Livelihood restoration programs

The majority of households on the Afungi Peninsula and in Palma Town secure their livelihoods through a diversified livelihood strategy involving a combination of foraging, agriculture, inter-tidal gathering, fishing and small-scale trading.

Typically, household agriculture involves a short-fallow shifting cultivation system involving use of multiple gardens and cultivation of perennial crops including cashew, coconut and various fruit trees. Subsistence agriculture involves the felling, drying and burning of natural vegetation in the dry season with planting of annual and perennial crops such as maize, vegetables and cassava at the start of the rainy season. Individual gardens may continue to yield crops over several years until such time as the land reverts to natural vegetative cover.

Nearshore activities involve collection of crustaceans and mollusks from the inter-tidal zone by women and children. Using tools like forked sticks and metal roads, women and children collect crabs, pen shells, clams and murex shells to feed their families and to share or sell to other households. Inter-tidal collecting activities are determined by the tidal/lunar cycle, so it is a periodic rather than continuous activity.

Fishing activities in the bay comprise a diversity of individual or group, shore or offshore based activities targeting an array of marine produce including oysters, mussels, octopus, and fish.

Resettlement may impact households’ natural resource-based livelihoods in a variety of ways, including through the reduction and/or loss of household assets and changes in accessibility of household assets and natural resources. Accordingly, livelihood re-establishment and development programs that aim to improve, or at least restore, household livelihoods are essential components of the resettlement plan.

Based on existing livelihood strategies, and in consultation with affected communities, the resettlement plan involves new livelihood establishment and development programs that address agriculture, fisheries and diversified livelihood activities. For example, roadways and access to markets has been improved and, and opportunities have been provided for training and skills development as well as employment with the projects.

Such opportunities increase the flow of money in the local economy, giving rise to increased demand for goods and services. Consequently, the diversified livelihoods program focuses on informal sector vocational and technical training, business development, and employment.

• Introduce conservation agriculture
• Support training to improve crop production
• Support backyard gardening and fruit tree production
• Support backyard poultry and livestock production
• Introduce vegetable gardening and cultivation techniques for all interested households, both physically and economically impacted
• Promote cultivation of foraged resources
• Introduce and distribute fuel-efficient stoves
• Introduce technology to dry vegetables, fruit, roots and leaves for all households interested in extending the life of seasonally available produce. This helps households improve nutrition, build supply during traditional hunger months, and generate additional income

• Improve access to alternative inter-tidal and fisheries resources
• Enhance shellfish fisheries via community cultch seabed placement training
• Install fish aggregation devices (FAD) for pelagic species on the edge of shelf east of Tecomaji or Rongui islands
• Enhance fisheries and mari-culture
• Support post-harvest processing
• Construct appropriate landing infrastructure for fisheries at Palma Port and agreed locations on the Afungi Peninsula
• Improve management of local fisheries’ resources through community institution building and integration into the wider co-management structure

• Provide adult education including numeracy, literacy and financial planning
• Provide informal sector vocational and technical training, trade skills development
• Provide Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) development and capacity building
• Support new business–enterprise partnerships to provide goods or services for project construction or operations
• Support microfinance, savings and credit

• Support project related employment

Our approach to delivering livelihood restoration and development programs is based on landscape and household perspectives.

At a landscape-level, both external factors and accelerated rates of change associated with the projects’ development require continuous monitoring, and where appropriate, adaptation of restoration and development programs. Further, the plan recognises resettlement-affected communities in their entirety and aims to ensure that all households within these communities have access to livelihood re-establishment and development program.

At a household-level, it is understood that individual households will pursue unique livelihood strategies and combinations of livelihood activities to best suit their circumstances. These combinations may be determined by numerous household preferences and characteristics. Therefore, our approach to livelihood restoration and development programs is to continuously provide a suite of options across livelihood activities and allow households to choose which activities to participate in and are consistent with respective priorities and customs.

Recognising the dynamic context and as a matter of good practice, continuous monitoring of the context and the success of livelihood restoration programs allows for continuous adaptation to increase the likelihood of success.

In rural communities, such as on the Afungi Peninsula, the women’s contribution to household income is balanced with multiple household responsibilities, including childcare, which release other household members, particularly their husbands, to work.

During relocation, women may bear additional burdens such as:

• Settling the family and children into their new setting and establishing new daily routines
• Adjusting to a different style of housing with different arrangements for cooking and cleaning
• Becoming familiar with and establishing a presence in new markets
• Establishing new social networks for emotional support and practical assistance with child minding, sharing labor and for trading opportunities

In the period immediately after physical relocation, households are anticipated to pursue a combination of income-earning activities (e.g., gardening, domestic livestock rearing) that can be done at home without conflict (in terms of time, location or resources) with other household activities.