The Ra.LA Project in a nutshell
The project aims to build Raqqa Civil Council (RCC) and Al-Hassakeh Local Council Administration (HLCA) capacity to support their rural communities by delivering inputs for agriculture and livestock and establishing/reinforcing agricultural and veterinary services. Furthermore, the project will set up a new women's association (in addition to supporting existing ones) and encourage income-generating activities in the target area.
Local agricultural technicians are among the key players in the project because of their direct dialogue with rural communities, enabling them to grasp their needs and identify the actions to be implemented. Project technicians as well as other local experts (agronomists, veterinarians) and local administration are backed up by capacity building and technical assistance actions.
Today, more than ever, sustaining agricultural value chains in target areas and bridging cities with rural dimension is key to ensuring resilient livelihoods. As the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted in recent months, healthy, active and productive local food chains are essential and beneficial to the health of a population that wants to recover from the crisis.
All interventions are based both on farmers' problems/needs and on the requests of Raqqa Civil Council & Al-Hassakeh Local Council Administration; the aim is to strengthen RCC’s and HLCA’s capacity to respond to agricultural needs in order to increase the resilience of the rural population and to help stabilise them in the affected areas. To this end, the project provides support via technical assistance, delivery of inputs and services through project technicians. As part of these concrete efforts, RCC & HLCA and local associations (women and technicians) are the main partners of the project; thus, reconciliation between populations of different ethnicities and religions is encouraged by increasing dialogue, agricultural work and economic exchanges.
Main Results
Distribution of Input in Cost Recovery
Remote Technical Assistance
Agricultural & Veterinary Services
Empowering Women.
Rehabilitating Irrigation
Innovations introduced by CIHEAM in Syria
Direct remote management of the activities in Syria with direct relationship with Syrian beneficiaries and stakeholders, through the project's Agriculture and Livestock Service Centres (ALSC) managed by Syrian technicians and coordinated by the project bases in Turkey and Lebanon. Communication is assured by satellite connections and the financial flows by a specialized money transfer agency.
Remote technical assistance (RTA): a team of CIHEAM Bari experts as well as experts from Italian Universities are providing technical assistance to the local technicians, RCC & HLCA and associations. The technical assistance is provided through a web/based software (Zoom) and an on-line platform, which allows direct interaction between participants and experts.
Cost recovery approach for input distribution (CR)
Rehabilitation of previous existing services for farmers such as: veterinary services and crops treatments services.
Full participatory approach with stakeholders, RCC & HLCA, target groups and beneficiaries: before the implementation of the activities, beneficiaries and stakeholders have been contacted by the project technicians using participatory rural appraisal techniques. The beneficiaries were selected on voluntary basis and prioritized according to vulnerability parameters.
Resilience mechanism during pandemic disease; as shown during the second phase of the project, the spread of the pandemic across the Middle East has not hindered the overall implementation of most of the project activities thus reinforcing the concept of applied resilience mechanism in the project areas. Mitigation measures have been developed in response of the evolving pandemic situation inside and outside Syria.
The Project: Video
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