The hard work to maintain high conservation value areas and high carbon stocks, and at the same time support the development of sustainable commodities, certainly cannot be separated from efforts to strengthen rural communities that live in (or live close to) these areas. USAID SEGAR has conducted a study on the potential of priority villages in twelve districts that will be involved in village strengthening activities.

In November and December 2021, USAID SEGAR held workshops with stakeholders in four provinces (Aceh, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and East Kalimantan) to present and validate the initial findings of the priority villages selection. Almost all of these workshops were conducted online, except in West Kalimantan (Kubu Raya, Sanggau, and Sintang Districts) which specifically requested to conduct workshops offline.

USAID SEGAR will finalize the names of the villages discussed in the workshop and will select four to five priority villages in each district. It is hoped that the names of the selected villages will be finalized by January 2022. In addition, USAID SEGAR will also identify potential partners with whom they can collaborate to strengthen the selected villages later.