Participatory Integrated-Watershed Management Project

This project empowers poor communities in rural areas to undertake and maintain integrated watershed management activities, with the aim of increasing their incomes and protecting their natural resources. Project objectives include:

• Strengthening the capacity of rural communities and their service providers to manage the watershed sustainably
• Providing the resources that local communities need to implement watershed management plans.

The project targets poor smallholders in The Gambia, who depend mainly on upland crops and lowland rice cultivation for their livelihoods. In the lowlands, women are the primary target group, while men, women and young people are targeted for upland conservation farming.

Overall, the goal is to provide a model for funding and implementation of community-driven land and water management activities – such as water retention, upland conservation and swamp access works – so that the model can be scaled up in future projects. The project uses a demand-driven approach, with active participation by poor rural people in planning and implementation. Activities initiated in the lowlands will progressively include the uplands, eventually covering the whole watershed.

In addition, the project builds the capacity of communities to set up village farmers' committees, and district and watershed farmers' associations, and to develop watershed management plans. It mainstreams issues related to gender, youth, malaria, HIV/AIDS and environmental monitoring, and fosters collaboration among partners on the ground. In tandem with the IFAD-funded Rural Finance Project, it also promotes use of rural credit.

Source: IFAD