Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC) started its journey in 1993 with the mandate to carve a definite niche in the development sector for empowering people for sustainable management of natural resources. RCDC works towards enabling the communities to manage their own natural resources efficiently and effectively for addressing poverty and improving the quality of life. RCDC has started working with the belief that proper management of natural resources can take care of most of the current development problems and the local communities are the best managers of these resources as they have the highest stake and time tested knowledge. Currently the organisation is working in areas of Policy and Action Research, Advocacy and Networking, and Field Demonstration Interventions relating to community based natural resource management and livelihood enhancement.

During the initial years RCDC intended to set up two field centres in Bolangir in Western Odisha and Nabarangpur in South-West Odisha for demonstration of integrated community based natural resource management. These integrated efforts are more of micro level experimentation of different practices for management of resources for livelihood enhancement. Currently the field based programmes are located in the districts of Nabarangpur, Bolangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Koraput, Rayagada and Malkangiri. RCDC emphasizes on the field based programmes since it intends to promote best practices/need-based models to be replicated in other similar areas that can ultimately ensure empirical impact in the entire state.

RCDC does have a strong background of community mobilization, which has enabled the unorganized vulnerable people to become organized. Community Based Organizations (CBOs) such as Village Development Committees, Forest Protection Committees (FPCs), Farmers Committees, Women’s Organisations, Self Help Groups (SHGs), Job Seekers Unions (JSUs) etc have been formed in the project areas. Regular orientation and training programmes are being conducted for building up the capacity of these institutions. Federations and Self Help Cooperatives have been formed and necessary linkages with external institutions have been established. Village Development Committees and their apex organisation (Project Implementation Committee) have been formed and facilitated for their active partnership with RCDC while implementing development projects. The CBOs formed in the project area are collectively addressing various development and environment issues. They are actively engaged with PRIs for smooth implementation of local self-governance.

Capacity building of different stakeholders is a priority intervention of RCDC, which has significantly increased the knowledge and skills of primary stakeholders and many of them are now negotiating with the government at appropriate level for the development of the area and also to address larger poverty issues. RCDC has been consistently focusing on the capacity building of beneficiary organizations such as Forest Protection Committees, SHGs, Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) members, Farmers Groups, Village Development Committees, networks of women’s organizations, networks of forest protecting groups and village level animators etc. with focus on sensitizing them on management of local resources and augmenting development initiatives having empirical importance. PRI members and functionaries have been oriented and trained on effective self-governance to manage natural resources.

RCDC has been making concerted efforts over these years to promote livelihood of the poor and disadvantaged people. Since it strongly believes that - Denial of right to food is a grievous aspect as it denies people’s ability to achieve other rights i.e. rights to life, livelihood and employment. It has been meticulous enough adopting integrated approach with emphasis on ensuring access to resources by deprived and disadvantaged resource poor people. RCDC gives priority to forest based livelihood and Gender.

Planning and execution of various interventions of the research, advocacy and campaign on NRM programmes are undertaken in close association with community institutions, community based organizations, NGOs, extension/front line officials of Government, research institutions, academicians etc. emphasizing on collaborative/cooperative approaches to address issues and challenges in community based natural resource management. RCDC plays a role of clearing house of information on different issues and also plays a facilitative role to initiate multi-stakeholders dialogue on these issues. Field programmes on integrated community based NRM are developed to organize communities on their rights and entitlements over various natural and other resources and services provided by the state with focus on ensuring food security and enhancing livelihood security of resource poor and excluded people. Community empowerment activities are integrated to this venture. The newsletters and IEC materials carry advocacy input to different nook and corners of the state. For each research, study and advocacy work, RCDC consults and gathers feedback through workshops and consultations at district level, cluster level and state level from time to time.

RCDC in its project areas has made several attempts to address the problems of migrant workforce. Initially it started with creating awareness among the migrant labourers on their rights and entitlements and also provided them support to fight for their entitlements. Later on RCDC came up with integrated community development activities in its target areas to create alternative livelihood options for the workforce, which has contributed to reduction in the scale of migration. Now the organisation works for effective implementation of NREGS so that the wage earners and others can get work in their own villages/areas.

RCDC focuses on integrated practices in agriculture emphasizing the tradition wisdom and practices. Agro-ecosystem is the unit for developing agriculture related interventions. The interventions focus on smallholders. RCDC promotes crop diversification from Mono Cropping to Multi Cropping, Quality Seed Replacement and Use of Low Cost Technology and Practices. Diversification in crops initiated in number of projects and SRI (Systematic Rice Intensification) method introduced have been proved quite successful. Promoting Organic SRI has been the specialty of RCDC. Farmers are showing increasing interests to use low cost bio fertilizers to protect natural ecosystem.

RCDC has been involved in capacity building of PRIs for the last 6-7 years. In Nabarangpur district it has worked with the District Administration to train all the elected representatives and functionaries of PRIs – from Ward Member to the Member of Zilla Parishad in the district. Similar initiatives have also been taken up in Bolangir especially in project clusters. The organisation has been consistently trying its best to provide information and other support to PRIs for establishment of efficient and effect local self-governance.

With a view to further expand the horizon of people’s participation in local self governance, RCDC has initiated and sustained process of peoples’ planning. This was initiated primarily to get the communities involved in the identification and analysis of problems for formulation of Micro Plan. For this village level volunteers were selected across and sensitized through training on micro level planning process. Soon after, these volunteers have been engaged in collection of village level information. In this process, local people, especially disadvantaged people, have started influencing collective decisions that affect them. The disadvantaged are not only the absolute poor, but also those who are handicapped and lack on their access to resources and rights.

Undernourishment is a common problem observed in operational areas of the organisation. Number of malnourished children, feeble mothers and lean youths, still continues to pose a threat to the optimal use of human resources for the development of the area. With the launch of National Rural Health Mission, RCDC started Integrated Nutrition and Health Programme as a partner organization of CARE India in Balangir district since 2007. The initial effort has been limited to three Blocks of Bolangir districts namely Saintala, Khaprakhol and Balangir Sadar covering a targeted population of around 35 thousands.

The market access programme emphasizes on two things i.e. a) developing an alternative marketing framework for NTFP and agriculture produces and b) creating and strengthening organisations of primary collectors and producers. The objective is to capacitate the institutions for sustainable management and trade of NTFP and agriculture produces available in their area. At present there are 30 numbers of self help cooperatives, promoted in the areas which have been actively participating in procurement and trade of NTFP in the project area and out of which 22 numbers are registered under Odisha Self – Help Cooperative Registration Act 2001. The primary cooperatives have been again federated to an apex body at district level, which are called secondary cooperative. The idea of formation of secondary and tertiary cooperative (which are planned to be constituted in the region) is to provide business development services to the primary cooperatives. Secondary cooperatives at the district level have been formed in three districts, one at Rayagada, one at Koraput and the other at undivided Kalahandi district. The secondary cooperative in undivided Kalahandi district has been registered and the rest two are in process.

For strengthening the self help cooperatives training guidelines/manuals have been developed on different aspects of the programme like cooperative management, enterprise development, market access, sustainable harvesting of NTFP etc. Training programs for each cooperative (both primary and secondary) have been organized on issues like fair trade, enterprise development, sustainable management of NTFP resources, institution management etc. The training of the cooperatives on institutional management basically focus on the concept of cooperative, need of cooperative, leadership development, decision making, awareness on byelaw, role and responsibilities of the office bearers etc. The aspects covered under market access training are NTFP potential assessment, business plan development, procurement and trade of NTFP, financial linkage, price trends, value chain, monitoring of procurement and trade and maintenance of documents and records.

The NTFP market access programme focuses both on ecological and economic sustainability aspects. Though the focus of the programme is more on procurement, value addition and trade, sustainable management of the NTFP is given equally importance to that of the trade. The programme tries to develop simple tools and techniques on harvesting and post-harvesting of different NTFPs. Sustainable harvesting protocols have been developed with the support of different technical institutions using the traditional wisdom of forest dependent communities. RCDC undertakes periodical assessment of impact of NTFP harvesting on the ecology. The organisation has developed methodology and processes for inventorisation of NTFP and other forest species, which would help the organisation in ecological assessments in the long run. The Cooperatives and other forest protecting groups have been trained on the methodology to help in inventorisation and other documentation of dependency of people on forest and also for monitoring of implementation of harvesting protocols.

The key market access strategy is to reduce the number of intermediaries in the procurement and trade of NTFP. The focus is on how to have a control over procurement of NTFP in the target area. RCDC helps the cooperatives to get involved in both raw material trading and also sale of value added products from NTFP. Three small sales outlets in Bhawanipatna, Koraput and Rayagada have been set up for direct sale of processed and raw NTFP collected/produced by the Cooperatives. A common strategy has been developed for product standardization, branding and uniform functioning of all the four outlets. The idea is to ensure that all the sales outlets would have same type of packaging and pricing also. The Common Facility Centre (CFC) have been developed with the objective to provide business services in the areas like marketing (buying and selling), finance, pre and post harvesting operation and general management to the cooperatives. At present four CFCs has been operational one each at Kahahandi, Nuapada, Koraput and Rayagada districts.

There are two ways through which the primary collectors access information on management and trade of NTFP; the first one is website and the other is communication materials like booklets, leaflets etc. The website www.banajata.org has been updated on fortnight basis with Policies, Rules etc on NTFP across the region. The market prices of NTFP in major markets within and outside the state have been collected and put in the website on a weekly basis. Business plan for each cooperative has been developed based on the product and market assessment. Buyers-sellers interfaces are being organized on a regular basis to link the cooperatives with trading houses. Efforts have been made to set up Market Promotion Board/ Committees in the districts with the representation of government, civil society organisations and traders/marketing agencies. Regular meetings of the market promotion committees have been organized to make different stakeholders sensitized on the need for such an initiative at the district level.