Diversifying livelihoods may be a good option for increasing resilience in the face of climate change challenges. There are many micro-lending and micro-enterprise programs in the developing world able to assist. However, not everyone is an entrepreneur. Another challenge is that frequently people think of a product they can sell, begin making it, and have trouble finding customers. There are several simple things can be done to address these challenges.

One
	The first step is to form an association of community members for the purpose diversifying livelihoods and finding alternative forms of income generation. An association can give direction, consistency, management and a single point of contact for a buyer. These services can be a benefit to association members who are not individually entrepreneurial.

The first step in forming an association is to introduce the concept in a participatory workshop setting. Frequently communities are made up of groups of people pursuing similar activities. For example, there might be groups of weavers, artisans or farmers. Ask your community contacts to approach one of these groups of community members about participating in a consciousness-raising workshop on alternate sources of income. In the workshop you can begin by introducing the rationale and importance of having an income generation association with its own management committee—and what benefits it could offer association members. In the beginning, the association does not need to be a formal, legal entity.

In this introductory workshop, ask if there are members who would be interested in sitting on the association management committee. Discuss the types of skills that will need to be developed by committee members. Suggest appointing an interim committee who over the course of six months could develop the ultimate committee structure, establish committee member responsibilities, ensure gender inclusiveness, set goals, and establish a plan. Have an open discussion with the workshop participants to set a number of people that should serve on the committee—and then ask for volunteers for the interim committee.

Two.
Conduct a survey of businesses in the region that buy products in their type of work on a routine basis. Pick businesses that are purchasing products which are appropriate for your level of production capability. Ask them what products are they most in need of. Ask if they would have interest in forming a market link with the association. Ask if they would be willing to partner in developing a training program so that the association members will be able to produce to their quality expectation.

An example could be an association of smallholder farmers who through these surveys discovers a buyer who needs more cucumbers for their wholesale markets in the city—and for export. Frequently buyers such as these, since they need additional product, will make an investment in farmer training and a micro-loan of seeds for planting. These agricultural produce buyers frequently have extension agents which provide follow-up to the farmers. They also would prefer to work with a single association contact rather than work with 20 individual farmers.

But don’t overlook other potential markets. Perhaps the market in the next big city has vendors which need products every week. Perhaps there are products that are in short supply that your association could sell themselves from a market stall. Before beginning production however, make certain that there is a market. Your NGO might have individual donors with connections or board members with business experience who can help develop a strategy or make introductions.

Search and Rescue Training
Search and rescue team members learn specific techniques that are safe, and are given simple tools such as lifejackets, safe boats, inner tubes, and flashlights which give them the confidence and the capability to look for a missing person or of rescuing a trapped, elderly or disabled person.

Three.
Once you have identified an actual market for a product or service and solidified a relationship, you might need training in delivering that product or service. Solicit assistance from the buyer for the training, your local government, the central government—or perhaps an NGO for delivering the training.

Four.
Before beginning production you should have a clear definition of the product’s value, its seasonality, the quantities that the buyer is intending to purchase, and the costs and time investment for producing the product. It might be a good idea to ask someone with bookkeeping skills to lay this out in a simplified presentation. This way, you can determine how much money association members could make through the sales of this product. You might also find that sales levels limit the number of people that can belong to the association.

Five.
Get training for the association committee. They will need to know basic bookkeeping skills, basic management skills and organizational skills. If they are the contact point for the buyer they will also need to learn basic negotiation skills.

Six.
Try and organize the trainings to coincide with production. In other words, using the theme of the farmers above, if they’re going to receive training on field preparation and planting of cucumbers for the buyer, try to organize the training so that they are planting something that they will actually be able to sell to the buyer. Frequently the extension agents of large produce buyers are willing to provide startup and incremental training for producers throughout the course of the season.

Copyright © 2012, Tim Magee

It is estimated that over 50% of all disasters are now related to extreme weather events. Because of this, disaster risk reduction should become an integral part of adaptation projects. Community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) holds the same merit that community-based adaptation does: ownership and sustainability. This field guide presents an overview of establishing a CBDRR program in a community.

Conducting a Participatory Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis.
In chapter 2 you conducted in a participatory capacity and vulnerability analysis as part of developing your community-based adaptation project. Use the same resources that you found in that chapter—yet focus the assessment on hazards and disasters. Examples could be floods or extreme weather events such as hurricanes. One of the exercises is to do a participatory map. It is useful is to transfer the information from the map into a larger format on a public wall where everyone in the community can see it and better understand how disasters can impact their village.

Setting up a Community-Based DRR Committee

In chapter 7 you set up a community-based project management committee. You can use the same technique to set up a community-based DRR committee. This committee will be able to coordinate with your NGO and then create long-term associations with government agencies that can continue to support DRR activities. The committee will be in charge of developing a DRR plan—and of coordinating disaster teams.

Developing a DRR Plan
Developing a DRR plan will include the development of each of the following list of activities and maintaining them in perpetuity. This will involve a plan for consciousness raising among community members about DRR challenges, connecting with an early warning system, the organizing of teams, training them in evacuation and search and rescue, and prioritizing mitigation strategies—and for training community members to implement mitigation activities.

Organization of Teams
Based upon the results of your community’s PVCA, they will have prioritized hazards and disasters. As part of their DRR plan the committee will have prioritized preparedness activities, reduction in risk activities and mitigation activities. If, for example, the type of disaster your community faces necessitates evacuation, an evacuation team should be established that develops a plan to lead the evacuation at the appropriate time. You should do this for each of the major priorities in the plan.

Promotion to Community
Frequently community members don’t have a clear picture of how and why disasters happen. They also may not know how to react when the disaster is building or is already in progress. Workshops and simple posters or how-to cards—without words—need to be developed to help them understand these concepts and to learn that there are things that they can do to reduce the risk caused by disasters, and mitigate the severity of the disasters.

Early Warning Systems
Traditionally, community members have not had warning of when they need to evacuate—and frequently they have left it too long. The government meteorological office may have the capability of, for example, in a potential flood situation, evaluating when water has reached a critical height and have the capability of announcing that a flood is imminent. Communities should form partnerships with these offices and purchase dedicated telephones and alarms.

Evacuation Training
If people need to evacuate, they need to know when to evacuate, they need to know where to go where it’s safe, they need to know what to do with their valuable possessions and assets, they need to know what to take with them, and they need to know what to do when they get to shelter. Capacity building workshops can train community members in each of these—and most importantly—can lead them in practice drills.

Search and Rescue Training
Search and rescue team members learn specific techniques that are safe, and are given simple tools such as lifejackets, safe boats, inner tubes, and flashlights which give them the confidence and the capability to look for a missing person or of rescuing a trapped, elderly or disabled person.

Capacity Building for Disaster Mitigation Activities
There are many things that can be done to mitigate potential disasters. Some, like plantings along the river banks can reduce erosion during a flood season, or the reforestation a watershed can reduce danger from flash floods and are activities that communities can do over the span of time. Capacity building workshops give community members the skill sets that they need to do these activities. Others like relocating houses to higher ground or building bridges may be outside of their purchasing power, but committee members can be trained to develop advocacy campaigns for approaching governments for support for these more major investments.

Subsistence farmers suffer not only from depleted soils but from challenges with water: too little water, too much water, and erosion from water. This field guide looks at different ways of managing water and conserving soil by developing barriers on farm fields for stopping the flow of water so that it can percolate into the soil and build up soil moisture. The barriers also reduce the loss of soil from erosion.

Barriers to Water Movement
On sloping farm fields, creating barriers reduces the speed of water movement so that it can be absorbed into the soil rather than simply running off the land. These barriers also catch topsoil that the water carries preventing the loss of this valuable resource and offer the added benefit of creating level planting areas behind the barriers as the soil accumulates. Barriers can be terraces, stone or earth walls called bunds, or living barriers such as hedges and grass strips.

Building terraces and stone retaining walls can be very labor intensive. Less formal constructions such as soil bunds, hedgerows or rows of grass can be less labor-intensive and potentially more attractive to farmers. Construction can be spread out over several years.

One thing that all barriers have in common is that they run horizontally along a level contour across the falling slope of a field. An A-frame leveling device is used to determine the level contour lines which are marked with stakes or with stones.

Here are four techniques for farmers to consider. The technique chosen by each individual farmer will be based upon how steeply a farmer’s field slopes, how big their field is, whether they are in a high rainfall or low rainfall region, and how much time they have available for investing in the technique.

Contour Ridges.
Ridges with furrows on the uphill side are formed approximately 1.5m to 2m apart. This 2m area is the catchment area for rainwater. The ridges are only 15 to 20 cm high—simply high enough to contain the run off—which collects in the furrow. Crops with higher water requirements can be planted close to the side of the furrow. Contour ridges represent the least time investment of these four techniques and can be developed, maintained and improved during preparation for each planting season.

Soil Bunds
	Soil bunds are a method for both containing water and reducing erosion using on-site materials. After marking the horizontal contour line on the sloping field, a ditch 60 cm deep and 60 cm wide is dug. The soil is placed on the downhill side of the ditch creating the soil wall. The base of the wall is typically twice as wide as the wall is high. The soil is well compacted by hand.

Soil bunds are placed from between 5m apart on steep land to 20m apart on more gently sloping land. To determine spacing between the bunds, one rule of thumb is that the top of one bund is level with the base of the adjacent uphill bund. However farmer preferences and the size of the farmer’s field are other determinants.

Fodder grasses, trees and crops are planted on the bund to stabilize it. Water collects in the ditch during rainstorms and can slowly percolate into the soil increasing soil moisture. As rainwater erodes soil uphill of the bund, the soil will accumulate above the bund and begin creating an increasingly level planting strip. Soil bunds will need annual maintenance—and will need to be checked after heavy rainfall and breaches repaired immediately.

Hedgerows.
Hedgerows can also be planted along the contour lines of a hillside—in similar spacing as soil bunds depending on the steepness of the slope of the field. Hedges are usually chosen from nitrogen fixing plants, and from plants that when pruned can be used as fodder for farm animals. Initially, these cuttings can be laid at the base of the hedges on the uphill side to trap eroded topsoil. After two or three years, sufficient topsoil will have accumulated to form a terrace uphill of the hedgerow. Hedgerows represent substantially less time investment than soil bunds—and use less space making more land available for planting.

Vetiver Grass Strips.
An inexpensive alternative, vetiver grass can be planted along the contour line of a sloping field to prevent the loss of topsoil, and to reduce the rate at which water runs downhill enhancing infiltration. Topsoil builds up on the uphill side and over time creates level planting areas. Grass strips represent substantially less time investment than soil bunds—and use less space. Grass strips need to be maintained over time to keep them from encroaching into the cropping areas. Grass trimmings can be used as fodder. Vetiver grass is very popular, but check with farmers for local favorites.

Conclusion.
Upon completion of this workshop discuss with the farmers which technique would be best suited for them. Then plan a second more specialized training workshop for that specific technique.