RURAL SELF-HELP DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION MOKHATLO OA BA ITHUSANG HO ITSEBELETSA METSENG

RSDA's Development Approach

RSDA staff teaching basic business skills

The current activities are implemented in line with RSDA's philosophy of self-help with demand-oriented and participatory approaches to implementation. This approach assesses the actual situation of the rural population at the grassroots level and responds with the implementation of an empowering process that will aid the sustainability of development activities. The necessity of participation is emphasized because in self-help promotion participation locates the initiative and aspirations of the project as residing within the target group, as opposed to goals which are imposed externally in a "top down" approach. Therefore self-help is viewed as an on-going process wherein the affected communities discover their capacity and learns to act more and more autonomously. RSDA also learns to accept their viewpoints and to hand over responsibilities and power. Therefore RSDA's role is to strengthen the awareness in people of their own abilities and resources and support them in mobilizing local human and physical capital and organising themselves to accomplish locally defined goals. Through its continuous involvement in the rural areas, RSDA has been confronted with a wide range of issues critical to sustainable rural growth. Therefore, based on its long experience, RSDA has developed its programmes in such a way that they address the problems of rural Basotho in a way that takes into account the multi-faceted nature of the rural livelihoods. The procedure employed by RSDA is on a strict request basis, either with applications coming from individual farmers, village groups, or village communities. Applications from village communities are followed up by a problem census where the needs are discussed with the whole population of a village in a special meeting.

Furthermore, the motto of RSDA is not to use food-for-work for purposes of enticing villagers to work in development activities, and not to duplicate efforts, but rather to compliment other rural development endeavours taking place in the neighbourhood.

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Projects are therefore implemented if the requesting group is prepared to participate actively by way of providing labour force, and contributing in the expenses of the endeavour. The beneficiaries pay small service fee and a contribution fee ranging between 5% and 25% depending on the activity to be undertaken towards the total cost of the material bought. RSDA would provide technical supervision, tools and any materials not locally available. Needs assessment methodology is continuously updated to incorporate experiences gained through the years. As a further step interested people visit sites where achievements have already been made and enhance discussions amongst the people. It can be assumed that encouragement of dialogue between members of different groups leads to an overall strengthening of self-help initiative, and ensures that implementation of ideas pertaining to development will be successful. Within this approach RSDA staff members work as a team which sees its own role as that of catalyst, facilitator, and reservoir of specialised skills which will be available to the people concerned in developing their own projects.

The Extension system used by RSDA is the generalist approach. Every animator has been allocated a specific area where he/she attends to all development issues. But he/she may assist with specialised services to other areas as a need arises. The formation of informal groups is usually facilitated with the practising farmers. Training of farmers, tutors and masons is supported in order to increase the efficiency of the extension system. Networking with other sister organizations continues in order to investigate on successful innovations which may be adapted in Lesotho.

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