FFBS
Farmer Field Business Schools and Village Savings and Loan Associations for promoting climate-smart agriculture practices: Evidence from rural Tanzania
A quasi-experimental data collection was used in Iringa Tanzania to investigate the impact of a community based approach to promote the adoption of climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices. Based on two community-based organizations, Farmer Field Business Schools (FFBS) and Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), this approach combines interventions on farmer training, access to microfinance, and women’s empowerment in agriculture to introduce and enhance the adoption of the practices. We find a positive effect of the interventions on the adoption rates of CSA practices, including mulching, manure composting, crop rotation and rhizobium inoculation, and soybean production. This effect was more pronounced for farmers that participated in the trainings provided by the FFBSs and members of VSLAs. Farming households scoring high in terms of women’s empowerment are also more likely to adopt the introduced practices when compared to those scoring low. Soybean production results increased soybean sales and consumption, showing the contribution of the interventions to the incomes and nutrition levels of the farmers. These results show that FFBS and VSLA serve as promising community based platforms to introduce interventions on farmers training, microfinance, women’s empowerment to upscale the adoption of CSA practices. Read More...
KUKUA NI KUJIFUNZA (GROWING IS LEARNING) PROJECT
the knowledge and skills acquired by participating women farmers brought positive changes in their lives. About 72.5% and 61.87% of the female and male respondents respectively reported that the trainings were useful in their day to day lives while 27.5% and 37.35% respectively reported that the trainings were very useful. However, 0.78% of female respondents reported that the trainings were not useful. Enabling gender equality and empowering vulnerable and rural small-scale women farmers was an important aspect in the KnK project. Consequently, rural small-scale women farmers were the most targeted in the KnK project. Out of 341 respondents from 15 villages, 260 (76.2%) were female, and 81 (23.8%) were male. People with disabilities were 101 (2.6%) out of the 3,825 direct participants of the KnK project.
Participants in the KnK project were given an opportunity to engage in soya production as one of the strategies to eradicate malnutrition. During the endline evaluation process, it was revealed that a high proportion of the KnK participants (99.2%) engaged in soya beans production. Before the KnK project, soya was not ranked as a food crop implying that farmers did not know its nutrition value, and that the crop was not considered as a reliable source of household income. The endline evaluation revealed that farmers realized the value of soya crop production, in terms of nutrition value and source of income. The mode of operandi of the KnK project laid a solid foundation that could make it sustain for years to come. The legacy of the project in terms of knowledge and skills acquired by participants, as well as the positive changes in their lives, may encourage them to sustain
activities implemented during the project. In fact, there is cause for participants to continue to engage in economic and social activities implemented by the KnK project. The KnK project had good institutional arrangements in place, and this made it easier to coordinate the project activities. Strong partnership with other stakeholders contributed significantly to overall performance of the project. Read More...
Participants in the KnK project were given an opportunity to engage in soya production as one of the strategies to eradicate malnutrition. During the endline evaluation process, it was revealed that a high proportion of the KnK participants (99.2%) engaged in soya beans production. Before the KnK project, soya was not ranked as a food crop implying that farmers did not know its nutrition value, and that the crop was not considered as a reliable source of household income. The endline evaluation revealed that farmers realized the value of soya crop production, in terms of nutrition value and source of income. The mode of operandi of the KnK project laid a solid foundation that could make it sustain for years to come. The legacy of the project in terms of knowledge and skills acquired by participants, as well as the positive changes in their lives, may encourage them to sustain
activities implemented during the project. In fact, there is cause for participants to continue to engage in economic and social activities implemented by the KnK project. The KnK project had good institutional arrangements in place, and this made it easier to coordinate the project activities. Strong partnership with other stakeholders contributed significantly to overall performance of the project. Read More...
Modelling Catalytic Impact at CARE
CARE has set an aspirational catalytic impact target of 200 million people. Catalytic impact is a new impact category that comes from Vision 2030’s focus on impact at scale. CARE defines catalytic impact as the “sustainable impact through the independent adoption or funding of solutions by governments, donors, the private sector, or open replication that originated with CARE and/or its partners”. CARE’s contribution to catalytic impact is indirect. That means it is the impact of our work after our direct programming efforts end or impact, as an indirect effect of our work. Read More...
Baseline Report of the Titukulane Resilience Food Security Activity in Malawi
While Malawi is moving up on the Human Development Index, in 2017 it is still classified as a low human development country (171 of 189). Despite decades of robust government and donor investments in livelihoods, food security, nutrition, and resilience, over 50% of the population lives below the poverty line. Previous activities have not sufficiently reduced the number of chronically food and nutrition-insecure households nor effectively enhanced the capacity of local and government structures to implement resilience focused policies and actions. To address these issues, the Government of Malawi has developed a National Resilience Strategy (NRS) to guide investments in agriculture, reduce impacts and improve recovery from shocks, promote household resilience, strengthen the management of Malawi’s natural resources, and facilitate effective coordination between government institutions, civil society organizations and development partners. CARE and consortium partners have designed the Titukulane Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) which means “let us work together for development” in the local Chichewa language—to support implementation and ensure the effectiveness of the NRS. The Titukulane RFSA, implemented by CARE International in Malawi (CIM), aims to achieve sustainable, equitable, and resilient food and nutrition security for ultra-poor and chronically vulnerable households. Titukulane is implemented in Zomba and Mangochi districts of Malawi’s Southern Region. Read More...
A Win-Win for Gender and Nutrition: Testing A Gender-Transformative Approach From Asia In Africa
Since 2016, CARE Burundi has partnered with Great Lakes Inkingi Development (GLID), RBU2000, and the University of Burundi/Agronomy department and the Africa Center for Gender, Social Research and Impact Assessment to implement and test the EKATA approach – Empowerment through Knowledge And Transformative Action – integrated into an agriculture program to test its effectiveness against a typical gender mainstreaming approach (Gender Light) and a Control (with agriculture interventions only) in a modified randomized control trial, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Win-Win project randomly assigned collines to EKATA, Gender Light and Control groups. Baseline data was collected in 2016 – Midterm was conducted in 2018, and end-line data was collected in 2020 from a random sample of 1,315 households and 1,849 individuals (1,059 female heads of household, and 790 male heads of household). Additionally, the project conducted 36 individual in-depth interviews, disaggregated by sex and age – and male- or female-headed households – at baseline, midline and end-line. This data was complimented with focus group discussions (FGDs). The evaluation looked at the impact of EKATA compared with Gender
Light and Control on several areas, including rice production (which was the main focus crop), income and wealth, gender equality and women’s empowerment. The cost-effectiveness of these approaches also was analyzed. The evaluation used the project level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Pro-WEAI) to measure changes in gender equality and women’s empowerment. Read More...
The Win-Win project randomly assigned collines to EKATA, Gender Light and Control groups. Baseline data was collected in 2016 – Midterm was conducted in 2018, and end-line data was collected in 2020 from a random sample of 1,315 households and 1,849 individuals (1,059 female heads of household, and 790 male heads of household). Additionally, the project conducted 36 individual in-depth interviews, disaggregated by sex and age – and male- or female-headed households – at baseline, midline and end-line. This data was complimented with focus group discussions (FGDs). The evaluation looked at the impact of EKATA compared with Gender
Light and Control on several areas, including rice production (which was the main focus crop), income and wealth, gender equality and women’s empowerment. The cost-effectiveness of these approaches also was analyzed. The evaluation used the project level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Pro-WEAI) to measure changes in gender equality and women’s empowerment. Read More...
Harande Outcome Mapping Report
The USAID-funded Harande program aims to sustainably improve the food, nutrition and income security of 179,690 vulnerable household members by 2020 in 193 communities of Youwarou, Tenenkou, Bandiagara and Douentza districts in the Mopti region. This area is located in the center of Mali and suffers from frequent drought and current conflict and political instability. The program is a Development Food Assistance Program (DFAP) and is implemented by a consortium of international NGOs, composed of CARE International (lead), Save the Children International (SCI), Helen Keller International (HKI) and two national NGOs, namely: YAGTU and Sahel Eco.
Starting from July 2019, the program set in motion a qualitative and participative approach known as « Outcome Mapping » through its M&E Team (Harande MEAL Team). This approach was favored because it allows adequate monitoring and also helps to assess the level of expected changes.
Upon completion of the implementation approach – which lasted for about 9 months – the Harande MEAL Team prepared this report based on information collected from community actors and beneficiaries of the program. Read More...
Starting from July 2019, the program set in motion a qualitative and participative approach known as « Outcome Mapping » through its M&E Team (Harande MEAL Team). This approach was favored because it allows adequate monitoring and also helps to assess the level of expected changes.
Upon completion of the implementation approach – which lasted for about 9 months – the Harande MEAL Team prepared this report based on information collected from community actors and beneficiaries of the program. Read More...