1. Presentation
Riversdale Mining
Benga Concept Paper
Peter Pichler

2. Sustainable Livelihoods Program
Benga Mining Community

3. Riversdale
The aim of this social responsibility
project is to improve the food
security of rural communities in the
Benga mining region of Changara
district, Tete Province through an
integrated intervention.
The project will target approx. 500
vulnerable households in Benga
Village, and will use a participative,
gender-sensitive development
approach.

4. The project’s overall purpose is to
improve food security of rural
community in Benga, Changara district
of Tete province, with specific focus on
women and vulnerable households.
The project’s purpose will be achieved
Providing skills and expertise to
assist community members to move
from subsistence and starvation
farming methods to modern,
scientifically, environmentally friendly
based farming methods, Increase and
diversify food production from
smallholder land plots and household
plots.

5. Improving the ability and capacity for
communities to provide for their own
food security and as a source of income,
enhance community-based marketing
strategies and access to agricultural
inputs.The project will promote associative
market practices among small producers,
women and vulnerable households that
will facilitate economic and physical
Enabling participants to earn an
income, Community Participation
through Grassroots Mobilization and
Capacity Building will be the approach
used to implement the project.
Community consultation and
participation is the centrepiece of the
chosen technical approach. This will
enable the Benga community to

6. Farming as a Business (FaaB) is an
approach that furnishes farmers with
appropriate-level analytical skills and
business management tools. The provided
training for FaaB aims to decrease costs
and risks by encouraging famers to work
in association, enabling them to purchase
their agricultural inputs in bulk and sell
their agricultural commodities together.
Promoting a healthy community;
where more children go to school and
agriculture productivity is improved,
HIV/AID prevention is taken serious. In
order to decrease the vulnerability of
school children, the project will
encourage villagers and emphasize on
positive aspects of having the children
in one institutional setting/school will

7. Motivating women to improve their
everyday lives; people become confidant
and successful agents of their own
development, promote and consolidate
organization of rural communities. In
Mozambique, civil society appears still
unorganized and rural communities are
scattered and weakly represented. The
ability of the community to organise,
Promoting women leadership; where
women become key economic players
in society and have equal leadership
with men, to advocate for pro-poor and
gender specific changes in practices of
access to and use of land. Village
women and vulnerable households are
inadequately aware of their land
ownership rights and they have no

8. Promote diversified farming; with people
cultivating vegetables and raising
livestock. Through the use of
demonstrations plots, we will use
appropriate technologies for both
conservation and improved intercropping
and vegetable production with the
assistance of local lead farmers. These
demonstration FFS plots will provide
Early warning of food insecurity
through monitoring household
indicators: The project aims to
communicate and disseminate relevant
and accurate information on the food
security situation on a village and
district basis in order to enable the
Government and Local authorities, to
react in appropriate and timely fashion.

9. Disaster Risk Reduction,
Climate Change adaption:
The Disaster risk management will
focuses on building the Benga
villagers basis for risk reduction;
increasing scientific and popular
understanding of risk;
strengthening early warning
systems; improving natural
resource management and
construction practices; promoting
preparedness for emergency
response; and mobilizing
resources for and implementing
emergency response and
rehabilitation operations.
Gender is a critical factor in
understanding vulnerability to
climate change, and effective
adaptation will promote gender
equality and women’s
empowerment.

10. Rainfall 2008/09, 2009/10
and 15-year average
!

11. Methodology of
implementation
Multidimensional strategy: The project
will be based upon a multidimensional
perspective that is able to respond to
the complex underlying causes of food
insecurity through an integrated and
participative methodology. It will
simultaneously combine local
community organization and capacity
building, local market strategies,
transfer and dissemination of
appropriate agricultural practices, food
security monitoring and preparedness,
advocacy and lobbying work.

12. Methodology of
implementation
continuation
A participatory approach: will be an integral
part of project methodology and will
represent an essential tool for beneficiary
selection, analysis of organizational
capacities, priorities and activities
identification, and monitoring and
evaluation. A Participatory Learning and
Action (PLA) methodology will be set up in
the preliminary phase of the project and will
be the basis for the following participatory
monitoring and evaluation (PMLE).
Beneficiaries will be consulted, involved in
implementation and decision-making and
expected to manage aspects of the project.
Gender analysis will be used within the
PLA methodology to identify beneficiaries
and to steer activities.

13. Methodology of
implementation
continuation
Community organisation and capacity
building: the project’s participative
approach will be particularly focused on
responding to a weak and unorganised civil
society. Strengthening people’s ability to
create and maintain village committee will
foster their active participation in the
process of social and economic change.
Developing local practical, analytical and
managerial skills through capacity building
will ensure that the committees work
effectively. Capacity building methodology
will be complementary to the participatory
approach, and it will encourage local
community empowerment and self-
management over the five years of project
implementation

14. Methodology of
implementation
continuation
Transfer and dissemination of appropriate
agricultural practices: it will rely upon a
multidisciplinary project team composed of
qualified technical staff: Extension worker/
agronomists, social/community mobilizer.
The team will identify the most appropriate
and locally suitable agricultural practices
and transfer them to farming households.
As a consequence, agricultural working
plans will be tied to the cropping calendar.
Methodology will include both field-training
activities carried out in demonstrative plots
and technical assistance at household
level. Training of trainers will be part of the
methodology and will ensure continuity and
sustainability of project activities.

15. Thank you
Peter

16. Methodology of
implementation
continuation
Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation (CSI &
PMLE): As the project area has been
frequently affected by natural disasters
(droughts and floods) and food insecurity,
the project will developed an early warning
methodology (Community Situation
Indicator) that monitors and communicates
changes in the food security and livelihood
situation of vulnerable households in
Benga village on a monthly basis. The
project will use and adapt CSI
methodology to increase sensitivity of
monitoring and improve knowledge of local
food security problems and climate
change impact as well as monitoring and