General Framework of the Topical Project

Context

The situations in the four Districts concerned by CORE program are diverse and complex putting a wide range of public and private actors in relation, from the local to the international level. These territories are characterised by the presence of long term and diffuse radioactive contamination which concentrate in all environments of the territories (soil, water, forest, etc.), and a socio-economics situation mainly based on rural activities (agriculture, forest, small craft industry, etc.).

For the actors concerned of these territories, the social and economic development of the territory and the maintenance of the life in the villages are the main tasks they are confronted with, for whom the radioactive contamination of all field of the living (agriculture, food, etc.) as well as the present global socio-economic situation are restricted constraints. The global problem is then to search favourable conditions and means to put both, private and public actors, in position to co-define and take in charge in common the development strategies, towards the sustainable development of their territory.

Purpose of the TP

The overall TP purpose is to set up step by step, with public and private local, national and international actors, conditions and means of endogenous and sustainable development of the territory process, allowing an improvement of the quality of the living conditions of the rural populations. Thus, the fundamental object of this project is to be to the service of the actors, of their problems up and to go with their own desires to set up sustainable processes for the improvement of their living conditions. Then, through concrete actions focused on the development of agricultural activities, this TP aims at promoting the involvement of rural actors to define and deal with the process of self-rehabilitation and self-development, by:

• Strengthening the capacities of actors concerned to improve living conditions of the rural population of the selected villages, through support of individual initiatives and the strengthening of skills,
• Improving the family income and the radiological quality of the foodstuff produced, through adapted technical means and system of production to the local conditions,
• Support and go with, on the individual initiatives basis, processes for groups structuring to take in charge common problems all along the agricultural activities (from input supply to marketing), in order to developed profitable activities and organisation, that will engage the territory in an endogenous and sustainable development path,
• Build up, with all the private and public actors concerned, procedures and a framework for the management in common of the quality of their territory.

Local, national and international partners of the Topical Project

Local partners: Private farmers, rural family, other concerned person of villages, local animator/ technician, chairmans of local rural Soviet, Chairman or representatives of District executive committee

National Partners: BRISSA, IAE, Chernobyl Committee, Gomel Agency, Belarusbank

International Partners: FERT, ISP/ INAPG, CNIEL/ Institut de l'elevage/ FNPLait, UNDP/ UN office in Minsk, OCHA, French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Embassy of France in Belarus, European partnership committee

Success criteria of the TP (first element to be confirmed by the local partners)

Agro-Radiological criteria:

Reduction of the radionuclide concentration, Improvement of the overall quality of the foodstuff (nitrate concentration, etc.), development of means to follow-up the evolution of contamination in the production, level of appropriation of the techniques by the actors

Agricultural criteria:

Increase of the yield of the production (crops, animals), diversification of productions, development of adapted technique and system of production, improvement of the technical knowledge, level of the appropriation of the techniques by the actors

Economic criteria:

Improvement of the "Net benefit" at individual level (variation of income) and the local level (the impact on the local economy: cost and quality of the local product, development of local market, etc.)

Criteria of sustainability:

Long term financial and economical viability of the project and the structures: Share of self-financing of the activities, capacity of self-management of the settled organisation, development of the relation between producers/ food processing (infrastructure), evolution of the structures towards larger organisation, relationship between private and public actors

Inter and intra-generation conditions: Acquisition of references (technical, organisational, strategically, etc.) and spreading (i.e. transfer of knowledge), capacity of the local population to self-managed local projects and involved other part of the population

Dynamic involvement criteria: project (Number of local project realised by groups), Formation (number of men/ days formation dispensed), Involvement (Number of family or groups involved in the project, Participation of group leaders to the local development, Number of exploitation involved)

Coordination and integration of the TP to the CORE Programme

The coordination of this TP to the CORE program is assumed by all the partners. A mission in charge has been especially enlisted by INAPG who is specialized in the "Management of the living and patrimonial Strategies". Coordination is assumed through permanent contact with the local actors through regular mission on the ground to follow-up the evolution of the situations and the problems, and with the others national and international partners of the other TP and priority area (PA), especially within the European partnership Committee who have regular meeting. This coordination will allow identifying need of co-investment on specific problems (e.g. the need to better coordinate the actions with the PA "Radiological quality" to improve the radiological efficiency of actions on agriculture and economic development).

Main Activities provisioned throughout the CORE Programme duration

Activity 1. Experimental projects for management of agricultural production on radioactive contaminated areas

The objective of Activity 1 is to improve the profitable agricultural production (potatoes, vegetables, milk, meat etc.) with a good agro-radiological quality in order to give possibilities to strengthening and diversifying the agro-economic development capacities of private producers. These experimental projects are based on "potatoes project" process (2001- 2003, Stolyn/ Slavgorod Dist.)

Main tasks within the framework of Activity 1 are:

• to identify, with actors concerned, the situations and problems of local agricultural production and the process and work-program to be undertaken;
• to set up techniques and mode of production that will increase the yield of agricultural production with low radionuclide concentration;
• to carry out the training seminars with private producers;
• to implementation of field experiments on private plots;
• to evaluate of radiological and economical efficiency of experimental technology in comparison with usual treatments.

The Activity 1, as a preliminary stage for involvement of rural inhabitants to the local territory development, will be a practical contribution for development of agricultural radiological culture adapted to the local contaminated territories. .

Expected results. The implementation of the Activity 1 allowed to:

• increase the yield of agricultural production selected and reduce the radionuclide concentration of foodstuff;
• develop autonomy of producers about others agricultural function (e.g. production of high quality seeds, etc.)
• improve the family income and diversifying range of income sources that will ensure minimum wages;
• involve the rural inhabitants to the self-development and self-rehabilitation.

Activity 2. Improvement of conditions and means to credit access adapted to private farmers for micro-projects for family micro-business enterprises FMEs

The objective of Activity 2 is to get responses to the need of improvement of conditions to investment means access, as credit adapted to specificities of agricultural activities. Through the development of adapted mechanism and found of micro-credit this activity aims at support and strengthening rural inhabitant initiatives for FME development.

The tasks within the framework of Activity 2 are:

• to develop, with all the actors concerned (farmers, bank, etc.) the different forms of adapted micro-credit mechanism to producers;
• to create of micro-credit found (procedures, mode of management, criteria of success, etc.);
• to evaluate of acceptability and efficiency of the different forms of the micro-credit mechanism.

Expected results. The implementation of Activity 2 allowed to

• increase the yield of agricultural production and reduce the radionuclide activity of foodstuff;
• Improve the economic and technical capacity of private farmers to develop their agricultural activities all along the rural inhabitant activity for service and other types;
• Improve the capacity of local groups to manage together a common initiative
• improve the family income and their investment capacity.

Activity 3. Support of local projects for development of rural communities in radioactive contaminated areas

The objective of Activity 3 is to go with the individual initiatives in order support the process towards the setting up of local common macro-project by group of actors for the sustainable socio-economic development of the territory. Thus, develop and assist the rural communities through adapted methodology to facilitate the emergence of confidence and wishes to act in common, through informational support, by providing production means for experimental project, by helping groups to deal with functions of agricultural activities for which it will be benefit to joint the efforts (from input supply, to processing, and marketing).

The tasks of Activity 3, that will be undertake throughout the TP, are:

• Identification of the evolution of the situation and problems of agriculture production and beyond, of the sustainable development of the territory;
• Search and improvement of conditions and means for development of rural communities (e.g. development of processing capacities, facilitate the expansion of assortment of feed products, etc.);
• Training seminars;
• Technical and information support of rural communities;
• Creation for FMEs of stable trade channels of agricultural production.

The implementation of Activity 3 will be a continuation of FME development to the new organization forms like cooperative, association etc.

Expected results. The implementation of Activity 3 allows to:

• develop new organization forms of FME adapted to the need and constraints of population of these contaminated territory (e.g. the processing activities, under certain conditions, do reduce the radionuclide concentration, etc.);
• increase the efficiency of agricultural production and produce foodstuffs with good quality;
• improve the family income, local employment capacity, stabilize the local economy of the district
• Develop conditions to set up better partnership all along the agricultural activities, between all the actors concerned, as for example between FMEs, cooperatives, collective farms, processing enterprises, till the marketing.
• Do emerge long term development strategies shared by all the actors concerned and means to deal with them

Activity 4. Stolin Centre for Rural Development

The objectives of the Activity 4 are defined as follows:

• Daily animation and technical support of different levels of TP (Activities 1-4);
• Enhancement of economic development of the district;
• Promotion of dialogue between district authorities, entrepreneurial and rural communities; and coordination with others national and international partners
• Involvement of communities' initiatives into the developmental process.
• At the medium-long term, facilitate the coordination and integration of others TP of this PA (i.e. Forest/ wood economy, quality of nature/ quality of territory/ quality of the rural development).

The establishment of rural development agency will be a progressive process of construction which will be based on, on the one hand the evolution of the activities and the needs to reach the overall objective of the TP, and on the other hand the nature and the skills of the actors involved. Then, the step by step setting up of the agency, from a kind of "consortium" which will be carrying out by the technician to the "Centre for rural Development" which will integrate all needed function and actors for the sustainable development of the territory, will combine two types of activities: organization building and staffs capacity building.

Organization building will include:

1. identification of the most suitable legal form for the agency and building up of the partnership of future founding members;
2. renovation of premises and fitting out the agency with necessary staff and equipment;
3. elaborating Agency's business plan and corporate documents (financial policy statement, charging policy statement, internal rules and procedures in terms of strategic management and decision making).

Capacity building will involve:

1. staff initial training in management about complex and multi-actors issues and marketing;
2. visits of the staff and founding members of similar organizations abroad;
3. on-spot staff training in developing a number of services;
4. on-spot staff training in developing a number of projects.

Expected results. The project will have the following results:

a) Establishment of an infrastructure organization to support economic development in the district;

b) Local capacity in terms of development and investment rising will be improved;

TP will be undertaken in:

1. Belousha, Gorodnaya, Olmany, Terebezhov of Stolin district of Brest region
2. Maleiky, Mikulichi and Komarin of Bragin district of Gomel region;
3. Poles'e, Babichi, Rovkovichi of Chechersk district of Gomel region;
4. Gaishin, Lesnaya, Svensk of Slavgorod district of Mogilev region.

Budget

TP CORE Agri will be performed initially in Stolin and Slavgorod districts because of budget restriction. At the beginning of TP implementation the TP budget is _ 367 400 on 2004-2006. The request budget for TP all directions implementation in four districts is _ 1 490 030.

All Rights Reserved, CORE, 2004