The ‘classic’ approach of NGO development aid has been mainly for several years focused on responding to the needs expressed by local population and on supporting local initiatives. In the field of agricultural and environment field, NGOs supported by donors, have generally focused their efforts on food crops projects, leaving private companies and/or State- owned companies the control over export crops.
The twin effect of globalization and liberalization policies have made this approach obsolete. While population needs and support to local initiatives remain core to any development strategy, it is key to fully take account of the macro economic environment and its permanent evolution in order to ensure sustainability of the development efforts
To limit small farmers to a food-producing agriculture and set them out to compete on their own agricultural products from industrialized countries without preparing them to export, amounts to condemning them doubly to long term poverty.
Finally, agricultural development and support to farmer organizations support have always been considered by NGO as the "big priority" and a goal in itself. On the other hand, in the past, several operators have considered that industrialization was the only path to development and should be pursued almost independently from other development processes.
The reflection carried out together with our partners and the know-how gained on international trade regulation, development aid policies, agricultural and food safety policies, markets and produce chains (agricultural and industrial) brought us to adopt a new approach more adapted to the new challenges.
Rural Sector Projects :
- We boost and support small farmers to invest in export crops when there are profitable opportunities
- We invest in agriculture and in the rural word because most of the developing countries are made up of rural population. However, we acknowledge that agriculture in the future will represent less and less job opportunities and incomes that would are normally come from the industry sector and above all from the services sector.
- Our North NGO role is to assist rural organizations and the population in general during the transition towards this transformation.
To facilitate the transition, our approach is to support an "industrializing agriculture".
It means an agriculture that, through land management and quality research, prepares itself to comply with international standards (sanitary and phyto-sanitary, technical and environmental standards).
It also means support to product transformation that requires a more rigorous social and economical organization because it hinges on effective and more collective investments.
The income increase and living conditions improvement, know-how acquisition to manage more and more complex development programs contribute strongly to professional groups emergency and results in communities able to establish a dialogue and negotiate with the authorities in order to define development and public policies strategies.
...But also industry and services...
RONGEAD is not limited to the agricultural sector nor to the rural world as was the case in its early years. . Nowadays, our approach is to support economic development initiatives that strengthen competitiveness in sensitive and strategic sectors.
...Aid to define public policies...
RONGEAD considers that the partitioning of technical assistance programs turned either to the State sector or the non State actors risks to weaken considerably the project impact. We implement all our project with a local partner and we always include activities geared to foster dialogue and negotiations towards policy making with the relevant authorities so as to ensure sustainability of the project results and empowerment of the local population after the project implementation.
Our projects are implemented within the framework of Project cycle management; as promoted by the EU and international donors : http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/index_fr.htm
Private area
Copyright © 2008 RONGEAD
Designed by Manoël Verdiel
Realized with SPIP by Alain Le Floch
