Self-evaluation and Holistic Assessment of climate Resilience of farmers and Pastoralists (SHARP)

SHARP training in Uzbekistan

02/05/2018
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held for 5 days a Self-evaluation and Holistic Assessment of climate Resilience of farmers and Pastoralists (SHARP) training in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, within the framework of the project Sustainable management of forests in Mountain and Valley areas in Uzbekistan (FSP). More than 15 technicians from the four different forest organizations involved in the project (Sirdaryo, Dekhkanabad, Kitab and Pop), as well as from the CACILM-II project (2) attended the training, which was guided by two SHARP specialists, Maria Hernandez Lagana and Leandro Savino from FAO headquarters. The project is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and aims at: • Increasing the awareness of common harmful practices in forest areas, such as unregulated livestock grazing, high use of timber as fuel and unstainable harvesting of non-wood products. • Afforestation and reforestation of shelterbelt plantations as well as of high-economic values trees (pistachio, almond, juniper, etc). The training is made using SHARP+, a practical application for tablet and has been customized by the SHARP team in order to meet the project requirements and the local context characteristics. Initially, SHARP+ is planned to be used to collect baseline data to support the decision-making process (data collection will start in the second half of August) and at a later stage, the tool will serve to monitor and evaluate the impacts of the project activities as well. Jamshid Qudratillayev, one of the local trainees stated that he was “looking forward using SHARP+ and the tablet to collect data and want to use this methodology for other data collections." The classroom training lasted 3 days and was followed by a field visit to a project site within Sirdaryo FO, where the trainees had the chance to try the application and practice facilitation with farmers. The FAO Assistant Representative, Alisher Shukurov, participated to the field visit as well, introducing and facilitating the project to the farmers. Four farmers were interviewed during this field visit