work area 05: Grass-roots Participation

This work area goes back to the work of many development agency, in particular FAO, on participatory approaches and group formation for grass roots economic development. With more than 20 national farmers organizations, we can set up People’s Participation Projects, involving an average of nine local branches in each national organization. The goal is to work on forming groups so that rural people in poor areas develop joint economic activities. At the local level, approximately 2,500-3,000 local self-help groups will be formed or reached with economic initiatives. In 2007 we start with the first three national unions, targeting 33.000 poor farmers. The FAO has developed a detailed back ground material on the methodological aspects and holds a library of reference material with account of experiences so far. The approach can be customized to meet the characteristics of the implementing organization and the country or province where the activities will take place. The most challenging aspect of our activities in this field is that we gear this type of approach to the working and membership drive of national organizations, establishing a direct link of the upper levels with new members at local level.

Projects in this work area