Designing for Two Generations
Some interventions cost a great deal at the start and little afterwards. Dryland restoration with the Sahelian bocage method is a clear example. A perimeter of about 100 hectares is enclosed with living hedges and earth bunds, and a pond inside it holds back rainwater. Families then farm individual plots, while the common land carries grazing and woodland. The method was developed by Terre Verte at Guiè in Burkina Faso over nearly thirty years.
Most of that cost is a one-off expense. Once the hedges, bunds and pond are in place, the restored land keeps serving the families who farm it, and later their children.
Measured per person, however, the up-front cost is relatively high. Judged against the people living there today alone, the intervention can look too expensive to justify, even though much of the benefit goes to the generation that follows.
As a rule of thumb, SaRCiSP therefore weighs the cost of an intervention like this against at least two generations. This does not change the amount that has to be raised at the start, which is what it is. It changes how the cost is judged. Set against everyone who benefits over two generations, the cost per person is reasonable for something that is paid for mostly once.