One Village Two Products (OVTP) Rural Development Model: The Case of Ikeleng’i District in Zambia

The search for the best locally led development alternatives to promote local economic development have been attempted in in South East Asia and some parts of Africa particularly to enhance rural livelihoods where top to bottom approaches have failed. This paper investigates the development of One Village One Product and or One Village Two Products for Ikeleleng’i a rural district in the North-western Province of Zambia as a model to improve the livelihoods of an agrarian depopulation. A complex tri phased mixed methods design rooted in methodological pragmatism was applied. The main findings are that in order for people to have improved livelihoods and incomes, the village ought to be centre of production. At village level, it is proposed to have One Village One Product†(OVOP) or One Village Two Products†(OVTP). Villagers may consider concentrating on pineapple as a single product or two products which may include pineapple and honey. The OVOP or OVTP model could be achieved if villagers coordinated their production and marketing activities closely and operated in corporatives. The conclusion drawn from this study is that locally led development modelsseem elsewhere may serve as instruments of socio-economic change. They could also of immense help tolocal authorities as well as central governments in solving under development problems. Thepaper’s call to action therefore is to change the mind-set of development actors at the central level. It is recommended that Ikelengi local authority and the central government adopt a pragmatic thinking approach and give value to evidence based developmental researchlike this paper espouses to consider employing transformative participatory approaches in rural development. The success of implementingOne Village One Product and or One Village Two Products framework in Ikeleng’i could be transferred to other districts once successful.