NE bamboo to dazzle at UN forum

Guwahati, July 19: North East's bamboo is all set to shine at the international platform and also earns accolades as a success story in the United Nations (UN) forum.

From being included in the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO)'s projects for India, with focus on income generation and employment creation, the cane and bamboo project has come full circle, with it taking a proud position among the success stories in the country.

The Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre (CBTC) in Guwahati set up under the Cane and Bamboo Technological Upgradation and Networking Project, has been the flag bearer of this success story.

The achievements of the CBTC will now be featured during the biannual general conference meeting of the UNIDO, its highest decision making authority, in its headquarters at Vienna in December.

This place of pride for the CBTC was confirmed by the immensely positive review it received in the Country Service Framework 2001-2006 on UNIDO's operations in India.

On the efficient management of the CBTC, the Framework mentions, ''More than two years after project termination, which would have been the end of many other centres, the CBTC is alive and kicking.'' It receives its funding primarily from the North Eastern Council (NEC) and other donors, with the amount collected as fees for imparting various training programmes contributing only a small part.

It was set up with the 1.5 million US dollars committed by the UN Development Programme for the technological upgradation of cane and bamboo. The Department of Science&Technology (DST), Government of India, was the executing agency for the project. UNIDO was made the implementing agency, while the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation (NEDFi) became the counterpart agency at local level, responsible for project activities through the CBTC.

The review of the working of the CTBC in the Country Framework said, ''The CBTC has put bamboo on the political agenda, and its services are sought after by many institutions in India. There is a continuous demand for training from both inside India as well as from abroad, which is not only a sign for effectiveness, but also indicates sustainability.'' The centre has also been successful in helping in marching towards two important Millennium Development Goals of the UN, namely, Poverty alleviation and Sustainable environment.

The CBTC has earned the niche for itself due to its emergence as a centre of creativity and innovation.

The research, design and testing activities of the CBTC have been complemented by training for various types of users, dissemination of knowledge as well as with interventions at policy level.

Since the start of the project in 2000, more than 2400 people, including 530 women, have been trained in three-month courses in basic bamboo technology, with 900 participants trained in actual project phase.

Trainings was also conducted for delegates from Nepal, Cuba, South Africa, etc, some of them facilitated by UNIDO, others arranged by themselves after having heard about the CBTC.

Its success is also linked to its value chain approach involving poor farmers in the pre-processing stages of the production of sophisticated bamboo products.

Its vague project design and lack of result-end evaluations had been a minor irritant for better evaluation of the achievements of the CBTC, the Country Framework mentioned, though hastening to add that its vagueness provided the centre with the flexibility and larger canvas to work in.

However, the success story of the CBTC has not succeeded in getting a nod from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion for a second phase.

In fact, according to the Country Framework, the proposal for the project extension was rejected even without any discussion at the National Steering Committee.

UNI