HOME > Our Services > Consulting > Rural Development
IC Net Limited
Rural Development
We advance the cause of rural development by a variety of measures covering aspects in agriculture, fisheries and regions.
For agricultural development, we undertake measures including the following: transfer of appropriate agricultural technology, strengthening of organizational and managerial systems, and improvement of product distribution systems.
In fishery development, our measures include strengthening of management systems to prevent over-fishing, transfer of appropriate fishery technologies and improvement of fishing village organizations, improvement of fishery product distribution systems, preparation of social and fishery infrastructure and conservation of coastal environments.
We help regional development by furthering improvement in access to education, health and other public services. We also emphasize participation of local residents as both beneficiaries and main actors in a project to increase their ownership and build their capacity.
Prominent Projects
Integrated Rural Development Project in Limpopo Province, South Africa
| Project Duration | ： November 2002-September 2006 |
|---|---|
| Client | ： Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) |
| Country | ： South Africa |
Sekhukhune District in Limpopo Province is the place called “homeland” where black people were confined under the system of apartheid. Even at present, people from the area work at mines in other regions, rely heavily on the government’s social welfare, and barely conduct farming in spite of existing agricultural resources. Therefore, this project has aimed to motivate people in this area for community development and self-sufficiency. To achieve the goal, pilot projects called Participatory Rural Integrated Development in Sekhukhune (PRIDE) were conducted in developing small-scale income generating industries such as poultry, village forest, women’s bakery, and engaging the entire community for soil protection. These activities are gradually realizing the people’s potential for self-reliance. Moreover, a car with video as a tool for disseminating farming techniques has become highly popular.
After the interim outcomes were confirmed at the Dissemination Seminar in February 2005, the government of Limpopo Province took notice and started discussing a dissemination plan for a wider area. From now on, as well as perfecting the technical aspects of the pilot projects, IC Net will implement the project with the central focus on information dissemination to the community as a whole.
The Study on Artisanal Fisheries Development in the Republic of El Salvador
| Project Duration | ： September 2000 - September 2002 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Client | ： JICA | |
| Country | ： El Salvador |
In this project, the master plan of artisanal fisheries improvement was formulated in the first year, and four major factors (artisanal fishery technology, fisher folk organizational development, women’s income generation in fishing villages, and improvement in fishery statistics) in the master plan were conducted as a pilot project from the second year. At the basis of the master plan including the pilot project was the ownership of the stakeholders, namely artisanal fisher folk and officials at the Agency of Fishery Development. Therefore, the study was conducted in a thoroughly participatory fashion.
Furthermore, it should be emphasized that the financial input in the pilot project was kept to a minimum. For example, the average amount spent on one village was about 300,000 yen for support to fisher folk organizational development or an income generation project for women in fishing villages.
During the process of trial and error in the discussions and implementation at workshops, the sense of ownership grew within the artisanal fishery folk and the officials at the Agency of Fishery Development. Despite the financial input that was substantially lower than the other development study pilot projects, this project continues even two years after the development study
Program for Strengthening Social Capacity to Support IDPs in Angola
| Project Duration | ： November 2004-October 2008 |
|---|---|
| Client | ： JICA |
| Country | ： Angola |
After the ceasefire in April 2002, about 4 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 0.5 million refugees began returning to their hometowns in Angola. However, many functions for livelihood and production activities in the returning areas were in very poor shape.
The purpose of this program is to promote social reintegration of IDPs by strengthening social functions in communities of their origin and supporting the construction of social foundations to grow out of hunger and poverty. This is the first project of JICA to actually put forward the concept of “Human Security”, which aims to bridge the gap between humanitarian aid and development aid.
IC Net conducted a study on community profiles and field-specific studies to select the pilot project areas and gather information for formulating detailed plans for future activities. The study team chose Dombe Grande and Kanjala in Benguela District as the pilot project areas, and planned to conduct support activities, such as repairing water irrigation facilities and introducing literacy class and flour mill, in 50 communities from April 2006.