Laura Puletti of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) visited Indonesia from July 1st to 8th to meet RUPES project management team and visited the project’s research sites. Once a year, IFAD organizes supervision missions to discuss with partners implementation progress and challenges of grants programmes in line with IFAD mandate that include, among others, focus on: pro-poor participatory approach, targeting, gender mainstreaming as well as monitoring and evaluation.

During the discussions with RUPES project management and beneficiaries at various levels, Laura Puletti raised questions on gender inclusion, stakeholders participation, risk management, support to villagers, monitoring of activities, and communication issues.

“We need to work together to ensure RUPES achieves its goals and IFAD’s mandate is better integrated into project implementation,” said Laura Puletti emphasizing the importance of starting thinking about the project’s exit strategy. Supported by IFAD since 2003, RUPES is now on its second phase and will end in September 2012.

Singkarak Site
On the visit to Singkarak Lake of West Sumatra, where RUPES is facilitating a voluntary carbon trade between an overseas private company and local famers, Laura Puletti pointed out the need to strengthen the existing local organization, Yayasan Danau Singkarak, to fully function as the future development facilitator once RUPES is no longer working in the area.

“We also need to help the Singkarak farmers to cure the clove tree disease. Sending a Ph.D student to do some field research can be a starting point and would help villagers and RUPES team to assess risks on the proposed planting activity.” suggested Laura Puletti who had carefully listened to Singkarak farmers stories on clove tree disease spreading in the area since the 50s. Clove is the main income of these villagers (more than 70%) and represents 37% of the total trees planted by the farmers in the current voluntary carbon trade scheme. Failure to manage this disease will seriously affect RUPES investments in the area.

Kuningan Site
In the second RUPES research site visited, Kuningan of West Java, Laura Puletti was involved in meetings in the office of the Gunung Ciremai National Park, watching the dynamics of an open discussion among watershed stakeholders. RUPES and partners in Kuningan have just started to facilitate the establishment of a multi-stakeholder forum to manage Gunung Ciremai watershed taking example from a similar forum in Cidanau, another RUPES site in Java Island. Laura Puletti also visited an upstream village that has been “selling” water to a downstream village for the last four years and is now being supported by RUPES and partners to establish a more profitable environmental service scheme. By the end of the visit, Laura Puletti had a chat with members of a women group producing crackers mlinjo to better understand women involvement in decision making at village level.

“RUPES needs to ensure women participation in strategic decisions regarding village development in general and contract with buyers in particular” commented Laura Puletti observing that women in villages lacked information on RUPES activities and were not included in village committees.

Bogor Seminar
Part of this IFAD Supervision Mission was a one day seminar during which RUPES site leaders and working partners presented their programmes and provided latest updates. Attended by the Regional Coordinator of World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF-SEA) – Dr Ujjwal Pradhan and IFAD Country Programme Facilitator for Indonesia, Ms Anissa Lucky, the seminar was conducted at RUPES office on the 7th of July. Recently produced RUPES video, Mud To Power – about the reward in form of hydropower generator to upland farmers for their efforts to reduce sedimentation to a downstream hydro power dam, was screened during the seminar. Laura Puletti also made use of this event to present some feedbacks from her field visit and discussions. Find below the complete list of presentations during the day.

Presentation (Presenter - Organization) >>> Click to download.
RUPES: A Glance of Its Contributions to Global Public Goods (Beria Leimona - World Agroforestry Centre)
Village Forest, Jambi (Elok Mulyoutami - World Agroforestry Centre)
Gender Study at RUPES Sites (Siti Amanah - Women Study: Bogor Agricultural University)
Carbon Measurement Singkarak (Degi Harja (World Agroforestry Centre)
RUPES Cidanau (np Rahadian - Rekonvasi Bhumi)
RUPES in Aceh (Tisna Nando - UNESCAP)
RUPES Philippines Updates (Emma Abasolo - RUPES Philippines)
Institutional Strengthening of the COMMITTEES and Scale Up of the PES Mechanism in Citarum (Triyaka - LP3ES)