This week I had a look at a programme financed by the Netherlands and I was rather impressed. Welt Hunger Hilfe (Agro Action Alemande in french, German Agro Action in english) made some swamps and hills into useable land for agriculture. In stead of just running in with bulldozers they have a more constructive approach. The people of the area work there and there are structures in place for deciding who the land will belong to at the end. The reason they let as much as possible be done by hand are multiple: cheap, involvement of the local people, ensure future maintenance. The wages are held low, so only people who have nothing would apply for this work, those are the people that need it most. Wages were 1 USD per day, yes that's right 1 USD per day, not hour. 1 HA of land or 1 km of road costs around 2700 days of work.
To visualise this there were some before and after pictures added. At the end the swamp had channels and dykes, the hills had terraces and channels for access rain water. Also were the roads improved for access and even bridges were build. The bridges were built roman style, not for beauty, but it is very practical, an asphalt bridge will erode quickly due to heavy rains and low quality material, a stone bridge will hold forever, it just needs some mud every now and then for the holes.
Also did people get training in what to grow and how to grow it, so the land will not go to waste and is used optimally. Remember that this is the most densely populated country in Africa and in the top 5 of the world.
Results of this project: people had income, people have land to grow food.
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