The Fairtrade movement in the Philippines has been around for more than two decades but only few producers, especially farmers, are aware of it. Part of the goal to change this, is to form a Fairtrade Marketing Organization (FMO) in the Philippines that will promote fairtrade certification and increase the sales of fairtrade products.
ASSIST in partnership with FLO-Cert, OURFood and SIGNAsia implemented this project to support the establishment of FMO and increase awareness on the benefits of fairtrade to farmers and businesses.
ASSIST developed awareness raising materials on fairtrade, including international standards for small producers and the certification process. This was achieved through the conduct of workshops, forums and a market research; and strategy to identify commercial partners. The project also secured the commitment of future fairtrade product retailers in the Philippines. Two workshops were conducted in the Visayas region (Bacolod and Cebu) to provide basic information about Fairtrade International, FMO, standards for small producers and the certification processes. This was attended by civil society organizations (CSOs), including farmer organizations and small businesses.
The Philippines is a regional leader in terms of establishing legal frameworks that protect the environment. Laws related to sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in the country include the Clean Air Act, Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Water Act, Biofuels Act and the Renewable Energy Act. Because SCP is a cross cutting issue, the implementation of SCP has remained challenging. The main objective of this EU-SWITCH project has been to support the government in implementing SCP related policy instruments including SCP related laws.
This project aimed to promote SCP in the country (i.e. environmentally and socially equitable development decoupling growth from resource use and pollution) and strengthen national and regional policy frameworks to promote the shift towards more SCP patterns and resource efficiency. ASSIST provided project management, visibility, communications, capacity building and technical assistance to the Department of Energy and other relevant agencies on renewable energy, energy efficiency and green procurement. ASSIST supported the development of an Energy Efficiency Roadmap, the DTI Green Public Procurement Action Plan, Life Cycle Assessment and a National Energy Efficiency Action Plan for the Philippines.
Tourism in the Philippines is a major contributor to the economy and creates local employment. It has grown rapidly and with its high demand for energy, it is also responsible for a large amount of carbon emissions. The project worked on reducing energy consumption by using locally available carbon-neutral resources, reducing the carbon footprint of the tourism industry in the Philippines.
The Zero Carbon Resorts project funded by the European Commission aimed to influence numerous tourism SMEs to operate their facilities in energy-efficient ways and increase their guests’ awareness of energy-saving behaviors. The project also built the capacity and knowledge of intermediaries, engineers, consultants, architects, planners and SME owners and managers on how to diagnose problems related to energy consumption and how to solve those using appropriate solutions. It also prototyped and tested possible solutions (i.e. small-scale solar energy and biomass devices), and influenced policy related to building regulations vis-à-vis energy standards.
ASSIST handled project promotion activities to convince more tourism SMEs to use energy efficient practices. It included the design and development of three training manual handbooks, training toolkits, project website with a database, content management experts with technical expertise on resource efficiency, organizing of two large events for project promotion and promotion of success stories of hotels/resorts.
Small milk farmers play a crucial role in India, one of the world’s top milk markets. Unlike developed nations, in India, currently, 75-80% of milk production still comes from them. However, these farmers face issues that limit their productivity and make it difficult to increase their earnings. With an annual production of 164 million tonnes of milk, the dairy sector in India generates approximately USD 70 billion of revenue a year and is supposed to grow heavily. The past few decades have seen an increase in private sector investment in dairy farming, supply chain, processing facilities and backward integration. Dairy farming is also an important secondary source of income for 70 million rural households in India. These small dairy farmers are also suppliers to many private dairy companies. Most of these farmers lack capacity. They have an average herd size of 2-3 animals that produce only 2-6 litres of milk per cattle per day, just under a third of that in the west.
ASSIST is undertaking the following project with Lactalis – to establish two integrated model dairy farms; capacitate fifty local dairy farmers as cattle custodians to build local capacity and extend technical support; provide advisory support to ten pilot dairy farms of committed, progressive small dairy farmers and transform them into high-productive and profitable dairy farms; promote balanced cattle feed management and clean milk production among 150 dairy farmers; and establish a dairy support center which will have a registry of helpline numbers for farmers to access. It will also have a feed bank that will cater to the year-round supply of cattle feed.
India has the largest number of people with uncorrected vision, with over 500 million people needing vision correction, including 42% of the country’s workforce. A factor contributing to this trend is the lack of availability of qualified human resources especially, in rural areas.
Co-financed by DEG and Essilor Private Limited and implemented by ASSIST, Eye Mitra aimed to provide quality vision correction services at affordable prices for underprivileged rural people in India. The project also facilitated successful candidates to set up small businesses on their own to offer vision care services to rural communities at an affordable price. These micro-entrepreneurs were recognized as Eye Mitra Opticians (EMOs). The project also enabled rural households to access vision care and good quality spectacles (for those who need them) at affordable prices. Thus, the rural youth hitherto unemployed will get her / his livelihood through a more respectable self-employment. With the growth in business, she/he would further employ other rural youth at their own store as supporting hands thereby, creating a replication for self-employment generation in rural areas.
With Eye Mitra, five training centers were set up; 350 youth were skilled and 220 Eye Mitras were qualified; 150 Eye Mitra shops were opened sustaining more than 100 new jobs earning USD 600 per month per EMO; and more than 8000 people’s vision was corrected effectively.
Bangladesh’s textile industry accounts for nearly 79% of export earnings and employs 3.5 million people. Almost 30% of Bangladesh’s industrial sector GDP is fuelled by the USD 17.9 billion industry. The International Finance Corporation has been working on the PACT program, the main objective of which is to help SMEs in textile sector adopt cleaner production practices. Low level of awareness among SMEs and unavailability of local expertise is a big constraint in these projects.
IFC together with ASSIST, engaged in this activity to provide guidance to a few local consultancy firms shortlisted by IFC to deliver CP projects to SMEs in Dhaka and Chittagong, to help in building a local talent pool as well as make the services affordable for the local industry in the future. The overall goal of this assignment, through this activity, was to enhance the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of the textile wet processing sector in Bangladesh. The programme additionally focused on water as the primary driver for change but, also addressed energy and chemical use (water-energy chemical nexus) for an integrated approach to resource efficiency.
Local consultant capacity building; training on report writing and document preparation; conducting walk-through audits; formulating baseline assessments and debriefing on cleaner production for the top management were some of the activities implemented as a part of this project.
CHANCE was a GIZ-funded initiative with the goal to promote capacity building, regional dialogue and networking, especially for business intermediaries. The project aimed to strengthen and empower female entrepreneurs to fulfill their role in Southern Africa (SADC) and South Asia (SAARC) regions. Select Indian women entrepreneur associations (WEAs) were developed as Centers of Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education based on international benchmarks, leading to the creation of a national pool of trainers in India. A monitoring and evaluation program was also developed for impact assessment, while a report with consolidated inputs of the experts and stakeholders from the conference was distributed.
As a part of this project, a pre-winter school programme was organised for providing inputs on strategic management of women entrepreneurship associations and to enable networking amongst women entrepreneurs in the SAARC region. Additionally, over 55 factories were targeted through this engagement as beneficiaries to implement sustainable practices.
Acute shortage of electricity is a major problem that India faces currently. About 71% of electricity is generated from non-renewable resources which results in death from indoor pollution and carbon monoxide burning. However, India simultaneously possesses a huge potential for solar power generation. However, developments in the field of solar energy are met with the challenge of finding people with expertise in the field.
Co-financed by DEG and Phocos, and implemented by ASSIST, ENACT aimed to set up a solar academy to develop skilled technicians from among women and youth of rural areas through a well-structured training program. The larger aim of the project was to take a step towards addressing the problem of acute shortage of electricity in India through renewable energy alternatives.
Over the course of two years, ENACT has created mass awareness among the public on the use of solar energy and its efficiency when compared to other energy sources through various mobilization and awareness campaigns. This project informed more than 800 students in the fields of IT, science and engineering on solar energy and technology. Moreover, ENACT trained 141 students, of which 45 were women, as solar technicians and more than 50 trainers. Dealership was given to several solar technicians who started their own enterprises.
Tourism and agro-based industries are important sectors in Nepal and Bhutan as they contribute significantly to their GDP, employment generation, and foreign exchange earnings. However, the rise in tourism has put extra pressure on developing additional infrastructure and has contributed directly to environmental degradation, waste generation, and environmental pollution.
The project SEID is designed to directly address several issues faced by both tourism and agro-based industries of Nepal and Bhutan, by emphasising on optimisation of energy and water usage; environmental protection through proper waste and chemical management and judicial use of resources. In addition to this, the project also provided support for the development and enhancement of a framework for sustainable tourism in the two countries. The ultimate aim of the project (in addition to the benefits of sustainability that they would get) was to help the target industries and regions maximise their economic profits, enhance their foreign exchange dealing potential, optimise their resource use and new job creation.
Key interventions from ASSIST included training of trainers on responsible consumption and production; delivering awareness campaigns on resource efficiency and technical assessment / consulting support to 200 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); showcasing appropriate technologies promoting sustainability and developing linkages with academic institutions, facilitating Focus Group Discussions and creating Green Clubs and execution of awareness campaigns such as inter-school competitions.
