Idleb Rural Development Project

The project focuses on community development and land reclamation by supporting activities that can improve peoples’ livelihoods and by facilitating the clearance of rocks from large areas of useable land. The project’s main goal is to improve food security and income levels for farmers and rural women in 140 of Syria’s poorest villages. People in the project area will participate in their communities’ development through an innovative, bottom-up process that features village development committees. To improve poor people’s access to rural financial services, the project supports the establishment of sanduqs, which are informal, community-based microfinance institutions. Through sanduqs, poor rural people, and particularly women, can get credit to cover the cost of reclaiming land for agriculture and to start income-generating ventures.

Project activities include:

• reclaiming 20,000 ha of land by de-rocking
• establishing about 12,000 ha of orchards
• providing extension service and improving links between research and extension
• supporting water conservation measures. This includes building 25 small earth dams, the rehabilitation of 14 wells and the protection and rehabilitation of springs for irrigation
• expanding farmers’ access to markets by helping them identify new market niches and establish linkages with potential buyers
• supporting village development committees to encourage participation
• financing the establishment of sanduqs
• promoting processing and marketing opportunities

A technical grant from the United Nations Development Programme supported microfinance activities.

Source: IFAD