Bhutan’s economy is essentially agrarian, with 79% of the population being dependent on agriculture and livestock. Moreover, 75% of the workforce is engaged in the Renewable Natural Resources (RNR) sector. In this context, measures taken in the agriculture sector have a direct bearing on the lives of the majority of the country’s population.
In Bhutan, the RNR Sector faces complex challenges in achieving its mandate of producing food, providing employment and increasing cash income earnings of the farmers. However, addressing these issues is currently hampered by a limited capacity to analyse policy options and devise suitable strategies. This project will support development of thematic policy pa-pers and enhance the capacity for policy analysis and formulation within the RNR sector.
The main goal of the project is to enhance capacity to analyse policy options and devise suitable strategies for producing food, fostering gainful employment and increasing cash in-come earnings of the farmers in Bhutan through a combination of practical policy analysis and targeted capacity building.
The project pursues the following objectives:
1. Contribute to practical policy formulation on selected RNR issues.
2. Strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture in policy analysis and development.
The project partners include the Policy and Planning Division (PPD), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) of the Royal Government of Bhutan, the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC) through the Helvetas/SDC, Programme Coordination Office in Thimphu and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington through the IFPRI South Asian Regional office, New Delhi.
The duration of this project is three years, with a planned start on 1st March 2006. The total budget is Nu 29,613,200 or US$ 673,027, which is expected to be co-financed by SDC, IF-PRI and PPD-MoA. Of this amount it is proposed that SDC will finance Nu 9,896,600 (US$ 224,923) or 34%. SDC funds will be managed by IFPRI and invested in project coordination and management, capacity building, and thematic policy analysis.
The PPD will, through the DANIDA-funded Decentralised Natural Resource Management Component, provide 34% of the funding, largely for the thematic policy analysis, policy dia-logue, and for documentation. The DNRM Project’s DANIDA advisor will also be available to support the thematic research and fieldwork.
IFPRI will contribute 33%, through the provision of resource people for capacity building and research collaboration. It will include payment for technical assistance, use of space and fa-cilities at IFPRI offices in Washington and Delhi.
The bulk of the project will be implemented through the established RGoB systems. Project progress and yearly planning will be discussed at nn annual meeting between PPD, IFPRI and RGoB. PPD will provide regular quarterly progress reports to IFPRI and SDC and IFPRI will provide annual progress and financial report directly to SDC. An evaluation team set up by the 3 parties to the project will carry out a final evaluation of the project.
