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CARE international in the west bank and gaza
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Community Development / Food Security
Livelihood Improvement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (LIOPT)
The project is part of AusAID’s AMENCA program (Australian Middle East NGO Cooperation Agreement )which will contribute to achieving AusAID’s Middle East Strategy on peace-building, promoting good governance and community resilience,” on a micro level by supporting peace-building in communities, reduction of poverty and improving the self-resilience of vulnerable Palestinians.
The project goal is to contribute to sustainable livelihood security of 9 vulnerable Palestinian communities in Jenin and Tubas Governorates.
The purpose of LIOPT is to improve food security, and community resilience in a way that supports equal participation of women in 9 communities in Jenin and Tubas Governorates. The attainment of this purpose rests upon three components that are complementary in nature and linked in practice – improved agricultural production for increased food security, expanded marketing opportunities and purchasing power for increased income, and the promotion of positive coping strategies to increase the resilience of communities and households to meet the day-to-day challenges of the conflict. Woven throughout these approaches are activities geared towards the empowerment of women. Empowerment activities will promote increased knowledge and skills, greater access to income-generating opportunities, and the strengthening of the enabling environment for women through sensitization and promotion of equal participation in their households and communities.
The Livelihood Improvement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Project (LIOPT) will assist vulnerable households in nine villages in the Governorates of Jenin and Tubas to mitigate this impact by improving food and livelihood security, increasing self-reliance, and strengthening the ability of communities and households to deal with psychosocial stress caused by loss of income and restricted mobility. It will reduce vulnerability by supporting people’s inherent capacities to draw on their existing resources of land, labour and collaborative group effort to meet food security needs, increase income opportunities, and tap the community’s creative social resources. Project activities will support community resilience by enhancing local knowledge and skills which can be further built upon should there be subsequent phases of assistance. LIOPT will specifically address the needs and status of women, and will contribute to peace-building through improved skills in communication and conflict resolution within beleaguered communities. The project is a collaborative effort by CARE, an international NGO, and two Palestinian non-governmental organisations, the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ), and the Economic and Social Development Centre (ESDC), will strengthen Palestinian civil society by supporting institutional capacity building within ARIJ and ESDC.
The project will serve nine communities in the Governorates of Jenin and Tubas in the northern West Bank. Like the majority of West Bank residents, people in Jenin and Tubas governorates live in small communities that are highly dependent on the economy of Israel and the larger West Bank cities. The two governorates are severely affected by the Israeli government’s imposition of tight restrictions on movement, the destruction of physical infrastructure supporting public services, and round-the-clock curfews on Palestinian communities in response to the Intifada.
The project will work with the target communities for a period of 21 months ( started from November 2005, 30 July 2007. The project has three major components:
Component Objective 1:
To improve vulnerable households’ capacity to produce food for both household consumption and increased income
Component Objective 2:
To strengthen operational and management capacity of targeted community groups and local partners
Component Objective 3:
To enhance positive coping strategies related to physical and social restrictions
Component one will enable households to produce food to meet their own consumption needs and to generate income to meet other basic needs. It provides intensive training and ongoing technical expertise in a number of areas, including greenhouse rehabilitation and management, home gardening, food processing and quality control, beekeeping, olive production pest control, and compost production. Women will receive specialized support to expand their skills in production and management of home-based agricultural activities.
Component two will address the need for improved marketing opportunities and purchasing power. This component will encourage collaborative group action to negotiate more favourable terms for the purchase of lower cost bulk inputs. It will enable individual farmers to sell their goods at better prices in local markets or to middlemen, and increase marketing capacity in the face of monopolies. Over the long term households could establish cooperative linkages with larger markets and vendors. This component will also provide support to the Palestinian partner organisations to strengthen their organisational capacity.
Component three directly addresses the danger to families and communities living under the prolonged stress of poverty and occupation. The psychosocial well-being of people in the northern West Bank has been battered by the on-going conflict, accompanied by loss of income, displacement, the loss of loved ones, movement restrictions and uncertainty about the future. This has increased vulnerability and exposure to risk, eroded family coping mechanisms, and strained community and intra-household relations. While the entire community suffers the consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, it particularly affects women and girls, as it has resulted in a rise of conservative attitudes toward their social roles and status. Livelihoods have many dimensions beyond economic concerns; thus, the project will help participants to build community resiliency and ability to adapt to adverse circumstances through addressing the emotional and psychosocial dimension of their lives as affected by conflict, poverty, and the impacts of psychosocial stress.
Duration: November, 2005- June 2007.
Funding: Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID).
Contact:Nadia Saad
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CARE International West Bank and Gaza, Taha Hussein St., Beit Hanina, P.O.Box: 54258, Jerusalem
Tel: 972-2-5834069, Fax:972-2-5830448 Copyright ©2007 Carewbg.org - All rights reserved.
Web Site by: Mahmoud Abu Haniya
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