Both men and women need are taken care of in the project design. Since the traditional medicine production have active participation of women, the interests of women are well taken care as they stand to benefit from every aspect of the project. Again, preventing bushfires through fire belt will improve the ecosystem and plant cover which have positive environmental impact and to a large extent rainfall pattern.
Moreover, gender equality and equity, and social inclusion is a priority area of the project. Central to achieving this, the project would ensure equal representation of both men and women as beneficiaries. Special livelihood interventions such as bee farming, poultry farming, tree nursery establishment and orchard farming under the project would target and economically empower women and vulnerable groups (disabled, widows) whilst strengthening their adaptive capacity to climate change. Women, the disabled and any other vulnerable groups would be encouraged to partake in all project activities (meetings, reviews, durbars, consultations, and sensitization)
The PMT would constitute at least one female who would automatically be the assistant team leader if she is not voted for as team leader.
Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment
Hold public meetings and organize press tours
Inovative Financial Mechanisms
Hope Alive 360 Foundation would capture and document project results, lessons learned, and best practices realized. The proponent would exhibit, share, and disseminate the results and findings to the communities, District Assembly, other CBOs/NGOs and other key stakeholders in end of project review meetings. New knowledge would be peer reviewed and validated by the District Assembly (MoFA), Global shapers online community and GEF/SGP. Project results would be made accessible and available on the proponent?s website and other online platforms to allow knowledge sharing, learning and exchange to promote scale up impact as well as inform policy.
Also, as part of knowledge management, there will be periodic stakeholder engagements to discuss and document successes and failures in the project implementation.
Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods
Sale of certified traditional medicinal drugs
Notable Community Participation
The Youth would be central in the project implementation. Before implementation starts, there will be stakeholder?s engagement that will be organized for role sharing to be done. The beneficiary communities will lead most of the activities such as the planting of plant species, creating of fire belts among others. Regarding monitoring and evaluation, the organization will adopt the participatory approach where all relevant stakeholders will effectively participate in the process through monitoring meetings periodically to document challenges and successes and learn from them to improve project implementation so that the objectives can be attained.
Policy Impact
Yes
Capacity - Building Component
a. Low capacity of traditional health practitioners in processing of herbal drugs.
b. low capacity in good packaging practices and storage.
c. low capacity in basic Business Management
Project Results
Activities undertaken in the first phase of the project
1.1 Conduct Community Assessment:
To ensure the buy-in and support of the community for successful implementation of the project, a community- needs assessment was conducted. Major stakeholders such as chiefs, opinion leaders all participated in the assessment to discuss project goals and objectives and how the project will impact on the livelihoods of the communities.
1.2 Form and Train Project Management Team :
The project was officially launched on the 27th January, 2022 at Bofie. In attendance were representatives from the Banda District Assembly, the Director of the Department of Agric directorate, the traditional authorities, and opinion leaders.
After the opening formalities, the Executive Director of Hope Alive 360 Foundation highlighted on the overall project objectives, implementation strategies and expected outcomes of the project. He also took the opportunity to introduce and thank the granting agency UNDP/GEF/SGP. The Executive Director was very grateful for the support from UNDP/GEF/SGP. He appealed to stakeholder to play their part for the successful implementation of the project so that further funds could be sourced from the same organization for future interventions.
The project was officially launched by Mr. Akwasi Agyei Boadi, a Deputy Coordinating Director of the Banda District Assembly on behalf of the District Chief Executive. He was full of praise for Hope Alive 360 Foundation and UNDP/GEF/SGP for the intervention and expressed the Assembly's preparedness to support the project. He appealed to the herbal practitioners and the communities to work towards the successful implementation of the project since it has the potential to creating employment and protecting the environment.
A project management committee was formed and launched. The seven (7) member committee was chaired by the Chairman of the Traditional Herbalists with members from the Association and Hope Alive 360 Foundation. The Project Management Team is expected to oversee project implementation.
1.3 Capacity building training sessions organized for traditional herbal practitioners:
The beneficiary members were organized for one day training workshop on the project, its objectives, and expected outcomes. The aim was to help the project beneficiaries to appreciate what is in the project for them and to clear any myths or concerns they were having about the intervention and ultimately to get their maximum support and buy-in for the project?s successful implementation.
1.4 Purchase and install machines for processing herbal medicine
To ensure value addition to the products of the traditional herbal medicine practitioners, a processing facility is to be establish as part of the project. The facility has since been established suitable for processing of herbal medicine. The facility has a processing room, store, changing area, washrooms, office and a small conference room as well as store. A borehole has been dug but yet to be operational since the facility is yet to be connected to electricity. Processing machines have been installed
1.5 Project monitoring, Evaluation and Management:
Project monitoring and management is very crucial to achieve the expected objectives and outcomes of the project. It is a means to measure success or otherwise of the project and to inform the needed reviews and adjustments to project implementation through lessons learnt. To this end, the Monitoring, evaluation and learning team paid periodic visits to the project site to meet with the Project Management team. This created an opportunity to bring the experience of the PMT to bear on the project implementation leading to crucial reviews of project activities such as preparing the nursery this quarter instead of the next quarter due to the climatic conditions in the area.
1.6. Mobilize and register traditional herbal practitioners.
A database of traditional herbal practitioners has been developed.
1.7. Register traditional health practitioners under traditional herbalists? association and Food and Drugs Authority:
The Traditional herbal practitioners have been registered with both the regional and national branches as well as the Food and Drugs Authority.
The following are activities undertaken in the second phase:
Electrical works at processing facility were completed and connected to the national grid with a two-faced meter to ensure that there is stable power to the facility when processing machines are installed eventually.
An overhead water tank with 3,000 litters capacity was installed and a borehole was constructed and made operational. The relevance of water to the processing of herbal medicine was to ensure a reliable source of water for the processing facility.
Twenty selected health practitioners were trained by both the Food and Drugs Authority and the Department of Herbal Medicine of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The training was aimed at how products could meet standards for approval by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) for approval as well as scientific methods of herbal medicine processing. The following underpinned the objectives of the training.
Objectives of the Training
i. To ensure that herbal practitioners are conversant with the regulatory environment of the herbal medicine practice.
ii. To ensure that herbal medicine practitioners use modern approaches to manufacturing.
iii. To introduce participants to branding and packaging and its impact on products.
iv. Using healthy herbs for medicine manufacturing.
Best practices in herbal processing were investigated and the required equipment were identified. The machines are yet to be purchased.
Tools and equipment such as shovels, rakes, fencing nets and seedlings were acquired during the quarter under review. The tools and equipment were used to undertake practical training of the community on nursery management and used for preparing the site and the nursery beds.
Meeting regulatory standards for any product is very key to ensuring not only business sustainability but it is also key to building trust with customers and the public at large. To ensure that some of the herbal medicine products meet regulatory standards, the Food and Drugs Authority has since paid, an inspection visit to the production facility and has since given their recommendations as to what needed to be done next including painting the facility with oil paint instead of emulsion and taken some of the samples for analysis which are awaiting approval
To ensure community participation and project ownership and for that matter sustainability, community members were sensitized on tree nursing and transplanting. This was to ensure that the growth of herbal medicine agroforestry was done with the active participation of beneficiaries and also not only to ensure the sustainability of herbal medicine practice but also to ensure environmental sustainability. To this end, the community was mobilized and sensitized on tree nursery and transplanting. The nurseries have since been done and seedlings transplanted at the Bofie site which has been acquired for that purpose. This was however preceded by the training of the nursery management committee and the acquisition of tools and equipment in the last quarter.
Project monitoring and management are crucial to achieving the expected objectives and outcomes of the project. It is a means to measure the success or otherwise of a project and to inform the needed reviews and adjustments to project implementation through lessons learned. To this end, the Monitoring, evaluation, and learning team paid periodic visits to the project site to meet with the Project Management team. This created an opportunity to bring the experience of the PMT to bear on the project implementation leading to crucial reviews of project activities such as the need to fence the processing facility and connect same to the national electricity grid amongst others.
Activities planned but not completed in this reporting period and reasons for delay
All planned activities were executed.
Activities planned to be completed in the next reporting period.
Train traditional herbal practitioners on basic business management practices.
Complete the registration and approval of herbal medicine products.
Project management, monitoring and evaluation.
Painting the processing facility.
Experience, lessons learnt and issues in this reporting period.
The involvement and participation of stakeholders like traditional leaders, the department of Agriculture, as well as the Banda District Assembly, induced their buy-in which has been key to the successful implementation of project activities. Further, the involvement of the District Health Directorate to not only introduces the project to them but to seek their technical input has been very beneficial to the whole enterprise.
2. The active participation of the project beneficiaries brought local knowledge and experience to bear on project implementation.
3 The use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as well as traditional media has projected the project nationally and internationally. For instance, Global Environment Facility Global (GEF), Small Grants Program and UNDP ?Ghana and other environmentally and climate-biased organizations have all retweeted/liked tweets on the project from Hope Alive 360 Twitter handle
4. The visit by the United Nations Resident Representative and the GEF/SGF country team as part of the 30th anniversary of the Global Environment Facility Small Grant Programme was very remarkable during the reporting period.
4. In this reporting period the prices of goods and services increased significantly than what was planned for thereby affecting project budget.
