Programme for the Protection and Management of Natural Resources (ProCGRN)

The programme is part of the bilateral Benin-German Cooperation and the Atacora and Donga regions have been identified as priority intervention areas of the programme.

The Objective of the IF-ProAgri during phase II is – in continuation of phase I – to "increase the agricultural production and income of the local population, reduce pressure on protected areas and contribute to the maintenance of biodiversity ".

Services included:

1) Support the process of development/establishment and update of (PFR) and their sustainable management by local communities:

• Participatory establishment of land use plans at village level; establishment of PFR or simplified cadastral plan and participatory mechanisms to up-date them.
• Organisation of aerial photo campaigns / organising basic documents for mapping; land survey: combining two operations : land measurement and investigation on the use, the type of right (common, individual, derived/ indirect or direct, heritage, purchased, lease/ loan (short, long, ….); drafting map of plots and land register.
• Feasibility of using GPS techniques for land surveying and which have been successfully tested to ensure future scaling-up.
• Process facilitation and technical support of the elaboration of the new land legislation.
• Proposal of institutional setting / framework and sustainable funding mechanism for the implementation of the law.

2) Technical assistance for the management of catchment and watershed areas and their sustainable management by farmer groups (water user associations (WUA)):

• Implementation of a suitable technology for flood plain management taking the whole watershed  into account; construction of a series of small scale dams, water catchment systems and reservoirs , in order to improve the efficiency of the run-off water resources.
• Definition and introduction of structures and procedures for the sustainable operation and maintenance of the constructions (O&M); training of local producers/water users in the construction and management of flood plain infrastructure to better manage the flow of surface water and allow farmers to raise crop yields.
• Organizational development of WUA to assure WUA, whose main objectives are the maintenance and conservation of the respective infrastructure, are operating well.
• Assistance of municipalities to manage public tenders and procedures for the recruitment of companies for the construction of infrastructure.
• Improvement of the agricultural productivity in the flood plains and development of selected agro-food value-chains (e.g. rice).