*3.1. Ohito SHP Development Model (A Community Ownership Concept)*

The Ohito SHP project has been started with the participation and collaboration of the local people inside the community. Firstly, the Ohito community identified the problems through which they were suffering (for example, depopulation, unavailability of local jobs, inaccessibility of electricity and other facilities and detachment from the big city). They wanted to utilize the extra water of an existing irrigation in the community, which is used for irrigation of nearby crops. The main crops are paddy, which uses a high amount of water for 4 months in a year, but for the remaining 8 months, the water was wasted at the time.

To build SHP, all the community residents jointly made a community-based business company named "Ohito Agricultural Cooperatives". There are 53 households in the Ohito community, each household becoming a member of this newly established association.

Figure 4 represents the formation structure and contribution of Ohito Agricultural Cooperatives for installing Ohito SHP. All households of the Ohito community contributed a capital amount of 4000 JPN yen (38 USD) to establish Ohito Agricultural Cooperatives. It tries to take care of all of the community problems of mutual concerns regarding water rights and growing of a new variety of crops. It makes the village not only self-sufficient in electricity demand, but also provides handsome annual earnings. This co-operative takes all the responsibilities before and after the execution of the SHP project; maintenance of the water way and powerhouse, loan instalment payment and water use cost. The major responsibility of the organization is community development, management of financial resources, capacity building and management of the facility.

Ohito Agricultural Cooperatives uses the expertise of staff and other professionals to execute the project and data that aid development. This mobilizes and manages the funds, loans and subsidies provided by local residents, Miyazaki prefecture and banks to make sure the projects achieve their goals, respectively. It is also included in the responsibilities of the co-operatives to protect rural livelihoods, advance farming and uplift the living standards of locals.

**Figure 4.** Formation of Ohito Agricultural Cooperatives (Source: Author).
