Publications

This report presents the findings of a mission conducted to assess the possible institutional set-up for the proposed biogas project in Lao PDR by relying on field visits, interviews, and a workshop.

The mission has concluded that the available institutional context of Lao PDR has sufficient potential to execute all needed functions of the proposed biogas project, except for the provision of credits. Further, suitable actors for the required functions in the biogas project have been identified. Eligible farmers would be responsible for the operation and maintenance of plants. Various actors from the government and civil society sector would be accountable for promoting biogas plants. Private companies and NGOs would both account for the construction and after-sales service. Credit provision was to be executed by multiple actors which were not determined yet.

The most often mentioned actors for training were Science Technology and Environment Agency-STEA/Technology Research Institute-TRI, National University of Laos-NUoL and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry-MAF, and STEA/TRI and National Agriculture & Forestry Research Institute-NAFRI for Research and Development. The Biogas Project Coordination Office was suggested for quality control, while MAF agents and farmer groups were to account for the extension on bio-slurry use. Private consultants and independent NGOs were to be responsible for monitoring and evaluation. As for the coordination and implementation level, office establishment between SNV and MAF was seen as the best option. A Biogas Project Steering Committee was determined as most suitable for coordinating policy level.

The report focuses on the efforts of the Biogas Pilot Programme (BPP) and SNV in developing expertise on bio-slurry management and utilisation. They aim to capacitate the extension workers for the promotion and transfer of knowledge to the biogas famers in order to increase their yield and soil fertility for sustainability land use. The objectives were two-fold: 

• To increase the yield of the farmer by enhancing and promoting on bio-slurry management and utilisation for the famers who have a plant;
• To raise manure awareness and reduce chemical fertiliser on agriculture producing for the farmers.

The report concludes that, even though the training on bio-slurry is not a new topic for the BPP, the process and mythology on this training was new, also the content. The trainer and advisor tried to find out local appropriate methods and content useful for participants. This can be used in the real situation for Lao PDR to increase the yield and income for the farmer. In this training, the participants learnt a lot about bio-slurry management and utilization and they had practiced this in the field.

All the tools and the methods that were used in the training were useful and can help the extension workers on provincial level to train their staff.  Bio-slurry use can also help to increase GDP, especially because bio-slurry will save our nature and land use will become more sustainable. The Terms of Reference for Local Capacity Builder to support on conducting bio-slurry mission is included.

Biogas user survey pilot programme 2007 in Lao PDR, 2007, 56 pages.

This field study evaluates the performance of existing biogas plants under the framework of the Biogas Pilot Programme (BPP) in Lao PDR. Study findings indicated that out of the theoretical quantity of available dung, only 44% was fed into the plant. Further, 95% of the households produced the required quantity of feeding materials, and the water-dung ration was correct in 80% of the cases. The collective  performance efficiency of the biogas plants was 97%, but when viewed from the overall size of biogas plant, efficiency dropped to 73% because of lesser feeding than required. Study findings also indicated that gas was sufficient in only 85% and that in order to meet the total demand the average feeding rate needed to be increased from the existing 25.45kg/plant/day to 32.59kg/plant/day. The general physical condition of 85% of the plants was good and all plants were functioning. The overall study outcome indicated that the existing biogas plants were functioning at a satisfactory level and affecting the users positively. The functional plants have also been found to serve as effective tools for the promotion and extension of the technology.

Based on the findings, thorough recommendations were designed for implementation. Some of them stated the need for effective post-construction services, training course design on effective composting, handling and application of slurry, placing quality as a prime concern of the biogas programme, etc. All recommendations, as well as detailed description of the findings can be found in the report.

This is a presentation of the general findings of the Biogas Users’ Survey – 2008. The presentation contains information on the following subjects:

•  Overview of biogas plants visited
•  Socio-economic data
•  Age of biogas plants and costs of installation
•  Information on feeding and gas production
•  Frequency of operational activities
•  Common problems reported
•  Sufficiency of gas
•  Functioning of biogas plants
•  Level of users’ satisfaction
•  Physical condition of plants and components
•  Use of fuel sources and saving
•  Time saving
•  IRR of 4 cum biogas plant
•  Benefits, demerits and recommendations by users

This study provides accurate assessment of the level of impact achieved by the Biogas Pilot Programme (BPP) in terms of health and sanitation, saving conventional energy sources, workload reduction, and soil fertility when bio-slurry is used as fertiliser.

Study findings indicated that people have a generally positive attitude towards biogas and they are aware of many of its advantages. Saving time and energy, and receiving a subsidy were seen as the main reasons for the installation. Further, 83% of users were fully satisfied with the plant, while the remaining were only partially satisfied because of its inability to meet their total demand. In terms of workload reduction, findings revealed that an average household saved 63minutes a day by using biogas. Saving of conventional energy sources (fuel wood, electricity, LPG, charcoal) is also an important positive impact of biogas, which has also brought financial benefits in terms of reduced or eliminated use of cooking fuels. As for bio-slurry, 47% of users rated slurry as effective as farm-yard manure (FYM), and another 47% saw it as better than FYM. In terms of health and sanitation, 36% of users reported an improvement of eye diseases which were present before the installation.

Based on the study findings, recommendations for future improvement were designed on five levels: alternative strategies to target the poorer households, feedstock supply, alternative promotion strategies, improvement of after-sales service, and biogas equipment package. All recommendations, as well as detailed description of the findings can be found in the report.

The Lao Biogas Pilot Project (BPP) was established in November 2006 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between SNV and the Department of Livestock and Fisheries (DLF) inside the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The aim of the BPP is to establish a sustainable commercial market for the deployment of household biogas digester technology, resulting in the reduction of biomass resource depletion and a significant improvement in the quality of life of the families concerned.

An important part of the BPP’s monitoring plan is to conduct a survey of biogas users (BPP customers) once a year. This provides data on the level of impact that the program is having, and can also indicate trends and issues for management attention. Similar surveys are conducted by the SNV biogas programs in other countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia. This allows some benchmarking and learning opportunities. The first Biogas User Survey (BUS) in Laos was conducted in December 2007, the second survey was conducted in January 2009 and the third survey was conducted in June 2010.

The Building Independence, Income and Empowerment (BIIE) of Smallholder Farmers Project began operating in January 2012. The project started its operation by placement of staffs and setting up operating processes and procedures and selecting appropriate millers interested to work with the project in supporting smallholder farmer groups. The project selected 14 rice mills due to high demand from the millers to participate in the project. These millers organised 3,415 farmers into rice production groups including five rice seed production groups. In addition to these preparatory steps, the project has also collected baseline data from the farmers in the target area and started supporting selected rice millers in formation of new farmer groups and re-organising existing farmer groups. The project facilitated millers to provide high yield variety of seed and extension training to the farmer groups in the wet season2012. A process of preparing inclusive business plan for all participating rice mills have been started with first round of training on business plan.

During implementation of the activities, the project team has realized that some of the activities could be combined for effectiveness and implemented accordingly. Some of the trainings such as training of millers on farmer group formation have been conducted in the field together with farmer groups. This has provided millers and government stakeholder to have real life experience in formation of farmer groups. BIIE project covers only two out of six EMRIP provinces. Lao Extension for Agriculture Project (LEAP) has shown interest to provide full support to another two provinces and complementary support to two provinces covered by BIIE. The support will be mainly focus on Extension Service through Public Private Partnership. This initiative has been operation since March 2012 with a separate team from Helvetas and SNV.

The Lao Biogas Pilot Programme gives Lao farmers the possibility to purchase a biogas digester. So far a number of 787 digesters have been built since the start of the pilot programme in 2007. Domestic biogas digesters, built under the “Lao Biogas Pilot Programme”, are reducing greenhouse gases from four different sources and can be eligible for carbon financing.

This case study first presents the context of the programme after which it describes the opportunities and barriers (institutional, financial and technical) of developing small bio energy programmes like biogas with a carbon component and the roles that various stakeholders could play in the process in Laos. The study finishes with lessons learned and four key factors are identified as main drivers for a successful development of a carbon project:

• the availability of resources;
• a thorough feasibility assessment;
• good planning and timing and;
• stakeholder coordination.

The document presents the summaries of the 12 case studies used to illustrate SNV practices which contributed to the writing of the practice brief N° 4 focusing on Gender and Agriculture (see: www.snvworld.org/en/sectors/agriculture/publications/gender-and-agriculture-practice-brief). The summaries provide an insight of the gender issue and what practices SNV implemented to address to this specific constraint. The document also offers you hyperlinks at the end of each summary to enable you read the full intervention.

The Enhancing Milled Rice Production in Lao PDR Project (EMRIP) was jointly funded by the Food Facility of the European Union (90%) under its ‘facility for rapid response to soaring food prices in developing countries (2009) and Helvetas/SNV (10%). EMRIP built on the experiences of earlier work of SNV’s Rice Value Chain programme, and Helvetas’ Organic rice (PRORICE) programme It expanded to work in 6 provinces, and introduced additional elements notably; upgrading mills through grants of equipment, and policy dialogue to address bottlenecks in rice trade system in Lao PDR. The overall project budget was €2,348,124 over a relatively short implementation period of 23 months. The key implementation partners were the two NGOs; Helvetas and SNV with the national partner; Department of Agriculture of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. This final evaluation was carried out by an external consultant with substantial experience in the agriculture sector development in Lao PDR.

Official coverage figures for rural water supply make us hopeful - MDG targets for water will likely be met. Yet, the disappointing reality is that only a fraction of this is functional and providing regular water supply that is safe for drinking. The premature deterioration of ‘improved’ water supply makes unreliable and unsafe water services a daily reality for large parts of the rural population in Asia.

SNV recognises that providing functional and sustainable water supply services is a challenge that goes far beyond coverage at a given point in time. Increased capacity at all levels is essential for sustainability.

Official coverage figures for rural water supply make us hopeful – as the MDG targets for water will likely be met. Yet, the disappointing reality is that only a fraction of this is functional and providing regular water supply that is safe for drinking. The premature deterioration of ‘improved’ water supply makes unreliable and unsafe water services a daily reality for large parts of the rural population in Asia.

G4E guidelines for collection of data (e.g. baseline study, research, monitoring and evaluation)

This practice brief explores women and gender issues in SNV Netherlands Development Organisation’s support to agricultural value chains in Africa and Asia. Across the two regions there are wide disparities in women’s access to and control over productive resources, service delivery and market opportunities. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies, the Brief describes various ways in which the underlying gender constraints are identified and addressed, through an explicit focus on women’s economic and social empowerment.

This Practice Brief highlights various approaches used to promote gender equality in the agriculture; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); and renewable energy (RE) sectors in Asian countries. SNV Asia has provided extensive capacity-building support in these sectors while putting ‘inclusive development’ at the forefront of the development agenda. The Practice Brief is an attempt to document practices from the field based on successful experiences of SNV in Bhutan, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Nepal and Vietnam. It aims to be a quick reference for development practitioners (within and outside SNV) who are committed to mainstream gender in these three sectors.

La présente note thématique porte sur les questions relatives aux femmes et à l’équité du genre du genre dans l’appui apporté par la SNV -Organisation Néerlandaise de Développement-, aux chaînes de valeur agricoles en Afrique et en Asie. Il existe à travers ces deux régions d’importantes disparités en matière d’accès des femmes aux ressources et aux moyens  de production, aux services ainsi que de leur contrôle et aux possibilités d’accès aux marchés. Se fondant sur une large gamme d’études de cas, cette note décrit différentes façons dont les contraintes de genre sous-jacentes sont identifiées et abordées, en mettant explicitement l’accent sur l’autonomisation économique et l’inclusion  sociale des femmes...

Rice is the most important staple food in Lao PDR, and is produced in almost all regions of the country. In the past, improved rice production has been a key development task in the support provided to Lao PDR. While there has been a large increase in paddy rice production, less attention has been paid to improving the efficiency of handling and milling. This case highlights the ‘Enhanced Milling Rice Production in Lao PDR’ project (EMRIP) which is designed to address these issues. EMRIP recognizes that the private and public sector both have important roles to play in developing the country’s rice sector. Local rice mills offer the highest leverage in the rice value chain, which is why the project worked with (progressive and socially committed) millers who have strong and mutually respectful relationships with smallholder rice farmers.