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Building organisational, productive and lobbying capacities in the Eastern Agricultural Cooperatives
Jan 1, 2009-Dec 31, 2011
El Salvador has a stagnated economy, with the GDP growing minor to the 2%, insufficient to allow the improvement of the majority of the population, because the country has inequalities in the income distribution.
Confras, has decided to give an impulse to the approach of Alimentary Sovereignty as an alternative solution to the agricultural and farming problematic, that it has fundamentally been the Government abandonment to the agricultural and farming sector and especially to the cooperative movement, the lack of economic (credit) resources, the absence of agricultural and farming technical assistance. These aspects previously mentioned have given spaces to the massive emigration, mainly to the U.S., causing a high dependence of family remittances and the rupture of Salvadoran homes. In the reflection of the land (agrarian) policy, it was identified the necessity of a law to promote the sector that includes aspects like: financing, technical assistance, gender equity, marketing and training.
In El Salvador, the 51% of the total population is constituted by women. The rate of illiteracy presents important differences between men and women: 15% and 21% respectively. The 14% of rural women are occupied in the agricultural sector and fishing. The women participate actively in the production of beans and corn, doing an essential role in the post harvest.
Project Objective: “Improve the productive, organizational and negotiation conditions of the associates to the 20 cooperatives affiliated to the 2 federations”.
Specific Objectives:
- Give impulse to the agricultural and farming diversification with the focus of sustainability.
- Strengthen the focus of gender equity in the federations
- Improve the organizational level of the producers, so that their capacities of lobbying in order that their proposals be considered in the national plan for rural development.
Results:
- The diversification of the agricultural and farming production in 20 cooperatives is reinforced.
- 20 groups of Women are consolidated and succeed in increasing the participation in the direction bodies of CONFRAS in a 25%
- Countrywomen and countrymen, and their respective cooperatives and communities, are able to elaborate and negotiate with the public political class
- The two federations increase the negotiation power and influence on topics of alimentary sovereignty and the public policies.
Activities:
- Sensitize and promotion of the gender equity
- Entrepreneurial and technical training and related topics to food security
- Experiences interchanges
- Planning of the Diversified Agricultural and Farming Production
- Lobbying and negotiation of the Law proposals that is favorable for the sector.
The Monitoring and Evaluation will be carried out from a base line. Confras has a participative monitoring that includes the technicians, leaders and direct project participants; they organized at least two annual workshops, where it is analyzed the project execution and the advances are measured, allowing to make adjustments in the carry-out of the project if it is necessary.
The sustainability of the project will be guaranteed with the sale of the production obtained in the first three years of the project execution. Confras in similar projects has obtained that the producers succeed in reaching the economical sustainability (e.g. “Agricultural and Farming Development in the Lempa River”). The woman committees will be attended through the National Committee of Cooperative Women of CONFRAS and the proposals of public policies elaborated will be promoted by the area of union development of the confederation. Este año, Confras ha participado en la elaboración y presentación de la ley “DESARROLLO SUSTENTABLE” en la Asamblea Legislativa.
