The "Inter-regional Project for Participatory Upland Conservation and Development", GCP/INT/542/ITA (or PUCD project), aims at promoting people's participation in the conservation and development of upland catchments, in accordance with HMG's policies and priorities. The project became operational in the second half of 1992, and has gone through several participatory rural appraisal and participatory activity planning and implementation cycles. The three main categories of project activities are:
(i) Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and participatory planning, and participatory monitoring and evaluation of planned activities;(ii) Capacity building of user groups, which are the accepted community organizational units through which participatory field activities are implemented; and
(iii) Participatory implementation of field activities identified and requested by local communities through participatory planning methods (the main subject of this report).
The most comprehensive PRA and participatory planning exercise carried out during the project, covered 26 communities with about 8850 inhabitants of the Bhusunde Khola watershed1 of Gorkha District (see Chapter 2.1 and Field Document 3/97). The PRAs were organized between October 1995 and January 1996, and resulted in 26 Community Action Plans (CAPs), which included 223 physical and training activities.
1The Bhusunde Khola sub-watershed ranges from 500 - 1500 m in altitude and is located in the Middle Hills of Gorkha District. It has a total area of 32 km2, covers 23 Wards of 4 Village Development Committees (VDC's), and has a population of approximately 12,000. There are no roads in the area and all transport is done on foot. No recent or detailed maps exist or could be used for planning or implementation purposes, except for the 1962 maps prepared by the Surveyor General of India, based on 1:80,000 air photographs taken in 1957.
This combination of a large number of CAPs covering 70-75 % of the population of a watershed is the closest thing we have to a participatory watershed management plan. It has many drawbacks, such as limited time frame, poor spatial integration of activities, and little homogeneity. However, it is the genuine product of a participatory planning process.
Gradual improvement of local capacity for planning and implementation of development activities is obtained by repeatedly going through cycles of capacity building training, participatory planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
Thus, it should be realized that a participatory (and integrated) watershed management plan looks quite different from a "traditional" watershed management plan, and more like a strategy, indicating working methods and target areas rather than fixed targets and zonations.
Implementation of these 26 CAPs became the main project focus during 1996. A high implementation rate was considered essential to prove the validity of the participatory development process, both at the field level and at the level of the Department of Soil Conservation.
