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Success Story
Rural communities gain skills and income through training
Rural Communities Gain Skills
Photo: DAI/Kate Heuisler
With USAID-sponsored literacy and numeracy training, these women in Oecussi are ready to join the formal economy. Here they are selling kerosene at the weekly market.
USAID programs provide basic entrepreneurial training, boosting success rates for crop expansion plans and new businesses.
Timor-Leste is primarily a rural country, with more than three-quarters
of its people living outside the cities. One of the most
effective ways for USAID to reach this diverse, and sometimes
remote, segment of the population is through focused grants to
local organizations. In 2006, USAID awarded almost $1 million
of in-kind grants to more than a dozen local organizations,
government offices, and the private sector, as they work with rural
communities around the country to help improve people's lives.
Agriculture is central to the lives of many Timorese. USAID's
small grants program has helped more than 400 farmers improve
their skills in horticulture, animal husbandry, and marketing. In
some areas, the projects have helped farmers double their yields
of rice and corn. USAID partners also provide entrepreneurial
training, boosting success rates for crop expansion plans and new
businesses. To stimulate small enterprises, small loans projects
worth almost a quarter of a million dollars have expanded access
to credit to more than 1,000 women and their families.
One problem that underlies many of the country's economic
weaknesses is illiteracy. The government estimates that more
than half the population cannot read and write; among women,
this figure is almost two-thirds. USAID actively supports local
organizations that provide literacy and numeracy training,
particularly for women. Training-of-trainer projects, as well as
more direct literacy and numeracy classes, have already given
530 women greater access to information and the ability to
participate more actively in civic and economic activities.
In 2005, Timor-Leste held its first nationwide local elections.
After a concerted voter education campaign, about 80 percent
of registered voters cast their ballots. USAID's grant program
supported a range of voter education activities targeting the
rural population, including mobile radio broadcasts, informational
campaigns, and independent monitoring of the polling. The local
elections provided civil society and government agencies with
valuable experience ahead of national elections in 2007.
USAID's program has shown how a strategic approach to
overcoming challenges can provide rural people with better
access to information, economic resources, and services.
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