Project News

In projects such as ours that take a group approach to its activities, the "organizational strengthening" of farmer groups becomes one of their major objectives. Activities for "organizational strengthening" deal with people, and as such it is difficult to judge how people will respond to the activities until they are actually implemented. Furthermore, it could be that only the person in charge of the activities has a clear idea of the "implementation process", but the rest of the Project team doesn’t, or it could also be that the activities are being carried out without having any clear "implementation process."

In face of such circumstances, the Project discussed with the C/P on how to clarify the process for implementing activities to strengthen the groups and as a result prepared a "model for implementing activities for organizational strengthening" (see diagram below). (For description of how this model was made, see Project News, October 26, 2009 titled: "Technical Transfer of ‘Methods for Planning Organizational Strengthening Training’ to C/P.")

In this model there are three stages of organizational development on the vertical axis (development through time), and the themes for organizational strengthening needed for Projects with farm group activities are on the horizontal axis (development of themes in 3 categories and 6 sub-categories). The issues that should be acquired on each development stage and the most appropriate method (educational visits, seminars, workshops, etc.) for learning them are also indicated for each stage. The time relationship between the various stages and themes are shown by arrows.

The diagram below is based on this model and summarizes the investments made in the 14 groups between September and October of 2009 and also shows the level of mastery of the group in each theme. The boxes with a red line on the left are those themes in which the Project made some type of investment (training session, workshop, educational visit, etc.); the yellow-colored boxes are the themes that the group is considered to have mastered. The investments started from the upper left-hand corner and were carried out in the down and rightward direction. Therefore, the themes that still need to be addressed are found in the lower right-hand side of the diagram. By using this model to confirm the situation of each group regarding the organizational strengthening themes, the priorities for investing in a theme can be clarified and also needless investments (unnecessary workshops, for example) can be avoided.

There is probably room for further improving this model, therefore by the end of the Project we hope we can present a "model for implementing activities for organizational strengthening in Panama’s rural areas."

Model for implementing activities for organizational strengthening

The figure can be enlarged by clicking on it.: PDF/2,836KB)

(Mr. Isao SAKAI, Chief Advisor / Rural Development)