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Josephine Ma

It's not the kind of thing you normally boast about when discussing the merits of an Oxfam development project.

But for one village, the growing number of cats is a major achievement.

So much so that the village accountant in Yunnan's Ma Ying Hua highlighted the feline population during a welcome speech to dignitaries and farmers involved in a training course organised by the charity group.

Zhang Xueneng proudly told his guests the village had about 30 cats all year round. 'We have been able to keep about 30 cats since we were given 10 by Oxfam in 1994. Both domestic and wild cats have prospered,' he said.

The villagers have good reason to cherish their feline guests. Before cats were introduced, rats devoured about 90kg of grain in each household every year -  the equivalent of four months' supply for one person.

Getting rid of the rats was just one of the many changes that took place in the remote village in Yunnan's northwest Luchuan county after Oxfam started its project in 1992.

'Before then, for at least four months a year, villagers did not have enough food. The poorer families often faced food shortages for six months a year,' said Oxfam project officer Wang Zhengming.

At first glance, Ma Ying Hua is typical of the kind of villages where the Miao minority live. Huts with tiled roofs and mud walls line the narrow, winding alleys. Livestock often live in a hut next door or even in the same building as the residents.

The location of the village - on a steep slope adjacent to a narrow strip of terraced fields in the mountainous county - is also typical for the Miao minority. They tend to inhabit the higher land as the more fertile flat land is often occupied by more aggressive minority groups, such as the Yi.

But life is slowly changing and there are now signs of prosperity in the village. Cattle, geese and pigs can be found in most households, allowing villagers to have some income should the harvests fail. There are even satellite dishes on the tiled roofs.

'About five households have televisions now and the satellite link was restored recently,' said a farmer, apparently proud of his better-off neighbours.

In contrast to the conventional belief that outside aid can save 'backward' farmers from destitution, Mr Wang said the initiative of villagers was the key to success.

In Ma Ying Hua, villagers are regularly consulted by project officers about how they want to be helped. A committee with the power to manage the project was set up and each villager got a vote.

Mr Wang said the experience of Ma Ying Hua village showed that when farmers were motivated, they were willing to work for the common good.

In 1996, a road was built providing a link to the outside world to allow villagers to transport their produce. Local officials said it would have cost 300,000 yuan (HK$278,250) for the Government to build the road. It cost the village 400 yuan.

Last year, the villagers built a pipe channelling water from a hill kilometres away to relieve the chronic water shortage.

The village, which has 151 inhabitants, is also an example of micro-credit - the mini-bank funded by Oxfam to extend loans to locals. Micro-credit, which first began in Bangladesh in the 1980s, has become a popular way of alleviating poverty.

Villagers are responsible for managing the 'mini-bank' and are in charge of deciding how much and to whom they lend the money, the interest rate and repayment period. They also chase the loan if repayment is overdue.

The repayment rate is very high as villagers who do not pay back the money are pressurised by their neighbours so that others can borrow the cash.

In the last two years, Ma Ying Hua has become a showcase for the new approach to projects, stressing the participation of farmers instead of the traditional belief that officials or relief workers should instruct the locals.

But promoting the concept in China is not an easy task. Take micro-credit as an example. Since 1995, Oxfam has been planning to give villagers full autonomy to manage the fund. But progress has been delayed because of the painstaking task of teaching villagers how to keep the books.

'We had to teach them so many times before they could keep an account which was not confusing to us,' said Mr Wang. 'But I think we will have to wait at least until next year before we can pass the fund to them completely.' It was also questionable whether the idea would work in other, larger villages.

'It will be extremely complicated for us to manage the fund as there are more than 300 households in our village,' says farmer Zhong Yihua from Lanchang county in southern Yunnan.

Local officials are often reluctant to adopt the 'participatory approach' as they are eager to score political brownie points by showing their superiors they have successfully eradicated poverty.

Some officials believe farmers' 'stupidity' is the root of poverty and cannot accept the concept of letting them make decisions. Some, however, believe it is worth the trouble. In Yunnan province, one pioneering official believes farmers should be allowed to participate.

'It is my hope that one day we can promote the approach to other areas as well,' said Liu Pengnan, deputy director of the foreign capital division of Yunnan Government's poverty alleviation department. 'I believe projects which place farmers at the centre are the most efficient way of eliminating poverty.

'Through co-operating with foreign non-governmental organisations we would like to learn the techniques of placing farmers at the centre. We would like to play the role of a facilitator and have the NGOs as an outside force and let the farmers be the centre of the programme.'

But NGO workers suggest the Government needs to go one step further to fully unleash the potential of such projects.

'When talking about the participatory approach, officials always cite Chairman Mao's famous quote 'from the masses; to the masses',' said Lu Xing, director of a Yunnan-based NGO participatory research and action network. 'The officials now see the approach as soliciting opinion from the masses, let the officials make the decisions and pass the orders back to the masses.

'But what participatory approach should mean is soliciting opinion from the masses and then letting the masses decide.'It certainly seems to have worked for the villagers of Ma Ying Hua.



Prosperity within reach as villagers become partners