[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U5e2NB6U9dw]
This is a really enjoyable clip describing how successful development work can work: these women in The Gambia traditionally only had access to unproductive, degraded land, since the men were working in the more fertile areas.
Yet, the women are the ones that bear the responsibility to feed their families and provide extra income for such items as school fees for their children.
Through simple technologies that helped retain the water from the rainy season that would have otherwise washed away, they can now grow rice for their families and even make a business out of it, as one of the featured women did. With support from a local micro-lending project, she recently bought a donkey and cart to bring her yields to the market – marking the definite shift from a subsistence farmer who only feeds her family to an agricultural entrepreneur.
Sometimes you just need to be reminded that there are also success stories like these out there that people are working towards on a daily basis.
Bonus: The project was supported (and the video stems from) IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Here is their country page on The Gambia if you want even more information on what they have been implementing.