(Extracted from SPFS/DOC/24 Rev. 1)

OUTLINE OF A
SPECIAL PROGRAMME FOR FOOD SECURITY
NATIONAL PROGRAMME DOCUMENT

Introduction

This is a revised outline to be used in preparing a National Programme Document (NPD) for the Special Programme on Food Security (SPFS) which replaces earlier outlines. It is intended for use by Government staff and/or national consultants, working under the guidance of FAO Representatives and/or staff of the Investment Centre (TCI). If consultants have questions relating to the scope of the NPD, they should contact the designated FAO staff member.

The NPD provides an overview of the national setting for the Special Programme, an outline of the programme strategy and a preliminary indication of its scope, including a description of its intended components and activities derived from initial participatory field work amongst the intended beneficiaries, including for each component the objectives, outputs, activities, inputs and budgets required, workplans and institutional arrangements. It indicates linkages with other current or planned activities in support of food security. Complementary and more detailed documents will be prepared on each component separately in the form of detailed project proposals, usually set out in the format required by the prospective financing agency.

The National Programme Document will provide the basis for an agreement between the Government and FAO on the objectives and scope of the Special Programme. It can also be used by Governments in approaching multi- and bi-lateral donors to establish their interest in co-financing the Special Programme.

THE OUTLINE

I. CONTEXT (up to 10 pages)

Note: much of the material for this Chapter can be drawn from the draft country paper in the series "Strategy for National Agricultural Development - Horizon 2010" (SNAD), prepared by FAO, supplemented by more recent Government policy statements and sector reviews.

Country Indicators (summary table updated from FAO draft SNAD Report or other recent sources).

A. Food Security Trends

Nutritional indicators and causes of malnutrition: definition of population at risk

Food demand and sources of supply

B. Economic and Social Policies

Macroeconomic policies

The role of the public and private sectors

Poverty alleviation and food security policies

C. The Agricultural Sector

Contribution to the economy

Natural resources, land use and development potential

Agrarian structure and tenure systems

Production technologies and performance

• Rainfed
• Irrigated
• Livestock and small game farming
• Forestry and agroforestry
• Fisheries and aquaculture/fish farming
• Institutions
• Research
• Extension
• Post-harvest technology and rural finance
• Marketing
• Input supply
• Plant and animal health
• Environmental protection

On-going and planned projects (Give details of projects relevant or linked to the proposed SPFS activities, highlighting possible complementarities: refer to FAO executed/implemented projects and their implications for the design of the SPFS).

D. Sectoral Objectives, Policies and Programmes

Analysis of national policies for food security and agricultural and rural development: refer to goals, expressed in terms of access to food, output, rural incomes and other indicators of welfare; and outline the main policies and programmes through which these would be obtained.

Highlight any on-going or planned programmes of special relevant to the SPFS.

II. THE SPECIAL PROGRAMME (10-15 pages)¹

A. Rationale for a Special Programme Initiative

Referring back to Part I, explain why the country wishes to launch an SPFS operation, indicating the particular constraints and opportunities (identified through stakeholder consultation) which it wishes to address through pilot level activities, and demonstrating how this fits in the broader planning perspective and with other initiatives (e.g. reform of extension service, formulation of Agricultural Sector Investment Programme (ASIP) etc. Authors may wish to summarise the rationale in a matrix showing the major constraints being faced by farmers and the actions to be taken by the Programme to address them.

B. Objectives

Describe what the Government wishes to achieve from the SPFS, in terms both of the immediate goals of the Phase I setting numbers of sites and farmers to be involved etc.) and of the longer-term aims of improving national and household food security.

C. Programme Strategy

Explain how the Programme will be designed to achieve these goals, where appropriate reviewing various options and justifying the proposed approach. Explain how the SPFS builds on or is linked to other initiatives in the field of food security, including other FAO activities.

Selection of programme components

Justify the selection of the major components (or activities) to be included in the Special Programme, showing why they are of central importance in a programme for demonstrating means of increasing agricultural output on a sustainable basis. Show how they fit with the SPFS concept of 4 major, ideally inter-related, components (see D, below).

Present an overview of the longer-term goals of the Programme, and show how Phase I and Phase II are linked.

Area selection:

a: Phase I (description in Annex) b: Phase II

Set out the criteria applied in selecting areas for the Phase I, taking account, for instance, of their high potential and importance in national food supplies; their replicability; the availability of suitable technologies for demonstration; the interest of the population, the high concentration of rural poverty, etc.

Product selection

Justify the selection of the agricultural products on which the Programme would concentrate, in relation, for instance, to their importance in the national or local diet, the extent to which they could contribute to higher or more stable incomes for poor farmers, to improvements in farming system sustainability, or to import substitution. Teams preparing the programme should bear in mind that the SPFS is not concerned only with staple crops but with the intensification and diversification of farming systems in the broad sense, including high value crops for sale, livestock, aquaculture, agroforestry etc.

Demonstration options

Explain the choice of activities selected for demonstration, showing how they address constraints faced by farmers and particularly rural women. Where the demonstrations focus on improved technologies, the emphasis should be on low-cost technologies, which farmers can afford and can manage without undue reliance on continued external technical or financial support. Demonstrations need not be exclusively "technological" in the narrow sense but Governments are encouraged to use the SPFS to demonstrate better ways of supporting sustainable improvements in agriculture and food security (e.g. new extension approaches, demonstration of land consolidation approaches in irrigated areas, demonstration of new rural finance systems, etc.). The aim is to use the Phase I for demonstrating promising methods and technologies for farming systems improvement, including related "upstream" and "downstream" activities, which can be replicated on a larger scale with confidence. Set out financ al and economic data and criteria used in selecting choice of activities.

Scale

Explain the factors taken into account in setting the scale of the Programme during its Phase I (e.g. seriousness of food security problem, resource constraints, risk mitigation; institutional constraints, confidence in proposed solutions, etc.).

Institutional strategy

Explain the institutional strategy for the project: for instance the choice of lead agency; whether the project is to be run exclusively by the public service or with the involvement of the private sector, NGOs etc.; mechanisms for ensuring effective stakeholder participation, etc.

Phasing

Justify the proposed length of the Phase I and the timing of the start of different components.

D. Components

Provide a summary description of the overall Programme and its constituent components, its proposed duration, making reference to surveys, studies or more detailed reports (where these exist) on specific components. For management and monitoring purposes, SPFS activities are classified into four but usually inter-related main categories which should, if possible, be retained in the presentation. The concept of constraints analysis and resolution is built into the planning, monitoring and execution of each of these components as a cross-cutting feature of the Programme.

• Water Control:the demonstration of practical measures for improving moisture availability for crops to protect production against the vagaries of the climate. This includes small-scale low-cost irrigation systems suitable for construction and operation largely by rural communities without undue dependence on external support: these could be dependent on water harvesting, use of rainfall run-off, gravity diversions from small streams, micro-dams and tanks, hand pumping from shallow wells, etc. Also included could be land development and drainage systems, on-farm water management improvements and modifications in land husbandry methods aimed at improving in situ retention and utilisation of rainfall. As in the case of other components, the SPFS would normally support the demonstration not only of better technologies but also of improved support services. Support for agricultural intensification (see below) would normally be associated with these water control activities from the outset to ensure e rly benefits and a quick return on the investments.
• Intensification: the demonstration of sustainable systems for increasing farm output, suitable for widespread adoption by farmers, including changes in crop calendar (e.g. introducing an additional crop season, new rotations, inter-cropping systems), the use of improved genetic materials (e.g. high yielding or composite varieties, disease resistant varieties), farmer-saved seed, integrated plant nutrition systems, integrated pest management and post-harvest systems to cut storage loss. The component may also include activities in extension, input supply, rural finance and marketing to overcome constraints faced by farmers and thereby improve incomes.
• Diversification: the demonstration of options for diversifying farming systems to make them more resilient to adverse events (e.g. weather, price variations pests and diseases), improve household nutrition and income, and take advantage of technical complementarity (e.g. integration of crop and livestock systems) As with the other components, storage could be improved/established to take advantage of price fluctuations. Diversification could, for example, include introduction of livestock into traditional arable farming systems - especially small stock such as backyard poultry, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, bee-keeping, small-game farming, etc. This category may also include the introduction of fish farming, possibly linked to irrigation systems (stocking of tanks, rice-fish systems etc.), and agro-forestry aimed at meeting fuel and construction needs and contributing to farming system sustainability.
• Analysis of constraints to food security: systematic studies, based on the experience of the pilot activities and feed-back from participants, aimed at identifying constraints impeding increases in food production, productivity and farm incomes, and proposing means for their resolution. These would cover constraints to farm-level profitability and to access to technology, land, inputs, storage, marketing and credit, as well as constraints of a policy, institutional or environmental nature. While there may be cases in which such constraints analysis is appropriately treated as a separate component, it can also be envisaged as an integral part of the management and monitoring of the programme's other components.

The Phase I should also contain provision for the studies required to formulate a Phase II of the Programme, using participative methods and drawing on the findings of constraints analysis activities.

Ideally the Phase I should support demonstrations in all of the above thematic areas, integrating them at the same site wherever possible for added impact. Whether this is possible will depend on local situations, the interest of intended beneficiaries, institutional capacities and financial resources. In some cases a phased approach may be necessary, in which case in many countries the best "entry point" is likely to be water control. Pilot activities can then be extended, as resources are mobilised, to other thematic areas and to additional sites representative of diverse ecological, ethnic and administrative situations.

Component Description

(i) Phase I
The purpose of this section is to arrive at a comprehensive description containing an overview of all components to be implemented, in up to 30 sites, including 3-4 sites for urban and peri-urban agriculture, covering all agro-ecological zones of the countries. It should be presented in a modular way, so that components can be easily converted into stand alone sub-projects for a particular donor.

• FAO itself from SPFS (or RP) resources, in which case a format for Trust Fund projects should be used, or TCP, in which case the TCP format should be used;
• A bilateral Trust Fund, in which case a TF format should be used;
• A multilateral project, in which case the appropriate format should be used, such as UNDP;
• unilateral Trust Fund, in which case the format should be used of the financial institution concerned, e.g. World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), Islamic Development Bank, etc.
• (a) For each component
  a) Describe briefly the background and justification (including the proposed actions, areas/provinces, districts, sites to be covered and number of farmers expected to participate); the objectives, outputs and activities (for each objective one or more outputs; for each output one or more activities); and a list of inputs and services.

(b) Programme Management
b) With reference to institutional arrangements, indicate the inputs to be provided under the Programme in support of overall SPFS management, including those related to staff, equipment, vehicles, technical assistance, including South-South Cooperation, TCDC and technical advisory services from FAO, etc.

(ii) Phase II (preliminary)
escribe briefly the likely scope of the Phase II of the SPFS, assuming that Phase I activities yield positive results. The Phase II would normally consist of three complementary components:

c) Policy Reform: a programme of agricultural policy reform aimed at addressing macro-level economic, legal and institutional constraints identified in the Phase I, thereby contributing to an environment which is favourable to investment in rural areas, expanded agricultural production, sustainable use of land and water resources, trade, processing and access to food.

d) Investment: a medium-term (3 years) investment programme, adjusted annually in response to feedback on performance, to broaden the uptake of innovations successfully demonstrated in the Phase I and to remove physical constraints to expanded production and marketing: this would be funded from a combination of private and public sources, both domestic and external.

e) Bankable projects: the preparation of feasibility studies of bankable projects for financing by financial institutions.

E. Phasing, Costs and Financing (Phase I)

Preliminary estimates (by year, component and major category of expenditure) of costs for the Phase I. Indicate expected sources of finance: government, multi-lateral and bi-lateral projects, beneficiaries, FAO. Annex 2, Appendix 1 contains a sample of a three-year budget, consistent with the FAO budget/accounting system, which may be used to prepare the budgets for each component. As necessary make reference to any project

F. Expected Benefits and Impact

The text of this section should identify what specific types of ex ante information is to be provided. This might include:

• Target population within country, including size and sub-regional (agro-ecological zone) location;
• Expected percentage of population which might be affected;
• Key factors or assumptions affecting the probability of success;
• Any expected secondary or spillover benefits, e.g. multiplier effects on rural employment, spread into nearby marginal areas, decreased food imports;
• Ex-ante calculated internal rates of return (if can be calculated);
• Distributional consequences by location and gender.

G. Next Steps: Sustainability, Assessment and Follow-up

The institutional and environmental sustainability of the Programme should be assessed. A schedule of activities to be undertaken to activate the Programme, with clear attribution of responsibilities.

Map(s) (To be included)

Tables (To be included)

ANNEXES (To be included)

1. Project Area(s)

2. Technology Options

3. Detailed Cost Estimates

4. Terms of Reference for Studies, etc.

1 For an overview of the SPFS, see SPFS Overview Handbook (SPFS/DOC/23).