NORTHWEST MOUNTAINOUS AREAS DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

closed

The project addresses the important problems of rural poverty and natural resource degradation. It will help restore sustainable range, forest and farming activities, reducing soil degradation, erosion and sedimentation in reservoirs as well as increasing productivity and incomes in this impoverished region of Tunisia. By using a participatory approach, it will strengthen farmers' planning and implementation capacity, and improve the responsiveness of rural service agencies to farmers' needs. The project will support development of a participatory approach to watershed rehabilitation in about 50 micro-catchments in the Governorates of Beja, El Kef, Siliana, Jendouba and Bizerte over a six-year period. Treatments will be integrated across a micro-catchment, and selected and implemented with the participation of the local population. Treatments will include improved range management, improved fodder production, soil and conservation works. The project will also provide such basic infrastructure as feeder roads, potable water, health centers and schools. The projects will strengthen the planning, coordination, and implementation capacity of the executing agency and village groups. The project will provide for demand-driven, short-term applied research to address key development constraints in the region. The micro-enterprise development component will promote, on a pilot scheme basis, the development of the informal sector and the establishment of village credit associations. The Geographic Information Service (GIS) will support surveys and inventories, selection and management of conservation areas and monitoring and evaluation. The project will finance land surveys needed for land titling.