Procurement of One Land Terracing Spider Excavator



Contract partner: GNHC / RGoB - Gross National Happiness Commission - Royal Government of Bhutan Country: Bhutan Funding amount: € 180.000,00 Project start: 01.11.2006 End: 31.03.2008

Short Description:

Overall goal


The dry land farms in Bhutan, which so far are not terraced, are vulnerable to land degradation because of excessive erosion. Hence, terracing of dry land farms is urgently needed. Since manual terracing is very labour intensive and farm labour is scarce, manual terracing of dry land farms has so far not been a viable option. On the other hand, if dry land farms are not terraced soon, the productive quality of these farms will deteriorate because of excessive soil erosion, which in turn will compound the problem of rural poverty as well as rural-urban migration. Hence, the principal component of the project will be mechanization of terracing of dry land farms to ensure sustainable agricultural development through soil conservation. Soil erosion will be controlled through terracing, while soil fertility will be enriched by replenishing nutrients organically. Additional farmland will be created and enable the very poor farmers, especially in the East of Bhutan, where the country is very rugged, steep and farmland is scarce, to achieve a better-bigger crop, and the possibility to market, what is not needed to feed the family (cash income, poverty alleviation). As well as that through terracing overland flow will be checked to minimize land slides and gullies.

The project objective is to procure one Spider Excavator (with the Equipment for terracing in steep terrain), train a Bhutanese Operator in Switzerland for 10 days and to provide on the job training in Bhutan for about 15 days to the Bhutanese Operator(s) by an experienced Operator from the Supplier. The Excavator will be used by the Government to terrace the dry land farms to meet the above mentioned objectives. The Ministry of Agriculture shall regularly update ACO, Thimphu on the achievements of the overall objectives of the dry land terracing programme.

project number 2459-00/2006
source of funding OEZA
sector Landwirtschaft
tied
modality
marker
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.