PICOTEAM is a network-organisation with nodes in Africa, Latin America and Europe
  that supports efforts to bring about change and innovations for sustainable development.

PICOTEAM Ltd. PICO Southern Africa PICO Uganda PICO Tanzania PICO Latin America
PICO Academy for Practitioners PICO Knowledge Networking

Our Experiences

Project Sustainable Management and Protection of the Natural Resources in two Watersheds
Duration 03.2007 - ongoing
Country / Region Dominican Republic
Services delivered
  • Analysis of the extension system applied in PROCARYN
  • Design of the Competence Development program for extension agents
  • Facilitation of six (6) Learning Workshops
  • Backstopping and Coaching on-the-job of extension agents
  • Vision-based assessment of the for mainstreaming and institutionalisation of the approach – which was adopted by a range of organisations
  • Advice/Coaching of the PROCARYN project management and strategic orientation
  • Design of scaling up / out strategy
Achievements PICOTEAM members facilitated the first implementation of the PEA approach in Latin America in the Dominican Republic.

In the upper watershed of the Yaque del Norte river a group of 20 extensionists, coming from government and non-government organisations, were trained in 6 learning workshops and coached on-the-job in facilitating community development processes during a learning cycle of 2 years. Each extensionist applied PEA in at least 1 pilot community of the watershed. After the first learning cycle, the initiative was evaluated sucessfully by participating organisations and other key actors. This 20 competent staff were later used as base for scaling up of the approach in the watershed and beyond in the Dominican Republic

The main impacts of the pilot PEA-cycle in the Dominican Republic regarding community level were:

  • New forms of local organisations (e.g. community umbrella organisations) were coming up and spreading as a way to represent the community’s interests towards outsiders and to self-organise their activities in a concerted action.
  • Rural people in the pilot communities ‘learnt’ how to organise around community challenges and how to tackles these challenges successfully. Many challenges have been mastered through their self-initiative and self-organisation (e.g. aqueducts were built, roads for market access, reforestation of degraded land, improved agricultural production and value chains (coffee, flowers, and forests) or electrification etc). All these successes were driven by communities with their resources. These successes triggered a range of other collective actions in the communities which unleashed the potential and created economic opportunities for the villagers.
  • Rural people are aware of the significance of innovations for community development. A range of innovations in the field of NRM and income generation were developed and introduced which enabled the development of new potentials and economic enhancement
  • Local organisations have improved their performance and have been able to increase their membership drastically through a good governance inside. Today they commercialize the agricultural produce of their members.
  • After having facilitated change processes by extensionists, new leaders which stand for the new governance style and culture have come up and drive the development process which was slumbering before in communities.
  • People in rural communities exchange knowledge between peers. An active learning and sharing culture which enabled to speed up the innovation process and to reach a broad spectrum of the communities.
  • Generally livelihoods in the pilot villages have improved in terms of individual and collective well being.
Partners Dominican Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARN), DED, PROCARYN, CODOCAFE, local NGOs
Funding Organisation GTZ, KfW
PICOTEAM members involved Dr. Jürgen Hagmann, Henning Peter and 1 associated consultant
Links / Publications

www.procaryn.gov.do

H. Peter, K. Krebs y J. Hagmann (2004) “EPAM – Building systemic competence for local development”, GTZ Newsletter Services for Rural Development, Nr. 12, December 2004: 3-5

http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-newsletter12-2004.pdf

H. Peter (2008) “Guía del enfoque EPAM – Extensión como Proceso de Aprendizaje Mutuo aplicado en la Cuenca Alta del Río Yaque del Norte en la Cordillera Central, República Dominicana”, Secretaría de Estado de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales-PROCARYN-KfW, Dominican Republic

http://www.picoteam.org/publications/pdf/Guia%20EPAM%20DOM%20REP%20-%202008.pdf