Local Economic Assessments to Promote market driven enterprise development - LEAP Project:
The LEAP project aims to:
- Pilot the collection, analysis and use of village level market information by, for and with rural micro-enterprises and CBOs.
- Improve the institutional capacity of NGOs and CBOs to support micro-enterprises.
- Document and disseminate new methodologies and lessons learnt in developing viable micro-enterprises in rural areas.
Through this project CARE is developing the capacity of NGOs, CBOs and government departments to conduct community and household level economic and market analyses. Participatory tools have been developed to enable these organisations to do this. Tools and developed include:
- observational questioning,
- resource mapping,
- community economic asset mapping;
- product flow mapping,
- income and product matrices,
- local enterprise and household case study interviews,
- focus group discussions,
- community level SWOT analysis,
- product and income flow analysis, and
- sub-sector analysis tools.
These tools are combined with a skills transference training programme which includes:
- Introduction to the LEAP Framework
- Understanding Local Economic Development
- Market awareness
- Assessing the viability of business opportunities/ Business Planning exercises
- Introduction to Local Community Economic Analysis field tools
- Community level facilitation / research skills
CARE has conducted field work and analysis using these tools with clients of NGOs involved in income generation and community work in two provinces of South Africa, Limpopo and KwaZulu Natal.
In many cases a subtle mind shift has occurred, away from the traditional baking, sewing, and candle-making projects. New opportunities and areas of services identified for clients include improving craft product quality and developing new products; promoting small scale tourism initiatives, developing "export" marketing capacity and skills; and formalising and strengthening existing income generating activities, micro enterprises, associations and savings clubs. To read more about the impact of LEAP on some women in KwaZulu Natal province,download this document.
Planned initiatives:
- Conducting research on the role of microfinance in mitigating the impact of HIV/ AIDS on the livelihoods strategies of the poor and its potential role in awareness raising and prevention. A research proposal has been developed.
- Capacity building programme for village banks using a savings based approach to microfinance. A proposal has been developed and submitted to the Economic Affairs Department of the KwaZulu-Natal government.
- Supporting income generation among populations and communities most affected by HIV/ AIDS in Lesotho.
Local Links
This project is housed within CARE’s HIV/AIDS theme, but has a micro-savings component. Local Links is developed from CARE’s livelihoods framework and is premised on building local asset security, emphasising financial, human, and social capital through strengthening C/FBOs and NGOs, and achieving rapid scale up of CARE’s low cost VS&L model. By linking communities and other service providers in the public, private and civil society sectors, Local-Links aims to secure household assets and provide safety nets. The savings mobilization focus targets those individuals with income generating activities (IGAs) and those wishing to build up assets to buffer against unanticipated and illness related expenditures. Stability and diversification, not growth, is often the principal goal so that income flows into the household are better assured and more predictable. Local Links’ strategy is to assist vulnerable households achieve this ‘floor-level’ degree of security. This in turn will enable a significant proportion of them to select growth-oriented strategies for their livelihoods in the future, reducing vulnerability to infection. The short-term goal, however, is to secure livelihoods. Local Links Operates in the Free State and Limpopo provinces and is funded by the United States Government Presidential AIDS Funds.
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