing local infrastructures.

On the one hand, trials of rural services were carried out in the spheres of participatory extension and the gathering and retransmission of commercial, technical and agricultural information, with the management being partially assumed by associations and the private sector.

On the other hand, project activities aimed at boosting the National Agricultural, Fisheries and Livestock Research Institute in the spheres of sectoral planning, monitoring, coordination and the formulation of rural finance and land tenure policies, while refocusing its role on the gathering and dissemination of information on technical matters, coordination and training in the sector.

Despite difficulties in getting under way because of the suspension of World Bank and IFAD loans, the experience was deemed positive, especially as concerns community involvement in contracting with local NGOs for the installation of such local infrastructures as warehouses, watering points and cisterns. The communities themselves identified the necessary investments and monitored execution.

Source: IFAD