August, 2012 CSDi Newsletter
THIS MONTH’S NEWS
BECOME THE SOLUTION. Are you a donor, development practitioner, in transition, or a student who wants to learn more about “what works” in development? Join students world-wide to design, fund and launch a community based project. Student projects have utilized 215 different kinds of solution-oriented activities to address community need. Scan the list to see which would work best for your project.
| New Elective Courses |
2 New Electives Announced |
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OL 332 Water Conservation and Management
A shortage of water or unreliable access to water is one of the biggest issues in development. Community water sources dry up during climate change related drought—or seasonally during the dry season. The solutions that students have been developing for their projects include a community-based water use management plan. Community members will first develop a participatory mapping of water resources and uses, and then consult with a water management expert to develop a participatory process and training program for developing the water use management plan. See a full course syllabus. |
Depleted soils, unreliable access to water, outmoded agricultural practices and a lack of coping strategies for adapting to a changing climate are leading to reduced agricultural productivity, income generation, and food security for smallholder farmers worldwide.
Course participant solutions to these challenges include integrating indigenous knowledge into project design, and participatory mapping of cropping systems, and soil and water resources. Techniques for improving soil and managing water include mulching, contour leveling, zai infiltration pits, planting grass strips and hedgerows across the contour, intercropping, agroforestry, crop diversification and the use of early maturing and drought resistant crop varieties. The course includes an overview of climate smart agricultural practices complete with downloadable manuals and field guides for each technique. See a full course syllabus.
| August Field Guide | Agricultural Soil and Water Management for Sloping Land. |
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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 developing barriers on farm fields for stopping the flow of water so that it can percolate into the soil and build up soil moisture.
These barriers reduce soil erosion by catching topsoil carried by water and offer the added benefit of creating level planting areas behind the barriers as the soil accumulates. Barriers can be terraces, stone and earth walls called bunds, or living barriers such as hedges and grass strips. Follow the link to download the field guide, workshop lesson plan and how-to card. |
| Project of the Month | Chris Enns’ Tanzanian Community Takes Over Project in Tanzania |
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The idea behind community-based adaptation—or any other community-based form of relief and development—is to engage the community in the project from the beginning so that they feel it is their project: they own it. During the project they participate in co-managing it, and they receive training in the components of the project that will continue after the NGO has left.
It takes 6/8 months for students to train a community to co-manage a project. Chris began training in December and when he returned in April to finish the training he was very surprised to discover that they had finished most of the project! Excellent photos and project summary.
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| CSDi News |
Consider a Scholarship Donation Toward Fall Quarter Students from Developing Nations |
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Worldwide over 1 billion people suffer from hunger. 2.6 billion people don’t have access to decent sanitation. 1.1 billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. 1.3 billion people live on $1.25 a day or less.
Your donation will help 2,000 people. $100 provides 2 international front-line staff with scholarships to learn how to launch sustainable projects in some of the world’s most remote villages. Student projects, on average impact 1,084 individuals; your $100 donation for 2 scholarships can help 2,168 individual villagers.
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Our Goal: 100 Scholarships. We are leveraging impact: by providing real-time consulting and training for 100 front-line staff—each working with a community of 1,000 people—your scholarship donation can help reduce suffering and poverty for 100,000 of the world’s poorest people.
Learn about 18 real field projects, the students behind them, and the communities they are impacting in our special edition Field Projects Newsletter.
- With your help, we have been able to train people from over 400 organizations in 135 countries to develop projects that impact 225,000 people worldwide.
- Your $100.00 scholarship donation will provide scholarships for 2 development practitioners
- Your $50.00 scholarship donation will provide the tools and training needed to help one development practitioner improve the lives of members of a remote village.
- Any size donation will help the Center continue to advance programs to end hunger and poverty, improve health—and strengthen entire communities.
| Project Resources | Best of August Online Resources for Development Practitioners |
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Capacity.org has recently published and excellent paper titled “Making markets work for smallholders?” In this article, the authors point out a number of challenges with a market-based approach—and offer sound solutions.
ActionAid Bangladesh is promoting active citizenship through people’s (participatory) research—or GonoGobeshona. People’s research is a process of empowering vulnerable people to come together to analyze their own problems and think of possible solutions according to their knowledge and understanding.
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The Center for Sustainable Development specializes in providing sound, evidence-based information, tools and training for humanitarian development professionals worldwide. CSDi is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.