Grupo Chorlaví

“Systematization of traditionally excluded groups’ participation experiences in new non-farming rural markets”

1.The Chorlaví Group convenes public and private organizations and civil society institutions interested in the rural problems of Latin America, to participate in the 2007 Projects Contest. The subject of the contest is: “Systematization of traditionally excluded groups’ participation experiences in new non-farming rural markets: Social services provision such as entertainment, sports, traditional education and health, transport, restoration, training, among others, small industry and rural tourism.” In this contest, the Fund will allocate an estimated sum of US$ 175,000 which will be distributed between 10 and 12 projects. Please visit www.grupochorlavi.org or write to concursochorlavi@rimisp.org for further information.

2. The Chorlaví Group is a network seeking to stimulate and facilitate decentralized social learning processes aimed at improving the quality and effectiveness of the initiatives aimed at transforming rural societies in Latin America and the Caribbean, within the scope of a well-defined and specific topic of the sustainable rural development agenda. The Chorlaví Group is an initiative supported by the International Cooperation Church Organization (ICCO) from the Netherlands and the International Development Research Center (IDRC) from Canada. Rimisp is the Executive Secretariat of the Chorlaví Group.

3. The Group’s work is organized in “Social Learning Projects”, consisting of a set of systematization, critical reflection, dialogue, communication and documentation activities, among others, which, through a systematic, analytical and comprehensive process shall focus in a concrete issue, and within it, on learning issues and objectives. A social learning project involves dozens of organizations, groups, networks and individuals from numerous countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

(a) New non-farming rural markets involving traditionally excluded rural groups: For the contest’s purposes, these are markets for non-farming goods and services, being such goods and services different from farming, cattle or primary processed products (such as dairies and mills), produced or provided by poor or excluded rural social groups, whose income source are non-farming activities; goods and services provided to their people or external groups, whether domestic or foreign markets, in growing amounts or meeting the quality demanded by consumers who value their socio-cultural or environmental specificity, their social and environmental responsible production or who value their exclusive characteristics, and which result in improving their income, organizational strength and quality of life.

(b) Successful experiences carried out by traditionally excluded and poor rural populations aimed at enhancing their participation in markets and areas that include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Social services provision such as entertainment, sports, traditional education and health, transport, restoration, training, among others, excluding marketing experiences, unless they are part of experiences mentioned in this paragraph.

2. Small rural industry: mass production of final or intermediate consumer goods based on transforming non-farming raw materials including, but not limited to: fabrics and garment, furniture, metallurgical manufacture, container or container wraps.

3. Rural and community tourism aimed at meeting the requirements of national and foreign travelers who want to responsibly interact and have leisure and/or learning activities within their natural living areas, their cultural practices and with objects and buildings made by such communities or their ancestors.

(c) Successful Experiences: These are organizational experiences regarding goods and services production, such as the abovementioned, and which have implied a better use of production factors controlled by their members (labor, capital, land), as well as the knowledge to produce combinations of goods and services having as a result of such experiences an improvement in the conditions and quality of life of the involved men and women. Experiences that have also strengthened the control capacity on the conditions and destiny of individuals and the community living in the territory; their influence capacity on local, regional or national decision-making systems; and which contribute to guarantee generation replacement that renew redistributive agreements.

(d) Systematization: A critical reflection and ordering process from one or more development experiences around a pre-defined query or concern, with the participation of local actors and geared at the development of lessons learned which allow to enhance the agents’ own initiatives and contribute to a broader knowledge body.

What type of experiences should be sYstematized?

6. Experiences that meet at least the four following characteristics should be systematized:

a. Cases of rural services provision or non-farming small industry production or rural tourism carried out collectively by poor rural and traditionally excluded community members. Craft production and sale experiences are not included.

b. Experiences of at least five years which can be analyzed in terms of impact on the life conditions of their members and from which lessons and learning can be drawn.

c. Experiences no depending exclusively on cooperation agents or external investors and, therefore, having their central decisions made though the associations’ internal mechanisms.

d. Cases involving or impacting or which can involve or impact on an important proportion of the population in the territories where they live.

QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED BY PROJECTS PARTICIPATING IN THE 2007 CONTEST

7. In a consultation carried out to define the central area of concern of Mink'a de Chorlaví Fund for the next years, most of the participants concluded that there are several examples showing that rural communities, under certain circumstances, can creatively take advantage of some predominant trends in our societies: urban consumers demand for new rural products and services. In the 2007 Contest, we seek experiences of rural communities that have taken advantage of the opportunities generated by the non-farming goods and services markets.

8. The important thing is to support the systematization of successful experiences, based on organizational processes, and which have met the demand for non-farming goods and services allowing to draw lessons about the required conditions for more comprehensive processes, in the sense that equity inside the communities and homes is characterized by grades of inclusion of groups and social categories traditionally excluded such as women, Afro-Latin Americans, natives or peasants without land, both in the access to benefits as well as decision-making. It is important to be able to identify from these lessons such conditions that are liable to actions of pubic policy or intervention of different development actors so that other groups can carry on similar experiences

9. Systematizations about this subject must aid to answer the following central question: How do social organizations mainly composed of traditionally excluded groups develop successful non-farming productive activities and service provision to meet the markets inside their territories or outside them?[1]

10. This central question can be taken on by the projects participating in the Contest, through more specific subjects and questions, such as the following:

Which role is played by the traditional knowledge of the population and its capacities and skills? And how was its potential identified?
Which role do external institutions and internal catalysts and innovators play in the experience’s promotion?
Which role played by people, groups or internal or external institutions makes difficult or facilitates the development of the experience?
What are the context conditions in which the experiences are developed?

What types of organizations were established to develop the identified activities? And what role did leaders and founders play?
How was the innovation environment developed allowing finding solutions to the challenges required by the experiences (technology, loan, organizational capacity strength, for example)?
How were the market opportunities identified? And how were established the links between poor and marginalized rural territories offer and dynamic markets demand?
What capacity strength actions were performed aiming at improving rural population skills in order to meet the needs of the identified markets?
If ICTs were used, how were they utilized to promote the service provision, industrial and tourist products to potential consumers located outside the areas where they live?

How did the experience impact on the income and quality of life of the population?
How is the gender equity guaranteed in the decision-making systems? And how are young people participating in the experience?
How do members participate in the decision-making?
How is the accountability made?
How are such experiences related to certain sense of cultural and territorial identity?

d. Concerning lessons that can be drawn

What do you suggest for these efforts to achieve such force so that they can contribute in the design of public policies?
Are there elements or characteristics from these successful experiences or from their processes than can be reproduced in other cases? Or are they totally context- or location-related issues?

EXPECTED RESULTS FROM THE 2007 CONTEST

11. The entities participating in the Contest whose projects are finally selected will have to participate in the complete cycle of the learning project of Chorlaví Group. This cycle includes three main stages:

(a) Carrying out the systematizations which win the contest, including a coordination workshop where those responsible for each winning project should participate and where agreements are adopted so that all the winning projects develop a coherent and articulated group.

(b) The comparative analysis of project results aiming at drawing more general and valid conclusions, lessons and recommendations

12. The main result of projects participating in the 2007 Contest will be a systematization of cases of rural services provision or non-farming small industry production or rural tourism carried out collectively by poor rural and traditionally excluded community members. Such systematization should produce conclusions, learned lessons and recommendations referring to the questions of paragraph 9 and 10 hereof.

13. The final reports of the winning projects will constitute the main input for a comparative analysis, which together with a consultation and discussion process (through an e-conference), should produce a synthesis document which answers the main question asked in paragraph 9 of this Call.

September 8, 2007 End of the reception of clarifying queries concerning the Call, Regulations or any other aspect which might be of interest to the participants.

September 28, 2007 1:00 pm, Santiago de Chile time, is the final deadline for the reception of proposals and additional documentation required in the Regulations.

December 17, 2007 Publication in the Group’s Web Site of the list of wining projects.

December 31, 2007 Subscription of the contracts with the organizations executing the winning projects.

MINK’A DE CHORLAVI FUND REGULATIONS

15. This contest is ruled by the Mink’a de Chorlaví Fund Regulations. It is essential for interested applicants to the Contest to know in advance and analyze these Regulations in detail. This document contains information on:

(a) The characteristics of the organizations that may submit proposals to the contest

(d) Maximum amounts that the Fund will donate, budget items that may be financed and the matching fund requirements

(g) Contracts to be signed with the winning organizations and matching fund transfer procedures for Fund contributions to the projects

(j) Mink’a de Chorlaví Fund Committee authorities to make decisions related to this Contest

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

16. The Regulation, as well as other information of interest, are available online at www.grupochorlavi.org, or can be requested at:

RIMISP Casilla 228 -22,
Santiago, Chile
Tel + (56-2) 236 45 57
Fax + (56-2) 236 45 58
concursochorlavi@rimisp.org

All of the official information related to this contest will be published at www.grupochorlavi.org. All interested parties are encouraged to regularly visit this web site to get timely and relevant information relating to their participation or proposal.

[1] This central question must be reflected in the proposals’ general purpose to be submitted to the 2007 Contest.