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Project will continue to strengthen the implementation of local environmental bi-laws which have been adopted by the Mberengwa Rural district Council. The bi-laws seek to strengthen the local community?s capacity in protecting and managing the environment against fire, cutting down of trees and protection of the environment against erosion. Local policies are expected to influence and feed into the formulation of national policies.

The LDS has a plan to scale up and cover other operational districts.

The project influenced the drafting and adoption of Environmental Bi-laws by the local Rural District Council in the 1st Phase. The 2nd phase will see the strengthening and enforcement of these bi-laws.

The project intends to train 148 farmers in conservation farming techniques of whom 15 will be lead farmers who will be charged with training other new farmers in the ward. The lead farmers will be selected by the community at public meeting. The criteria for selection will include the following amongst others: ordinarily resident in the village; excellingfarmer; trainable and ability to train others. Retired government extension personnel particularly from AGRITEX will be given priority. The training shall be accomplished with the assistance of AGRITEX and Foundation for Farming an institution specializing in conservation farming.An additional 100 farmers shall be trained on the use of the wood saving stoves bringing the cumulative total of households with knowledge on wood stoves to 248as 148 were trained during the previous intervention .Training on usage of stoves incorporates ancillaries like bread baking. In all instances LDS will continue to play a facilitator?s role to enable the farmers to do it themselves and in turn be able to train others.Project committees were trained during the previous project and have continued to manage the project

The project shall seek to manage knowledge through capturing lessons learnt during implementation using information sheets. DVDs shall be produced detailing project activities and some climate change issues, these shall be distributed at a field day organized to show case the success of the conservation agriculture aspect in improving food security. The field day will also show case drama and poetry competitions for schools in the ward to raise awareness on both conservation farming and climate change issues. In addition to the quarterly reviews the project will conduct an end of term evaluation which will capture the best practices and lessons learnt which LDS will in turn incorporate into its programming as well as share with its networks.

The project takes into cognizance the role played by women in providing both food and fire wood.Rainfed food production has increasingly become precarious with women investing their labor in tracts of degraded land for months but realizing harvests which hardly go beyond two months. Makuwerere ward now has food insecurity as its hallmark. The conservation farming intervention seeks to address food insecurity as it is set to help household produce enough food for a year from a 0.0312 square meter plot.In a similar fashion the arduous task of searching and gathering firewood is traditional relegated to the female domain. With decimation of forests and growth of populations, wood fuel has increasingly become scarce making it more of a struggle for women to secure sufficient wood for cooking. The search for wood is further exacerbated by lack of alternative affordable options. The wood saving stove intervention seeks to address the plight of womenby liberating them from the slavish wood gathering chores as the new technology requires three times less fire wood than previously needed.Reductionin the quantity of firewood required will in a way translate to less work in terms of wood gathering for the womenfolk. Rural women are the worst affected by the effects of climate change and this project will empowerthem to respond to these challenges. The results of the project shall benefit women in that they will spend less time collecting firewood and concentrate more on livelihood issues.

The project will start with an inception all stakeholders meeting which will serve to explain the proposal objectives, activities and expected results .The meeting will seek to create a common understanding on the project and modus operandi. The project requires minimal awareness raising as it is an extension of an already operational one. More-so the project is designed in such a way that it has an inbuilt component on awareness raising. Following evaluation of the project it has been found imperative that it be up scaled and replicated. The project is being up scaled in the ward through the bringing on board of 100 farmers from Mazunga, Madenyika and Makuwerere villages that will benefit from the wood saving technology and shall also engage in tree planting at household level. Previously the project had 148 beneficiaries and the inclusion of these other farmers brings the total to 248. Replication of the project is done through the LDS IRDP program in 6 districts in Zimbabwe. Aspects of the project being replicated in the program include, ? Wood saving technologies-300 stoves has since been installed in Gwanda with funding from the European Commission through Christian Aid. An additional 161stoves are being installed in all the six districts under the main program with 400 more planned for the second half of 2013. ? Climate change awareness meetings are being held in schools in all the districts with the assistance of EMA.

The project will train farmers in conservation farming which will help improve food security. Practice of conservation farming at household level enables transfer of skills to family members and to generations that follow. The transfer of skills from one generation to another contributes to continued food security. It is anticipated that the beneficiary households will extend their conservation farming plots and produce more than their family requirements and thus realize income from sale of surplus

The sustainability of the outcome after the project period is premised on the implementation package which comprises of participatory approaches, skills transfer, use of locally available materials and creating or strengthening of local level project structures to drive processes during and after benefactor withdrawal. Further to this, there is close networking/collaboration with sector ministries who have extension personnel in the field and have a permanent presence stretching beyond the project period. This crop of government cadres continues to provide backstopping services after the project period. Every objective and thematic area implemented by the LDS has an in-built community education and capacity building element which enables changing of community mindsets as well as transferring project and management skills to the communities. The LDS places emphasis on inclusivity, participation and community ownership of all development interventions as this forms the basis of sustainability. In addition to the implementation package LDS has an exit strategy which entails handing over to both the primary and secondary beneficiaries, the latter being the local authorities who have a special interest in project interventions as they provide the overarching framework conditions for the project as well as backstopping services throughout the project life and beyond.

This intervention is a follow up project informed by evaluation findings of the previous project. The interventions encapsulated herein are community priorities based on the evaluation findings as well as community consultations. The proposed project activities were identified and agreed upon at a community meeting held at Madenyika woodlot on 22nd of May 2013[attendance 99 i.e.68F and31M}. Communities agreed on the following priorities: conservation farming, forestation, erosion control and wood saving stoves. Farmers in three villages (Makuwerere, Madenyika and Mazunga) resolved that they adopt conservation agriculture as a way of enhancing food security as well as tree planting.The 148 farmers agreed on establishing demonstrations plots at each household at own cost and providing requisite accompaniments likelabor, manure and mulch.Participants from Julius village prioritized tree planting and wood stoves and committed themselves to providing bricks, sand and labor for the construction of the wood fuel saving technology. The remainder of the villages prioritized tree planting. The project committee for the seven villages participated in the design of the project as well as in crafting of the implementation plan. The LDS and government departments will play a facilitator role with the beneficiaries doing the implementation of the project activities.On a day to day basis the project committees and household heads will drive the implementation process with the project leaning strongly on the latter particularly for conservation farming. The project shall rely on peer monitoring with backstopping from LDS and government departments to ensure that targets are met. Seven villages have been targeted and monitoring teams shall be set in each village to conduct biweekly monitoring visits to assess progress and assist those who might be experiencing challenges. The active participation of the community throughout the project cyclein both decision making and implementation enhances ownership andsustainability.