Project News

Hello, my name is Takehiro ANDO. I joined JICA in April 2018. As part of JICA's On-the-Job Training (OJT) program for new employees, from 1-4 October I had a chance to work with the F-REDD Project and take part in monitoring the outcomes of the PAREDD Project (a REDD+ pilot project in Luang Prabang Province, implemented from 2009-2015). This article reports on the activities in which I was involved.

I took part in the following two activities under F-REDD's Luang Prabang component in support of provincial REDD+ readiness.

i. Monitoring of PAREDD Project sites

ii. Planning for the expansion of the "PAREDD approach": a method to reduce deforestation and forest degradation at the village level

i. The PAREDD Project introduced several livelihood improvement activities as an alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture, which is considered to be a driver of deforestation. One of these activities is livestock rearing, I visited one village and observed how they take care of their livestock. The number of livestock has been increasing over the past few years, marking the steady and continuous expansion of such activity. It was memorable to see the villagers cheerfully talking about their pigs and goats. Such results will be used as lessons to expand the PAREDD approach to other villages.

ii. In order to expand the PAREDD approach, we discussed how it can be most effectively guided to the villages around the provincial Protection Forest, where F-REDD provides support. As the counterparts (C/Ps) had a deep understanding of the PAREDD Project and actively led the discussion at the meeting, Mr. Namura (a JICA expert) limited his intervention only to keep the flow of the meeting moving. According to him, it is important to encourage the C/Ps to take ownership and lead the meetings. I felt that the capacity of the C/Ps is improving and the development of specialists in the field of forestry is steadily increasing under this principle.

Since the OJT, I have been back at JICA headquarters and am now in charge of the water supply sector for Lao PDR. Although the area I am currently responsible for is not forestry, I will always keep in mind that the rich forest fosters water resources for our water supply.

Thank you very much to everyone who gave me this valuable opportunity.

Observing livestock (one of the livelihood improvement activities) at a Project site.

From left: counterpart officer; JICA officer, Ando; JICA expert, Namura; and a project staff member