· Criteria developed for selection of on-site training demonstration sites based on social sustainability.

· Cooperation with the government urban agriculture agency (DPAU) has resulted in 40% of their agriculture extension officers choosing to be participate in permaculture training provided by the FNH/ACF program. These officers attend to 26,000 food producers within the city of Havana.

· The magazine Se Puede has gained unprecedented popularity in Havana, reaching 150,000 readers in 1997, with an accompanying media exposure (radio, TV, print) resulting. After the last two issues, 150 letters and subscriptions were received.

· As a direct result of training received from Australian technical specialists provided by this project, staff of PP-FNH have now gained recognition as the most senior NGO specialists in the country in the fields of urban agriculture and food security, and permaculture, and participate in national and international NGO and government advisory bodies in this capacity.
Eg. Cary Cruz is the national Coordinator of AGUILA, the Latin American Urban Agriculture Network.

· Two other international NGDOs1 funded the two senior staff of PP-FNH (Roberto Pérez and Cary Cruz) to attend the International Conference on Sustainable Urban Food Systems, at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto. May 1997, to present on Urban Permaculture and the Parque Metropolitano development process.

· The PP-FNH has strongly taken initiative in setting project priorities, promoting permaculture for objectives very much its own: for environmental education and design to realise its own environmental policy commitments to sustainable and livable cities.

· There is interest in the project in general and its objectives, at all levels of government. For example, Roberto Pérez was invited to be the youth representative in the national government panel on sustainable development. The provincial government has sought project staff input into strategic planning, and also written to ACF in Australia.

· ACF has been fortunate to have been able to attract highly skilled and appropriate Australian project staff who have been willing to donate most of their labour costs. This contribution is particularly appropriate for this project, given that most of the Cuban staff are working on the project in similar circumstances, motivated primarily by the development objectives, including the staff capacity building, rather than by meagre (USD$10/month equivalent) local salaries.

· Problems in management of the project have been identified by both FNH and ACF as the principle difficulty experienced in the project period to date. The FNH reports that the measures undertaken in response to these difficulties have proven to be successful, citing that it was able to successfully complete the activities scheduled for the second half of 1997 with no Australian technical assistance
(Cite: RM980227.TXT and EI97FNHx.DOC §IX)

· Changes in management of the PP-FNH resulted in new management staff lacking ownership of original project design, as they did not participate in the design process. As a result, extra time and expense was required for communications with ACF to re-explain decisions and processes, resolve conflict and renegotiate implementation detail.

· The appointment of an independent editorial committee of the magazine Se Puede, as of issue #8, greatly enhanced its professionalism, status and representative sectoral governance, and distributed responsibility and workload of the editor. It has resulted in the focus of the magazine being altered from that originally conceived by Cuban and ACF staff in 1994. Articles with a general environmental theme have been introduced, in addition to the articles on practical food and household solutions. The committee is also promoting a more intellectual/scientific and commercial presentation, with the aim of increasing its economic viability, including international sales to earn scarce foreign currency income. These changes, however, may be compromising the original core practical, educational and populist aims of the magazine. Further analysis and discussion is occurring on this.

· Gross distortions and changes of market demand and prices resulting from the changing government system in Cuba (ie. the opening up of communism) makes office and accommodation overly expensive, foreign currency exchange prohibitive for international NGOs and procurement of goods and services a difficult and non-transparent process.
Shortages and other conditions in Cuba mean that most activities take a long time to be organised.
Many of the government regulations are changing, unwritten or no one knows what they are.
Management of the project has to be quite dynamic in the face of change. Australian field staff have to refer back to Australia frequently, consuming time and resulting in higher fax and telephone expenses.

· Cuba is geographically distant to Australia, and not a significant trading partner of Australia, resulting in more expensive, unreliable and slower travel, postal and communications costs. Postal and email services to Cuba are notoriously unreliable.

· The US blockade of Cuba greatly compounds all of the problems already mentioned. Almost all international trade, finance and communications to Cuba are blocked by US measures. Alternative international banking, travel and insurance systems are expensive, inferior and difficult to locate.

· The NGO movement is still nascent in Cuba, there being very few true NGOs or CBOs still. The FNH suffers from the general lack of understanding of the operations and governance of NGOs in Cuba.

· Government regulations do not acknowledge the not-for-profit sector, and treat foreign NGOs as foreign commercial enterprises, as a source of foreign currency, rather than a source of development assistance.

· NGOs in Cuba do not have transparent governance processes, making transparent cooperation harder.

· Project evaluation and performance assessment skills of NGOs and government are not to Australian levels, and FNH, whilst proficient at Cuban standards, needs to acknowledge and improve its skills in this area.

· Appraisals have reported that FNH is "severely under-resourced" (PM980316.TXT 17 Feb 98) and inefficient and poorly managed (HR970828.TXT). However, when these assessments are taken in a relative national context, FNH is still the most capable and appropriate partner organisation for these development activities, and these appraisals indicate a direction for national and organisational development priorities.

· FNH management struggles to undertake transparent cooperation, decision making and project planning, and does not openly acknowledge this. This style of management is undeveloped in Cuba, and not well defined in policy or procedure. This is reflected in the sometimes poor communication of FNH with other related agencies in Cuba. And has been reflected on occasion in poor communications with ACF field staff and desk officers.

· The understanding of FNH of Gender and Development issues in undeveloped, and FNH has not developed GAD policies or objectives.

· FNH is highly confident, proficient and professional as a publisher, and is easily able to implement the objectives of the project at an intellectual level, but it lacks experience and confidence at more implementing practical outcomes, and staff to implement community development activities.

· Field staff (local and foreign) who are women are required to manage GAD components of the project. Male project staff (local & foreign) have not initiated or advanced GAD aspects of the project, in spite of training, prioritisation and direction.

· A significant proportion (10%-25%) of the urban population take up urban agriculture. The rest do not. This should be noted when planning urban agriculture and other activities aiming to decrease the ecological footprint of city dwellers.

· Whilst continuing to support 20 existing model food gardens, the field staff of the PP-FNH have decided to downgrade this activity in the next year, leaving it to the Ministry of Agriculture Urban Agriculture department’s local extensionistas to do this work. They are too geographically spread for the PP-FNH to be regularly visiting, and now the 20 gardens are established, FNH and field staff have determined that only two to four new model food garden sites should be chosen each year, and prioritised as ‘show’ teaching gardens. These sites may be clusters of 2-4 gardens, allowing for them to feature in short tours as part of local training courses.

· The successful partnership with the PCPA is an excellent model to follow, for reasons stated above, especially with the lack of capacity of NGOs in Cuba at present. Future activities should identify and build partnerships with, and the capacity of, other such CBOs.