Community Micro-Projects

Community micro-projects are designed to benefit everyone in the community. Projects are chosen by the community together and are funded by them up to at least 50%.

Micro-projects are, in the main, attractive to agro-pastoralist communities. These are communities that decided to diversify their livelihoods by adding crop farming to livestock rearing. Most of the agro-pastoralists in Somali Region were pastoralists until one or two generations ago, when they settled along the river belt having lost livestock due to conflict or drought. The ability to adapt as circumstances change is a feature of pastoralists’ livelihood strategies, and is therefore encouraged.

However the enclosure of land for farming is depriving mobile pastoralists of high quality grazing land – along riverbanks and in valley bottoms – and reducing access to resources which are particularly important at times of drought. Any increase in farming raises competition over access to land and water between herders and farmers, and restricts pastoralists’ options further. Projects designed to support these more settled agro-pastoralist communities are analysed carefully by EPAG and the community to ensure that the overall sustainability of both the mobile and sedentary community is taken into consideration.

Micro-projects include work such as repairing schools, borehole maintenance and community restocking.

To read more about EPAG Community Micro-projects Gari School Water Project – case study.