Village development funds
Under the Village Development Funds initiative, community members work to determine their own needs and wants and are awarded grants to implement their ideas.
Village Development Committees (comprising males and females, young and old representatives from the village) are responsible for seeking consensus on initiatives on which to spend the funds.
The initiatives have to be beneficial to all community members and cannot have any negative impact on the environment or pay for services that should be provided by the Government.
The first six grants were awarded in September 2010, each to the value of US$7,000.
The villages chose to spend their Development Funds on building meeting huts and improving roads to access their agricultural land. Two villages combined their money to invest in a track to allow their children to walk to school safely, away from the main road.
A safe route to school, one of the results of the Village Development Funds.