Saobaan research is a development approach that puts villager in the center of development. CLICK developed and piloted this approach since 2012 including 5 villages in Sayburi district, Savannakhet province, 5 villages in Bachieng and 7 villages in Khong district, Champasack province. Result of this development approach is village social researchers that captured local knowledge, knowing community problems and able to facilitate community development hands in hands with local authorities. This development initiatives that resulted from the Saobaan research is owned by communities which produced concrete results.Saobaan research is a development approach that puts villager in the center of development. CLICK developed and piloted this approach since 2012 including 5 villages in Sayburi district, Savannakhet province, 5 villages in Bachieng and 7 villages in Khong district, Champasack province. Result of this development approach is village social researchers that captured local knowledge, knowing community problems and able to facilitate community development hands in hands with local authorities. This development initiatives that resulted from the Saobaan research is owned by communities which produced concrete results.
This is the most important step in the Saobaan research approach which indicates success of the initiative. After organizing dissemination workshop, it is important to organize a planning workshop to develop projects based on the result of the research. It is important to have relevant stakeholder contribute in this workshop in order to get them engage from the beginning. The project proposal should have the following contents: Benefit of the project, targets (incomes improvement for example), activities and budget (including contribution from villagers). If the proposal is about agriculture production, an investment plan with profit calculation is needed.
In addition, the research results can be used in local teaching curriculum especially at primary school in order to conserve and promote local knowledge to the new generations.
For example of Saobaan research in Sehong village, 16 villagers became local researchers (14 women) that carried out research on 2 topics. The research led to creation of agriculture production group on vegetable and duck that increased incomes of the villagers about 1,000,000 LAK per person per month. In addition, the group were able to develop proposal and submited to Sehong Hydro-power company for consideration.
This was sucessfully because of the ownership of the community. The community identify the research topics that reflect their interest.
It is very difficult to raise support from the dam company because they have their own plan that are not flexible. CLICK also had no coordination at central level to push for the company to respond to the community proposal.
Pay more attention in the selection process of the research topic with more participation of local authorities and the company, so that there will be easiler to convince them to support the community.
