Community-managed irrigation reduces poverty and raises food security for women farmers in Lao PDR

Pamposh Dhar, ADB Consultant

More voice for women in irrigation and food production reduced poverty and raises food security. The ADB-financed Northern Community-Managed Irrigation Sector Project, implemented from 2004 to 2011, helped bring down absolute poverty from 64% in 2005 to 40% in 2009 in 11 remote and mountainous districts in the five poverty-stricken northern provinces of the country. Food security in the project areas increased significantly. Surveys conducted in 2009, two years before the project was over, showed that farming families benefiting from 12 of the 33 irrigation schemes were completely self-sufficient in rice. The rice deficit had come down to a moderate level (less than two months a year) in 10 other areas. Estimates suggest that full rice self-sufficiency was reached in the project areas by the time the project ended in February 2011. This was achieved by expanding the area under irrigated cultivation and disseminating information about higher-yielding varieties of rice through agricultural extension work among farming communities organized into water user associations. The project introduced improved rice varieties through demonstration in both wet and dry seasons. The project design helped ensure that women benefited equally with men and participated actively in community-managed irrigation and agriculture. In a practical way, the project supported women by helping them provide adequate food for their families. Many women in the project areas also benefited from the projects training in poultry raising and from water supply schemes. Gender Strategy The project design included a gender strategy to ensure that women benefited equally with men from the project. It was widely known that while women play a major role in crop production, their representation in decision-making and access to training and extension services was limited. The projects gender strategy laid special emphasis on encouraging women farmers to participate actively through the community-based water user associations. The Lao Womens Union (LWU), a leading organization promoting gender equality in the country, encouraged womens full participation in the project. The projects gender strategy helped ensure that women played an active role in the management committees of the water user associations, often serving as the treasurer and/or accountant. At least one woman from each village was appointed as a communitylevel organizer. Women benefited equally from demonstrations of diversified farming because the farming techniques were displayed on household plots. When the project started, womens participation in community meetings ranged between 30% and 60%, but by the end of the project this had risen to 49%-65%. Womens training

needs were addressed by the project, with poultry farming emerging as the top priority in non-irrigated areas. Women now raise chickens in 326 households in the project areas. Thirty-five percent of the members of all water user associations formed under the project are women. Womens participation in project-related activities such as engineering surveys, construction labor, study tours and annual production evaluation meetings ranged between 24% and 41%. Dramatic Changes in the Lives of Poor Women Women have been the major beneficiaries of the training and support for poultry as an income-earning activity, managing virtually all the schemes emerging from the project. Water supply investments in 17 project villages also benefited women, who are usually responsible for fetching water for the home. The water supply schemes substantially reduced this burden. In a sign of the importance of water supply, women provided 34% of the labor for water system maintenance in these villages. Suggested Improvements ADB's completion report for the project notes that many women in the areas covered by this project earn additional income through home-based silk-weaving or running small shops. Therefore it recommends that in future community-based rural development projects, ADB should consider supporting non-farm income generating activities to give women greater opportunities. Such an effort would be particularly relevant to farm communities in steep, rain-fed upland areas where the potential for efficient agricultural growth is limited.

The views expressed in this paper are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paper do not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.