8 May 2008
Ndola — RURAL communities can reduce poverty if they are empowered with projects such as livestock rearing and farming, first Republican president, Kenneth Kaunda has said.
And Dr Kaunda has commended the Japanese government's Participatory Village Development in Isolated Areas (PaVIDIA) project, which was encouraging villagers to exercise ownership of their development initiatives with reasonable capital funds.
Dr Kaunda said this yesterday during a PaVIDIA Day at Kalimansenga village in Chongwe district.
He thanked Japanese ambassador, Hideto Mitamura for inviting him to grace the occasion.
"Through PaVIDIA, I believe we will defeat poverty and HIV/AIDS will not be a problem," Dr Kaunda said.
He said the only effective way to fight poverty in villages was through farming initiatives such the ones Japan was promoting.
He said the era for independence liberation was over and it was now time to fight poverty and HIV/AIDS.
The former president said, the vices would only be defeated if the rural communities were empowered with resources to start goat rearing and farming projects among others.
Since 2002, the Japanese government in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives had implement the PaVIDIA project in 76 villages in four provinces, including Lusaka and Luapula.
Earlier, Mr Mitamura said the project was reaching out to more than 7,450 households and directly benefiting about 56, 491 villages as of December 2007.
Financial and technical assistance had been provided for activities such as drilling of the boreholes, training of instructors in the maintenance of boreholes, buying of harmmer hills as well as provision of two cows per village for animal draught power.
"We have also facilitated the provision of building materials for food storage and community meeting facilities," Mr Mitamura said.
Mr Mitamura handed over one television set, one solar panel, one battery set and one hair clipper.
The facilities were bought by the Kalimansenga PaViDIA project after the village was featured on the Japanese TV programme.
Chongwe district commissioner, Conrad Tembo commended the Japanese government for the project.
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