"programme_id","programme_title","programme_language","programme_type","other_program","iso3code","country_name","program_location","area","status","start_date","end_date","brief_description","references","related_policy","new_policy","partner_gov","partner_government_details","partner_un","partner_un_details","partner_ngo","partner_ngo_details","partner_donors","partner_donors_details","partner_intergov","partner_intgov_details","partner_national_ngo","partner_nat_ngo_details","partner_research","partner_research_details","partner_private","partner_private_details","partner_other","partner_other_details","cost","fsector_0","fpartner_0","fdetails_0","fsector_1","fpartner_1","fdetails_1","fsector_2","fpartner_2","fdetails_2","fsector_3","fpartner_3","fdetails_3","fsector_4","fpartner_4","fdetails_4","fsector_5","fpartner_5","fdetails_5","fsector_6","fpartner_6","fdetails_6","fsector_7","fpartner_7","fdetails_7","fsector_8","fpartner_8","fdetails_8","fsector_9","fpartner_9","fdetails_9","fsector_10","fpartner_10","fdetails_10","fsector_11","fpartner_11","fdetails_11","fsector_12","fpartner_12","fdetails_12","fsector_13","fpartner_13","fdetails_13","fsector_14","fpartner_14","fdetails_14","fsector_15","fpartner_15","fdetails_15","fsector_16","fpartner_16","fdetails_16","fsector_17","fpartner_17","fdetails_17","fsector_18","fpartner_18","fdetails_18","fsector_19","fpartner_19","fdetails_19","fsector_20","fpartner_20","fdetails_20","fsector_21","fpartner_21","fdetails_21","fsector_22","fpartner_22","fdetails_22","fsector_23","fpartner_23","fdetails_23","fsector_24","fpartner_24","fdetails_24","fsector_25","fpartner_25","fdetails_25","fsector_26","fpartner_26","fdetails_26","fsector_27","fpartner_27","fdetails_27","fsector_28","fpartner_28","fdetails_28","fsector_29","fpartner_29","fdetails_29","fsector_30","fpartner_30","fdetails_30","fsector_31","fpartner_31","fdetails_31","fsector_32","fpartner_32","fdetails_32","fsector_33","fpartner_33","fdetails_33","fsector_34","fpartner_34","fdetails_34","fsector_35","fpartner_35","fdetails_35","fsector_36","fpartner_36","fdetails_36","fsector_37","fpartner_37","fdetails_37","fsector_38","fpartner_38","fdetails_38","fsector_39","fpartner_39","fdetails_39","fsector_40","fpartner_40","fdetails_40","fsector_41","fpartner_41","fdetails_41","fsector_42","fpartner_42","fdetails_42","fsector_43","fpartner_43","fdetails_43","fsector_44","fpartner_44","fdetails_44","fsector_45","fpartner_45","fdetails_45","fsector_46","fpartner_46","fdetails_46","fsector_47","fpartner_47","fdetails_47","fsector_48","fpartner_48","fdetails_48","fsector_49","fpartner_49","fdetails_49","action_id","theme","topic","new_topic","micronutrient","micronutrient_compound","target_group","age_group","place","delivery","other_delivery","dose_frequency","impact_indicators","me_system","target_pop","coverage_percent","coverage_type","baseline","post_intervention","social_det","social_other","elena_link","problem_0","solution_0","problem_1","solution_1","problem_2","solution_2","problem_3","solution_3","problem_4","solution_4","problem_5","solution_5","problem_6","solution_6","problem_7","solution_7","problem_8","solution_8","problem_9","solution_9","other_problems","other_lessons","personal_story","language" "11480","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness ","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Kampala, Central Region, Uganda|Hoima, Western Region, Uganda|Bushenyi, Western Region, Uganda|Kitgum, Northern Region, Uganda|Lira, Northern Region, Uganda ","Urban|Rural|Peri-urban","completed","01-2005","01-2011","
A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project consolidates, builds, and expands on USAID's long-term investment in micronutrients, child survival, and nutrition. A2Z takes proven interventions to scale, introduces innovation, expands services, and builds sustainable programs to increase the use of key micronutrient and blindness interventions to improve child and maternal health. With work in vitamin A supplementation of children, newborn vitamin A, food fortification, maternal and child anemia control, monitoring and evaluation, and health systems strengthening, A2Z's focus countries have included Bangladesh, Cambodia, the East, Central and Southern Africa region, India, Nepal, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda and West Bank.
The objectives of A2Z’s program in Uganda are to support increased vitamin A supplementation coverage in selected districts, expand coverage of fortified foods, improve coverage and adherence to anemia protocols for pregnant women, and support development of guidelines to include zinc in diarrhea case management for young children.
","A2Z supports Uganda’s national Child Days Plus (CDP) program for vitamin A and deworming each year at national and district levels. The project is collaborating with the Neglected Tropical Diseases program to train community medicine distributors to administer vitamin A supplements to children 6-59 months old, assist target districts in the development of guidelines, share best practices for planning of Child Days Plus, and conduct regional Child Days Plus feedback and planning meetings in collaboration with UNICEF. The project also supports data collection and supervision activities as part of the national health management information system.
",".
","","some districts","","","","","Vulnerable groups","","Vitamin A supplementation in neonates>>>Vitamin A supplementation in neonates>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/vitamina_neonatal","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11480","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness ","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Kampala, Central Region, Uganda|Hoima, Western Region, Uganda|Bushenyi, Western Region, Uganda|Kitgum, Northern Region, Uganda|Lira, Northern Region, Uganda ","Urban|Rural|Peri-urban","completed","01-2005","01-2011","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project consolidates, builds, and expands on USAID's long-term investment in micronutrients, child survival, and nutrition. A2Z takes proven interventions to scale, introduces innovation, expands services, and builds sustainable programs to increase the use of key micronutrient and blindness interventions to improve child and maternal health. With work in vitamin A supplementation of children, newborn vitamin A, food fortification, maternal and child anemia control, monitoring and evaluation, and health systems strengthening, A2Z's focus countries have included Bangladesh, Cambodia, the East, Central and Southern Africa region, India, Nepal, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda and West Bank.
The objectives of A2Z’s program in Uganda are to support increased vitamin A supplementation coverage in selected districts, expand coverage of fortified foods, improve coverage and adherence to anemia protocols for pregnant women, and support development of guidelines to include zinc in diarrhea case management for young children.
","A2Z provides technical inputs to a wheat and maize flour fortification program supported by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). A2Z is also strengthening existing fortification programs in such as areas as inspection and monitoring of iodized salt and vitamin A fortified oil. The country routinely supervises factories, importation sites, and retail stores. Most of the salt in the country complies with iodization regulation, and more than 95 percent of the oil available at retail stores appears to be fortified with adequate vitamin A content. Wheat flour samples are also periodically analyzed for their iron content. A food and nutrition consumption survey is underway in collaboration with Makerere University, the National Working Group in Food Fortification, and GAIN to determine the suitability and potential benefit of the food fortification policies of the country. As part of advocacy and planning support, A2Z is assisting in cost studies of oil and sugar fortification.
","A2Z is also strengthening existing fortification programs in such as areas as inspection and monitoring of iodized salt and vitamin A fortified oil.
","more than 95 percent of the oil available at retail stores appears to be fortified ","","","","","Other","Universal salt iodization, vitamin A fortification of all oils","Iodization of salt>>>Iodization of salt>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/salt_iodization","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11480","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness ","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Kampala, Central Region, Uganda|Hoima, Western Region, Uganda|Bushenyi, Western Region, Uganda|Kitgum, Northern Region, Uganda|Lira, Northern Region, Uganda ","Urban|Rural|Peri-urban","completed","01-2005","01-2011","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project consolidates, builds, and expands on USAID's long-term investment in micronutrients, child survival, and nutrition. A2Z takes proven interventions to scale, introduces innovation, expands services, and builds sustainable programs to increase the use of key micronutrient and blindness interventions to improve child and maternal health. With work in vitamin A supplementation of children, newborn vitamin A, food fortification, maternal and child anemia control, monitoring and evaluation, and health systems strengthening, A2Z's focus countries have included Bangladesh, Cambodia, the East, Central and Southern Africa region, India, Nepal, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda and West Bank.
The objectives of A2Z’s program in Uganda are to support increased vitamin A supplementation coverage in selected districts, expand coverage of fortified foods, improve coverage and adherence to anemia protocols for pregnant women, and support development of guidelines to include zinc in diarrhea case management for young children.
","A2Z works at national and district levels to help implement national guidelines on the prevention and control of maternal anemia. The intervention package includes reduction of malaria, deworming, and improved iron intake. Efforts are underway to revitalize maternal anemia reduction activities by positioning it as a key maternal mortality reduction approach. The project is systematically addressing bottlenecks such as low health worker knowledge and motivation and generally low community awareness (especially among mothers) on the dangers of anemia. Another bottleneck—poor logistics management with frequent stock outs of iron—was examined as part of an assessment of the availability of micronutrient supplements and medicines for use in micronutrient programs. The assessment was conducted in Uganda by A2Z in collaboration with MSH/RPM+.
","maternal anaemia
maternal mortality
","","","","","","","Sex","","Deworming to combat the health and nutritional impact of soil-transmitted helminths>>>Deworming to combat the health and nutritional impact of soil-transmitted helminths>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/deworming","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11480","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness ","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Kampala, Central Region, Uganda|Hoima, Western Region, Uganda|Bushenyi, Western Region, Uganda|Kitgum, Northern Region, Uganda|Lira, Northern Region, Uganda ","Urban|Rural|Peri-urban","completed","01-2005","01-2011","A2Z: The USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project consolidates, builds, and expands on USAID's long-term investment in micronutrients, child survival, and nutrition. A2Z takes proven interventions to scale, introduces innovation, expands services, and builds sustainable programs to increase the use of key micronutrient and blindness interventions to improve child and maternal health. With work in vitamin A supplementation of children, newborn vitamin A, food fortification, maternal and child anemia control, monitoring and evaluation, and health systems strengthening, A2Z's focus countries have included Bangladesh, Cambodia, the East, Central and Southern Africa region, India, Nepal, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda and West Bank.
The objectives of A2Z’s program in Uganda are to support increased vitamin A supplementation coverage in selected districts, expand coverage of fortified foods, improve coverage and adherence to anemia protocols for pregnant women, and support development of guidelines to include zinc in diarrhea case management for young children.
","A2Z provided assistance to the MOH in reviewing the plan for revitalization of oral rehydration therapy and advocated for the inclusion of zinc as an adjunct therapy for diarrhea treatment. Zinc therapy as part of diarrhea management was accepted as national treatment in December 2006.
","diarreal cases
","","","","","","","Vulnerable groups","","Zinc supplementation in the management of diarrhoea>>>Zinc supplementation in the management of diarrhoea>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/zinc_diarrhoea","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11483","The MOST Project","English","Multi-national","","ETH|GHA|ZAF|UGA|ZMB","Ethiopia|Ghana|South Africa|Uganda|Zambia","Ethiopia|Ghana|South Africa|Uganda|Zambia","Urban|Rural|Peri-urban","completed","01-1997","01-2001","Background
Micronutrient deficiency adversely affects the health and economic and social development of individuals, communities, and nations. Given their high prevalence in developing regions, deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine have great public health significance.
Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune system and, hence, increases the severity of infections. It is also the most common cause of blindness among children in developing countries. Iron deficiency anemia impairs immunity and reduces physical and mental capacities of populations. Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of mental and physical retardation in infants and children worldwide. As with vitamin A and iron, iodine deficiency increases the risk of death in newborns.
Programs that promote improved micronutrient status can alleviate the disability, morbidity, and mortality—particularly among young children and women—that are the consequences of micronutrient deficiency.
The MOST Mission
The MOST mission is to 1) maintain and enhance USAID's global leadership position in addressing micronutrient malnutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency; 2) implement and evaluate state-of-the-art interventions to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies; and 3) provide technical guidance and coordination to other USAID projects with micronutrient-related components.
The MOST Strategy
The MOST strategy is built upon a framework of global and country-level results:
The global agenda focuses on 1) promoting a revised global agenda in collaboration with other organizations worldwide committed to reducing micronutrient malnutrition; 2) translating scientific knowledge into policy and program action; and 3) maximizing lessons learned through USAID’s extensive field program experience.
Country-level results address deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine: 1) vitamin A coverage of at least 80 percent of deficient children under 6 years of age; 2) moderate to severe anemia decreased by 30 percent in pregnant women and children 6–24 months of age; and 3) percentage of the population with symptoms of iodine deficiency reduced by 30 percent.
Country Activities
For micronutrient delivery at the country level, MOST’s role is to provide technical support to countries to guide the use of not only USAID funds, but also the full range of financial and human resources needed to eliminate micronutrient deficiencies from the list of public health problems.
In the design of country activities, MOST seeks the appropriate balance between supplementation, food fortification, and other food-based approaches to deliver micronutrients to at-risk populations in an effective, yet affordable way. Country activities are based upon analyses of a variety of relevant information:
—Prevalence and severity of micronutrient deficiencies
—Awareness of effects of micronutrient deficiencies
—Nutrition policies and programs
—Providers’ motivation, knowledge, and practices
—Food consumption data
—Production, distribution, and marketing of staple foods
—Estimates of the costs of alternative interventions
Key Areas of Activity
—Application of behavior change techniques to create demand for micronutrient programs and services
—Enhancement of the effectiveness and sustainability of supplementation programs
—Sound planning, implementation, and quality control of fortification programs
—Inclusion of other food-based approaches in programs
—Application of appropriate economic analysis to guide the evolution of country programs
—Use of monitoring and evaluation to improve program operations
—Development of public and private sector alliances to enhance the effectiveness of interventions
Target Groups
MOST focuses on the improvement of the micronutrient status of children under 6 years of age and women of childbearing age. Several intervention options available to address micronutrient deficiency, such as food fortification, will benefit not only those target groups, but also school-age children and adult males.
The MOST Team
The MOST team consists of five organizations led by the International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. (ISTI) as the primary contractor. ISTI's partners are the Academy for Educational Development, Helen Keller International, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Johns Hopkins University.
In addition, five resource institutions have joined MOST for in-country implementation and technical tasks: CARE, International Executive Service Corps, Population Services International, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, and Save the Children.
","Twice a year, at designated times, the three programs distribute capsules to children aged six months to five years. Each program follows a campaign model based upon intensified social mobilization and service delivery over two to seven days. The twice-yearly events have created a cadre of field-tested personnel in the three countries, who are skilled at working with the local communities and at promoting their support and active participation. All three programs have been associated with National Immunization Days (NIDs), a WHO global program to eradicate polio. Since NIDs were held annually, however, they provided an opportunity for only one dose of vitamin A each year. Because children with vitamin A deficiency should receive a supplement at least twice a year (every four to six months), another mechanism was needed for the second dose. Relying exclusively upon facility-based distribution to deliver the second dose was not a viable option for several reasons, but in particular because healthfacility attendance for older children was not high enough to ensure adequate coverage in the one-to-five-year age group.
In Zambia, the first non-NIDs vitamin A supplementation program was launched in August 1999, and later renamed Child Health Week (CHW) to make the focus on the child more explicit. It was also felt that, instead of limiting activities to a vertical vitamin A supplementation program, the opportunity should be seized to deliver an integrated service that included not only vitamin A capsules but also other health services such as de-worming, health education, immunization, family planning, prenatal care, and growth monitoring. Districts were encouraged to provide an integrated package of services commensurate with their local capacity and need — as long as vitamin A supplementation remained the core activity during that week. In Zambia, the first NIDs campaign took place in 1997, and was a nationwide undertaking. The program was scaled down to about half the districts in recent years. Since 1999, the focus has shifted to priority districts, where communities have been at a constant risk of cross-border polio infections due to civil-war-related migrations from neighboring countries. This narrower focus is referred to in Zambia as sub-NIDS.
The first round of vitamin A supplementation in Ghana was integrated into NIDs in 1996. By 1999, a detailed plan was developed to implement a nationwide stand-alone supplementation program for the second round. In 2000, the Ministry of Health (MOH) carried out the first vitamin A standalone capsule distribution in the country’s ten regions. Since that date, the program has become a two- to three-day stand-alone event used to deliver a second dose of vitamin A to all children 6 to 59 months of age. Volunteers from the Ghana Education Service, along with personnel from other decentralized departments, assist with the supervision and capsule-distribution effort. Community-based volunteers are in direct contact with caregivers and children and also work very closely with health workers, assemblymen, chiefs, opinion leaders, gong-gong beaters, and other community leaders to mobilize beneficiaries, administer vitamin A, and maintain distribution records.
In contrast to Zambia and Ghana, Nepal followed a phased approach to program implementation. Integration of vitamin A into NIDs in Nepal was initiated in 1997,
four years after a supplementation program was established in 8 of the country’s 75 districts. The second distribution campaign has since been phased in at a rate of eight to ten districts per year. By 2001, the program covered all but three politically unstable districts. Under the program, high-dose vitamin A capsules are distributed to all children aged 6 to 59 months during a twoday event.
","
Ghana
A monitoring team consisting of national, regional, and district supervisors carries out organized and random spot checks. Where necessary, vitamin A capsule administrators are assisted in performing their tasks. Capsule-distribution teams use all means of transportation available within the region and district, whether these be 4x4 vehicles, 2x4 pickups, motorcycles, or bicycles. MOH, district assemblies, decentralized departments, and local and international NGOs provide fuel and contribute to vehicle maintenance. At the end of each day, tally sheets are counted and summary sheets completed. Data are compiled by sub-district and district health management teams. After all figures are checked for accuracy, district coverage is calculated. District coverage data are sent to the regional nutrition officers and senior medical officers of public health, who compile regional coverage figures before sending them to the Nutrition Unit in Accra. Using regional figures, the Nutrition Unit estimates national coverage.
Zambia
Monitoring teams consisting of national, provincial, and district staff carry out systematic or random observations, depending on what they are monitoring. Where necessary, vitamin A capsule administrators are assisted in performing their tasks. At the end of each day, tally sheets are counted, summary sheets completed, and data compiled. District figures are then checked for accuracy, after which district coverage is calculated and the results forwarded to NFNC.
","Ghana: 3.5 million children ","Ghana: Exceeded target in May 2001; Zambia: 28 percent in 1999, 88 in Febraury 2002","","serum retinol levels of &lt;20 ug/dl,night-blindness prevalence,vitamin A supplementation coverage for children,subclinical vitamin A deficiency,","serum retinol levels of <20 ug/dl,night-blindness prevalence,vitamin A supplementation coverage for children,subclinical vitamin A deficiency,","Vulnerable groups","","Vitamin A supplementation in neonates>>>Vitamin A supplementation in neonates>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/vitamina_neonatal","Insufficient staff","In Zambia and Ghana, it has been somewhat more difficult to generate a consistent cadre of volunteers for the vitamin A distribution. In each country, districts mobilize health post and sub-health post staff, identify extended outreach sites (including clinics, schools, and community centers),and then recruit community members to assist them with their activities. In Ghana, this has been relatively successful since there have been adequate clinic staff and a manageable number of outreach sites. In spite of this, many districts have continued to do some house-to-house visits to ensure high coverage. In Zambia, it has been more difficult to recruit community volunteers, and the clinic staff have been stretched to cover outreach sites.","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","Robin Houston (2003). Why They Work: An analysis of three successful public health interventions - Vitamin A supplementation programs in Ghana, Nepal, and Zambia
Background
Micronutrient deficiency adversely affects the health and economic and social development of individuals, communities, and nations. Given their high prevalence in developing regions, deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine have great public health significance.
Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune system and, hence, increases the severity of infections. It is also the most common cause of blindness among children in developing countries. Iron deficiency anemia impairs immunity and reduces physical and mental capacities of populations. Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of mental and physical retardation in infants and children worldwide. As with vitamin A and iron, iodine deficiency increases the risk of death in newborns.
Programs that promote improved micronutrient status can alleviate the disability, morbidity, and mortality—particularly among young children and women—that are the consequences of micronutrient deficiency.
The MOST Mission
The MOST mission is to 1) maintain and enhance USAID's global leadership position in addressing micronutrient malnutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency; 2) implement and evaluate state-of-the-art interventions to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies; and 3) provide technical guidance and coordination to other USAID projects with micronutrient-related components.
The MOST Strategy
The MOST strategy is built upon a framework of global and country-level results:
The global agenda focuses on 1) promoting a revised global agenda in collaboration with other organizations worldwide committed to reducing micronutrient malnutrition; 2) translating scientific knowledge into policy and program action; and 3) maximizing lessons learned through USAID’s extensive field program experience.
Country-level results address deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine: 1) vitamin A coverage of at least 80 percent of deficient children under 6 years of age; 2) moderate to severe anemia decreased by 30 percent in pregnant women and children 6–24 months of age; and 3) percentage of the population with symptoms of iodine deficiency reduced by 30 percent.
Country Activities
For micronutrient delivery at the country level, MOST’s role is to provide technical support to countries to guide the use of not only USAID funds, but also the full range of financial and human resources needed to eliminate micronutrient deficiencies from the list of public health problems.
In the design of country activities, MOST seeks the appropriate balance between supplementation, food fortification, and other food-based approaches to deliver micronutrients to at-risk populations in an effective, yet affordable way. Country activities are based upon analyses of a variety of relevant information:
—Prevalence and severity of micronutrient deficiencies
—Awareness of effects of micronutrient deficiencies
—Nutrition policies and programs
—Providers’ motivation, knowledge, and practices
—Food consumption data
—Production, distribution, and marketing of staple foods
—Estimates of the costs of alternative interventions
Key Areas of Activity
—Application of behavior change techniques to create demand for micronutrient programs and services
—Enhancement of the effectiveness and sustainability of supplementation programs
—Sound planning, implementation, and quality control of fortification programs
—Inclusion of other food-based approaches in programs
—Application of appropriate economic analysis to guide the evolution of country programs
—Use of monitoring and evaluation to improve program operations
—Development of public and private sector alliances to enhance the effectiveness of interventions
Target Groups
MOST focuses on the improvement of the micronutrient status of children under 6 years of age and women of childbearing age. Several intervention options available to address micronutrient deficiency, such as food fortification, will benefit not only those target groups, but also school-age children and adult males.
The MOST Team
The MOST team consists of five organizations led by the International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. (ISTI) as the primary contractor. ISTI's partners are the Academy for Educational Development, Helen Keller International, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Johns Hopkins University.
In addition, five resource institutions have joined MOST for in-country implementation and technical tasks: CARE, International Executive Service Corps, Population Services International, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, and Save the Children.
","Five data collection methods were used:
During the fieldwork, the enumerators worked in pairs. The enumerators were not allowed to use the instruments in the facilities where they worked. Each pair spent a full day at a health facility. Field supervisors supported the enumerators during the data collection and checked the questionnaires for consistency and completeness. This was to ensure that the data collected was accurate as possible.
","""""Many pregnant mothers do not come to ANC because they had several normal pregnancies and think all will continue to go on well always.”
- Health worker, Apac
“ The health worker at the health centre is very rude, she has no time for us; so we fear even asking questions or discussing any issue about our health. So I go all the way to Naguru health clinic and only here if I have no money for transport.”
- A pregnant woman, Kojja, Mukono
“ I think these tablets for blood should be given only to pregnant women who have no blood. It may cause a high blood level and lead to high blood pressure.”
- TBAs, Kyampisi
“ Women with increased blood should not take these tablets (iron and folic acids) because their heartbeats will increase and they will sweat very much.”
- TBAs, Seeta Nazigo
“ Some mothers say it smells and they throw away the tablets soon after the clinic.”
- Pregnant mothers, Kojja
“ Some mothers do not like taking tablets when they are pregnant.”
- Pregnant mothers, Seeta Nazigo
Background
Micronutrient deficiency adversely affects the health and economic and social development of individuals, communities, and nations. Given their high prevalence in developing regions, deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine have great public health significance.
Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune system and, hence, increases the severity of infections. It is also the most common cause of blindness among children in developing countries. Iron deficiency anemia impairs immunity and reduces physical and mental capacities of populations. Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of mental and physical retardation in infants and children worldwide. As with vitamin A and iron, iodine deficiency increases the risk of death in newborns.
Programs that promote improved micronutrient status can alleviate the disability, morbidity, and mortality—particularly among young children and women—that are the consequences of micronutrient deficiency.
The MOST Mission
The MOST mission is to 1) maintain and enhance USAID's global leadership position in addressing micronutrient malnutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency; 2) implement and evaluate state-of-the-art interventions to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies; and 3) provide technical guidance and coordination to other USAID projects with micronutrient-related components.
The MOST Strategy
The MOST strategy is built upon a framework of global and country-level results:
The global agenda focuses on 1) promoting a revised global agenda in collaboration with other organizations worldwide committed to reducing micronutrient malnutrition; 2) translating scientific knowledge into policy and program action; and 3) maximizing lessons learned through USAID’s extensive field program experience.
Country-level results address deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine: 1) vitamin A coverage of at least 80 percent of deficient children under 6 years of age; 2) moderate to severe anemia decreased by 30 percent in pregnant women and children 6–24 months of age; and 3) percentage of the population with symptoms of iodine deficiency reduced by 30 percent.
Country Activities
For micronutrient delivery at the country level, MOST’s role is to provide technical support to countries to guide the use of not only USAID funds, but also the full range of financial and human resources needed to eliminate micronutrient deficiencies from the list of public health problems.
In the design of country activities, MOST seeks the appropriate balance between supplementation, food fortification, and other food-based approaches to deliver micronutrients to at-risk populations in an effective, yet affordable way. Country activities are based upon analyses of a variety of relevant information:
—Prevalence and severity of micronutrient deficiencies
—Awareness of effects of micronutrient deficiencies
—Nutrition policies and programs
—Providers’ motivation, knowledge, and practices
—Food consumption data
—Production, distribution, and marketing of staple foods
—Estimates of the costs of alternative interventions
Key Areas of Activity
—Application of behavior change techniques to create demand for micronutrient programs and services
—Enhancement of the effectiveness and sustainability of supplementation programs
—Sound planning, implementation, and quality control of fortification programs
—Inclusion of other food-based approaches in programs
—Application of appropriate economic analysis to guide the evolution of country programs
—Use of monitoring and evaluation to improve program operations
—Development of public and private sector alliances to enhance the effectiveness of interventions
Target Groups
MOST focuses on the improvement of the micronutrient status of children under 6 years of age and women of childbearing age. Several intervention options available to address micronutrient deficiency, such as food fortification, will benefit not only those target groups, but also school-age children and adult males.
The MOST Team
The MOST team consists of five organizations led by the International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. (ISTI) as the primary contractor. ISTI's partners are the Academy for Educational Development, Helen Keller International, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Johns Hopkins University.
In addition, five resource institutions have joined MOST for in-country implementation and technical tasks: CARE, International Executive Service Corps, Population Services International, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, and Save the Children.
","Ethiopia
MOST is providing technical and implementation support to the Ministry of Health in the development of a national micronutrient program. The program is a cooperative effort between the MOH, USAID/Ethiopia, MOST, and UNICEF. Program components include strengthening of the newly formed nutrition division at the MOH and the micronutrient committee; development of a locally designed vitamin A supplementation strategy and its pilot test; support for initial trials of vitamin A sugar fortification in one of the country's four sugar factories; and support for information, education, and communication activities.
South Africa
MOST is working with counterparts at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) to support and strengthen a new vitamin A supplementation program being started by the Department of Health in Eastern Cape province. MOST is also supporting a pilot initiative by UWC that aims to incorporate micronutrient interventions into the Eastern Cape Integrated Nutrition Program.
.
","","","","","","","Vulnerable groups","","Vitamin A supplementation in neonates>>>Vitamin A supplementation in neonates>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/vitamina_neonatal","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11483","The MOST Project","English","Multi-national","","ETH|GHA|ZAF|UGA|ZMB","Ethiopia|Ghana|South Africa|Uganda|Zambia","Ethiopia|Ghana|South Africa|Uganda|Zambia","Urban|Rural|Peri-urban","completed","01-1997","01-2001","Background
Micronutrient deficiency adversely affects the health and economic and social development of individuals, communities, and nations. Given their high prevalence in developing regions, deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine have great public health significance.
Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune system and, hence, increases the severity of infections. It is also the most common cause of blindness among children in developing countries. Iron deficiency anemia impairs immunity and reduces physical and mental capacities of populations. Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of mental and physical retardation in infants and children worldwide. As with vitamin A and iron, iodine deficiency increases the risk of death in newborns.
Programs that promote improved micronutrient status can alleviate the disability, morbidity, and mortality—particularly among young children and women—that are the consequences of micronutrient deficiency.
The MOST Mission
The MOST mission is to 1) maintain and enhance USAID's global leadership position in addressing micronutrient malnutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency; 2) implement and evaluate state-of-the-art interventions to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies; and 3) provide technical guidance and coordination to other USAID projects with micronutrient-related components.
The MOST Strategy
The MOST strategy is built upon a framework of global and country-level results:
The global agenda focuses on 1) promoting a revised global agenda in collaboration with other organizations worldwide committed to reducing micronutrient malnutrition; 2) translating scientific knowledge into policy and program action; and 3) maximizing lessons learned through USAID’s extensive field program experience.
Country-level results address deficiencies in vitamin A, iron, and iodine: 1) vitamin A coverage of at least 80 percent of deficient children under 6 years of age; 2) moderate to severe anemia decreased by 30 percent in pregnant women and children 6–24 months of age; and 3) percentage of the population with symptoms of iodine deficiency reduced by 30 percent.
Country Activities
For micronutrient delivery at the country level, MOST’s role is to provide technical support to countries to guide the use of not only USAID funds, but also the full range of financial and human resources needed to eliminate micronutrient deficiencies from the list of public health problems.
In the design of country activities, MOST seeks the appropriate balance between supplementation, food fortification, and other food-based approaches to deliver micronutrients to at-risk populations in an effective, yet affordable way. Country activities are based upon analyses of a variety of relevant information:
—Prevalence and severity of micronutrient deficiencies
—Awareness of effects of micronutrient deficiencies
—Nutrition policies and programs
—Providers’ motivation, knowledge, and practices
—Food consumption data
—Production, distribution, and marketing of staple foods
—Estimates of the costs of alternative interventions
Key Areas of Activity
—Application of behavior change techniques to create demand for micronutrient programs and services
—Enhancement of the effectiveness and sustainability of supplementation programs
—Sound planning, implementation, and quality control of fortification programs
—Inclusion of other food-based approaches in programs
—Application of appropriate economic analysis to guide the evolution of country programs
—Use of monitoring and evaluation to improve program operations
—Development of public and private sector alliances to enhance the effectiveness of interventions
Target Groups
MOST focuses on the improvement of the micronutrient status of children under 6 years of age and women of childbearing age. Several intervention options available to address micronutrient deficiency, such as food fortification, will benefit not only those target groups, but also school-age children and adult males.
The MOST Team
The MOST team consists of five organizations led by the International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. (ISTI) as the primary contractor. ISTI's partners are the Academy for Educational Development, Helen Keller International, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Johns Hopkins University.
In addition, five resource institutions have joined MOST for in-country implementation and technical tasks: CARE, International Executive Service Corps, Population Services International, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, and Save the Children.
","Government agencies encouraged the initial development of fortification: NFNC promoted initial research, sponsored meetings, and coordinated activities related to fortification; MOH researched the legal framework; the National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research (NISIR) provided technical guidance; the Food and Drug Control Laboratory (FDCL) conducted monitoring and evaluation; and the Zambian Revenue Authority (ZRA) examined the tax structure. Industry acceptance allowed planning to begin, but donor support was critical to the development of the program: the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was the lead financer of the project and provided technical assistance, UNICEF provided spare parts, and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided spectrophotometers for Zambia Sugar and the FDCL.
While legislation was still being developed, Zambia Sugar went ahead with the launch of fortified Whitespoon Sugar on May 15, 1998. Zambia Sugar began its fortification program at 15 mg/kg, but cost considerations led the company to reduce the level to 10 mg/kg within three months. In May 1997, one year before fortification began, a consultant estimated the cost of fortifying 100,000 metric tons of sugar at 16 mg/kg to be around $1 million U.S., while fortifying at 20 mg/kg would cost almost $1.25 million.24 Reducing the level from 16 to 10 mg/kg could thus have reduced costs by approximately $375,000 a year.
","Modified Relative Dose Response Test (MRDR) in children
","The first outside tests of fortificant levels in sugar were controversial. Four months after the launch of fortified sugar, a team consisting of representatives from the MOH, the NFNC, and NISIR visited the Zambia Sugar mill. The team tested samples from the mill at the FDCL; these tests showed far lower levels of vitamin A than those shown in tests by Zambia Sugar. The government’s tests indicated a range of 0–13.6 mg/kg, while Zambia Sugar’s tests indicated a range of 9–21 mg/kg for the same samples. Zambia Sugar believes that the samples suffered sedimentation in the transport to the government laboratory and that this explains the different results.
MOST, the USAID micronutrient program, sponsored the creation of training manuals for health inspectors and Food and Drug enforcement officers, as well as a national training workshop from September 24 to October 7, 2000. The workshop focused on inspection procedures and methods, provided laboratory training where appropriate, and included a trip to the Zambia Sugar plant. Since the implementation of that program, Zambia Sugar has expressed satisfaction with law enforcement efforts. UNICEF subsequently funded workshops at the district level, using reproductions of the training manuals that had been produced with MOST funding.
","nationwide","..","","","","Vulnerable groups","","","Financial resources","","Communication","","Financial resources","","Adherence","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11516","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","GHA","Ghana","Northern, Ghana|Western Region, Ghana","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Ghana, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 860,000 vulnerable Ghanaian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 324,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Ghana is making core investments in three key areas:
1. To achieve food security, agriculture programs will focus on driving a step-change in the volume and value performance of core staple value chains—starting with rice, maize and soy—and improving the governance of marine fisheries resources.
2. To help reduce malnutrition and improve household resilience of vulnerable populations, agriculture and nutrition programs will focus on a) improving access to diverse quality food, b) improving nutrition-related behaviors within vulnerable households, c) developing community mechanisms to identify and address their food and nutrition problems, and d) strengthening coordination of government and other actors to meet food security and nutrition objectives.
3. To improve the nutritional status of women and children, nutrition programs will focus on:
In addition to these three core areas, environment, natural resource management, climate change, and gender are incorporated as cross-cutting issues in all programs and activities as guiding principles.
Target Regions
A strategic focus on the rice, maize and soy value chains for five years could raise tens of thousands of people out of poverty, 75 percent of whom would be in northern Ghana. Improving marine fisheries governance in the Western Region will benefit fishery households and increase the nutritional status of fish consumers across Ghana.
Highlights
Northern Zone. The rural northern regions have the highest rates of food insecurity in the country—as much as seven times the national average. The northern zone program will aim to improve economic opportunities and diversify household income by doing the following:
Coastal Marine Fisheries Zone. Poverty in the coastal areas of Ghana is extensive, with the average welfare level among food farmers in rural coastal areas 12 percent below that in large urban centers such as Accra. Marine capture fisheries are the major economic activity along the coast and their importance reaches far beyond the coast. There is strong evidence that Ghana’s coastal ecosystems are already seriously degraded and experiencing erosion and will undoubtedly be under growing pressure with an oil and gas industry on its way. The Feed the Future program will:
National Scale Nutritional Programming. In coordination with other development partners, Feed the Future will support the Government of Ghana’s implementation of a comprehensive program of community-based management of acute malnutrition through a comprehensive behavior change program. This comprehensive package will improve nutrition-related behaviors and will be incorporated into programming in the Western, Central, and Greater Accra regions. Operational research will be conducted in 2011–2012 to better understand the extremely high rates of anemia among children in Ghana. This research will be used to develop key nutritional aspects of Feed the Future programming and to shape a national child anemia strategy and program that can be undertaken by Ghana Health Service and its development partners.
","Ghana achieved significant reductions in poverty in the past from agricultural growth that came from area expansion, but today it must come from increased productivity and reduced pre- and post-harvest loss, which fuels increases in farm output and income. Thus, the Strategy is based on:
Sustainably Reduce Global Poverty and Hunger
Inclusive agriculture sector growth
Improved nutritional status especially of women and children
Improved Agricultural Productivity
Enhanced human and institutional capacity development for increased agricultural sector productivity
Enhanced Technology Development, Dissemination, Management and Innovation
Improved Agricultural Policy Environment (increase productivity)
Enhanced institutional capacity development for increased ag. sector productivity
Agricultural producer organizations strengthened
Expanding Markets and Trade
Enhanced Human and Institutional capacity dev’t for agribusiness growth
Property Rights to Land and Other Productive Assets Strengthened
Improved Post-harvest market information
Improved access to business development and sound and affordable financial and risk management services
Increased private sector investment in agriculture and nutrition related activities
Increased agriculture value-chain productivity leading to greater on and off-farm jobs
","
USAID/Ghana will continue using the basic methodology of its existing Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) for 2009–2013 that includes its monitoring of regular Development Assistance funds, GFSR, and FTF funds. With technical support to be provided by USAID/Washington, USAID/Ghana will build on its current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to design and establish a comprehensive new FTF M&E system and PMP in 2011. In addition, the Mission has several years of experience using the Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA) monitoring and reporting system which will form the foundation for FTF monitoring and reporting. Since Mission implementing partners will be the source of a great deal of information, their own monitoring and reporting systems will be set up to provide the appropriate sex-disaggregated data, results, indicators, followed by regular monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual reports to comply with the Operating Unit’s overall M&E system requirements. The Mission will be more watchful in ensuring that sex-disaggregated data is collected at all levels of indicators (outputs, outcomes and impacts), and will use available resources to invest in more in-depth analysis of the impacts of programs on men and women.
Data Quality and Management: FTF M&E will benefit greatly from assistance provided by the USAID’s GSSP project to strengthen Ghana’s agricultural statistics system. A new system is being launched in 2011 called the Ghana Agricultural Production Survey (GAPS). The key improvements to be made in the current Multi-Round Crop and Livestock Survey (MRCLS) are a disaggregated and updated sample design (district representativeness), expanded scope and depth of (geo-referenced) agricultural information collected, and new and enhanced management system consisting of improved data management practices and tailored software for improved and timely data processing, monitoring, and reporting. This resource will provide unprecedented household (gender disaggregated) information on an annual basis to help report on a number of FTF indicators.
Other than the in-house sources of information, various other M&E analytical tools, structures, and approaches will be considered for establishing baselines and constant monitoring. These options include instruments like the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS- the local version of the LSMS), Participatory Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment (PPVA), Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA), and the Northern Ghana Food Security and Nutrition Monitoring System.
Data from the Demographic and Health Survey, which was last conducted in Ghana 2008, provides the baseline for nutrition and maternal and child health interventions. The USG will support this survey again in 2011, and therefore will have access to important data to assess the impact of the program at its midpoint. The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, conducted by UNICEF with support from USAID and planned for 2011 and 2015, will provide impact data to assess the success of the FTF program in Ghana at the conclusion of this Strategy period.
Developing National/Regional Capacity to use Data: IFPRI (through the GSSP project) is helping to establish the CAADP Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) Node and will continue to provide the professional guidance to the country to ensure high quality statistical data remains available.
In addition, a Technical Services staffer will support the ASWG Secretariat in carrying out its functions effectively, including tasks like helping stakeholders (especially MOFA) keep track of agricultural related public and private sector investments and foreign support to the sector. There may be times where additional design work will be needed to create results monitoring frameworks for new activities and assist in modifying existing frameworks by adjusting indicators, defining baselines and setting targets. In addition, the Mission will be a partner in Joint Sector Reviews of agricultural sector performance conducted jointly by MOFA and development partners according to a mutual agreement the Mission supports for transparency, accountability, benchmarking, and results monitoring.
Impact Evaluations: The USG will ensure that evaluations for FTF will be adequately covered by above mentioned Technical Services PASA. One of its primary objectives is to evaluate and assess impact of the USAID/Ghana/EG portfolio of investments, in relationship to GOG and donor portfolios, and in relationship to Ghanaian needs in order to make progress towards MDGs and sustaining status of a middle income country. This includes providing relevant information for design of new and/or scaled-up projects as USG increases its investments in Ghana.
Evaluations will include both qualitative and quantitative methods. The hypothesis is that the development process itself can have a significant impact on and bring change to the Ghanaian environment. The objective is to test how much influence FTF programs have had on human behavior, human attitudes (e.g., trust in value chain systems), business and commercial practices, establishment of value chain linkages, increased livelihood options, smoothed out income flow over time (not just level of income), institutional efficiency and quality service delivery, and the programs’ impact on reducing key gender disparities. In addition, the programs should be evaluated to see if they were effective enough to bring about a transformative change or improvement in the lives of the poor, mainly in the northern regions.
","A strategic focus on the rice, maize and soy value chains for five years could raise tens of thousands of people out of poverty, 75 percent of whom would be in northern Ghana","At least 40,000 food insecure households with women of reproductive age and children under two in the Northern region of Ghana","","Lead indicators will be: gross margins per hectare of rice, maize/soya; value of incremental rice, maize/soya sales; value of intra-regional trade in maize; and value of new private sector investments in these select value chains. Many of these will be disaggregated by sex (e.g., gross margins per hectare) of the farmer (not the household head).","Lead indicators will be: gross margins per hectare of rice, maize/soya; value of incremental rice, maize/soya sales; value of intra-regional trade in maize; and value of new private sector investments in these select value chains. Many of these will be disaggregated by sex (e.g., gross margins per hectare) of the farmer (not the household head).","Vulnerable groups","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11516","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","GHA","Ghana","Northern, Ghana|Western Region, Ghana","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Ghana, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 860,000 vulnerable Ghanaian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 324,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Ghana is making core investments in three key areas:
1. To achieve food security, agriculture programs will focus on driving a step-change in the volume and value performance of core staple value chains—starting with rice, maize and soy—and improving the governance of marine fisheries resources.
2. To help reduce malnutrition and improve household resilience of vulnerable populations, agriculture and nutrition programs will focus on a) improving access to diverse quality food, b) improving nutrition-related behaviors within vulnerable households, c) developing community mechanisms to identify and address their food and nutrition problems, and d) strengthening coordination of government and other actors to meet food security and nutrition objectives.
3. To improve the nutritional status of women and children, nutrition programs will focus on:
In addition to these three core areas, environment, natural resource management, climate change, and gender are incorporated as cross-cutting issues in all programs and activities as guiding principles.
Target Regions
A strategic focus on the rice, maize and soy value chains for five years could raise tens of thousands of people out of poverty, 75 percent of whom would be in northern Ghana. Improving marine fisheries governance in the Western Region will benefit fishery households and increase the nutritional status of fish consumers across Ghana.
Highlights
Northern Zone. The rural northern regions have the highest rates of food insecurity in the country—as much as seven times the national average. The northern zone program will aim to improve economic opportunities and diversify household income by doing the following:
Coastal Marine Fisheries Zone. Poverty in the coastal areas of Ghana is extensive, with the average welfare level among food farmers in rural coastal areas 12 percent below that in large urban centers such as Accra. Marine capture fisheries are the major economic activity along the coast and their importance reaches far beyond the coast. There is strong evidence that Ghana’s coastal ecosystems are already seriously degraded and experiencing erosion and will undoubtedly be under growing pressure with an oil and gas industry on its way. The Feed the Future program will:
National Scale Nutritional Programming. In coordination with other development partners, Feed the Future will support the Government of Ghana’s implementation of a comprehensive program of community-based management of acute malnutrition through a comprehensive behavior change program. This comprehensive package will improve nutrition-related behaviors and will be incorporated into programming in the Western, Central, and Greater Accra regions. Operational research will be conducted in 2011–2012 to better understand the extremely high rates of anemia among children in Ghana. This research will be used to develop key nutritional aspects of Feed the Future programming and to shape a national child anemia strategy and program that can be undertaken by Ghana Health Service and its development partners.
","Activities will be implemented within the communities where staple crop value chain activities will take place, but will target vulnerable households that would not be captured by a staple crop value chain approach. Hopefully some of these households will eventually be able to participate in the larger commercial value chains as their condition improves. USAID’s efforts will concentrate on value chains in which women have some control and decision-making power over the production, processing, or marketing of the crops, or livestock, as well as control over the income derived from sales of those products. Examples of these include horticulture and small animal husbandry, which are generally managed and controlled by women. 16 In Ghana, activities of the USAID funded Global Livestock Project, ENAM (Enhancing Child Nutrition through Animal Source Food Management), showed positive results on improving production and consumption of animal source foods through a comprehensive approach that integrated income generation and nutrition education. USAID Title II programs in Ghana have also shown success in improving production of staple and non-staple foods. Nutrition and food safety education will be combined with microenterprise development so that men and women beneficiaries build resources and gain knowledge to provide safe and diverse diets to themselves, young children, and families. Male involvement is an essential aspect for the adoption of positive nutrition behaviors and practices.
Messages against child abuse and child trafficking as well as improved nutrition will be carried out among vulnerable households. Capacity-building in the use of good agricultural practices to prevent contamination of horticultural crops will result in higher yields and higher quality, safer products which will improve public health and develop markets for surplus products. Other aspects of household behaviors such as hygiene and sanitation are critical components to improve nutrition. Evidence shows that hand washing alone can reduce the incidence of diarrhea by 47 percent; diarrhea being both a potential cause and a consequence of undernutrition. By using evidence-based approaches (e.g., Community Led Total Sanitation), program activities will stimulate community mobilization and train local craftsmen (e.g., masons, carpenters) on inexpensive latrine construction or materials that could be purchased at the community level based on the types of latrines identified to construct by community members.
Improved access to diverse safe and quality food, especially for young children
Improved access to food can be accomplished through either direct consumption of produced goods or through purchase with improved incomes; most often improved access requires both approaches. In the northern areas of Ghana, both poverty and poor dietary diversity contribute to reduced access to diverse foods for the most vulnerable. Poverty is associated with lower consumption of a diverse diet including animal source proteins throughout Ghana, with particularly low diversity scores in the northern areas. Storage remains a major obstacle to food preservation and safety in Ghana that not only impedes direct access to food throughout the year, but also limits access to income since the majority of crops are sold post-harvest at low prices and then purchased at higher prices for consumption late in season. This strategy under the Agriculture Program explains that improving storage options will help address this problem.
The integrated program will require that implementing partners assess men’s and women’s roles to design interventions related to the four areas above that have the greatest chance for improving household and community resilience. For example, research on small-scale production activities through the ENAM Project found that men’s perception and appreciation of women’s activities had an impact on women’s empowerment and use of income for the household,17 underscoring the importance of including men in nutrition programs.
Improved nutrition–related behaviors within vulnerable households
Interpersonal communication, linked with community-based monitoring, will promote positive household behaviors related to nutritional health. This approach will encourage not only households but also communities to support broader measures such as hygiene and sanitation improvements, while helping reduce social and cultural barriers to improved nutrition-related behaviors, such as dietary restrictions based on age or gender. Positive practices that affect nutritional status of women and children will be promoted and supported through a combination of household visits, community outreach events, mother-to-mother support groups and other community groups. Men will be also targeted to promote their role in supporting positive nutrition-related behaviors.
This sub-program on nutrition behavior will be intertwined with and will build upon mass media and community behavior change activities undertaken through Program Objective Three. It will also be coordinated with other USG efforts such as the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), other USAID-funded health and agriculture programs, and related programs of the Ghana Health Service and other development partners and civil society groups to ensure complementarily and leverage additional resources and activities in target areas.
Communities able to identify and address their food and nutrition problems
Communities will establish food and nutrition objectives and will monitor their own progress by developing community-based nutrition monitoring systems. With data in hand, communities will be enabled to identify specific actions (e.g., diversified food production, fortification, improved storage or improved hygiene to reduce the incidence of diarrheal diseases) relevant to the local context and particular challenges. The integrated program will promote participatory practices that encourage men, women, and children to undertake and advocate for improvements to critical infrastructure through public works, facilitating effective engagement with local authorities, access to private sector credit, and potentially other support such as a small grants program. These actions will all be oriented to improve resiliency of households by allowing greater diversity and stability of income and access to food products.
One possible approach is to develop multi-sectoral collaborations to allow communities to systematically address food and nutrition challenges. All of the features of an improvement collaborative are applicable to improvement of services regardless of sector, including: shared improvement objectives; adequately supported quality improvement teams testing changes; an implementation package; regular analysis of measured results to guide quality improvement; shared learning for accelerated scale-up; spread of the successful strategy; and development or strengthening of relevant organizational structures.
Strengthened coordination of government and other actors to meet food security and nutrition objectives
USAID will work to strengthen cross-sectoral management of food security efforts at the central level as well as at the regional level. MOFA’s Women in Agricultural Development (WIAD) is working on several integrated initiatives targeting women farmers, focused on dietary diversity and increasing access to nutritious foods, and has also been involved in the CAADP and METASIP review processes.
On the health side, the interagency nutrition working group chaired by the Ghana Health Service will be strengthened as a planning and decision-making body for health-related nutrition efforts, and will be encouraged to work more directly with WIAD. Increasing support to WIAD and utilizing USAID’s position in health sector coordination to ensure that health actors become more involved with WIAD’s initiatives will greatly contribute to progress toward FTF objectives. These actions will provide a forum for sharing of best practices in cross-sectoral food security interventions, and will help WIAD to become the lead agency for coordinating interventions to improve food security for vulnerable households.
","
Increased resilience of vulnerable communities and households
Improved access to diverse and quality foods
USAID/Ghana will continue using the basic methodology of its existing Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) for 2009–2013 that includes its monitoring of regular Development Assistance funds, GFSR, and FTF funds. With technical support to be provided by USAID/Washington, USAID/Ghana will build on its current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to design and establish a comprehensive new FTF M&E system and PMP in 2011. In addition, the Mission has several years of experience using the Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA) monitoring and reporting system which will form the foundation for FTF monitoring and reporting. Since Mission implementing partners will be the source of a great deal of information, their own monitoring and reporting systems will be set up to provide the appropriate sex-disaggregated data, results, indicators, followed by regular monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual reports to comply with the Operating Unit’s overall M&E system requirements. The Mission will be more watchful in ensuring that sex-disaggregated data is collected at all levels of indicators (outputs, outcomes and impacts), and will use available resources to invest in more in-depth analysis of the impacts of programs on men and women.
Data Quality and Management: FTF M&E will benefit greatly from assistance provided by the USAID’s GSSP project to strengthen Ghana’s agricultural statistics system. A new system is being launched in 2011 called the Ghana Agricultural Production Survey (GAPS). The key improvements to be made in the current Multi-Round Crop and Livestock Survey (MRCLS) are a disaggregated and updated sample design (district representativeness), expanded scope and depth of (geo-referenced) agricultural information collected, and new and enhanced management system consisting of improved data management practices and tailored software for improved and timely data processing, monitoring, and reporting. This resource will provide unprecedented household (gender disaggregated) information on an annual basis to help report on a number of FTF indicators.
Other than the in-house sources of information, various other M&E analytical tools, structures, and approaches will be considered for establishing baselines and constant monitoring. These options include instruments like the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS- the local version of the LSMS), Participatory Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment (PPVA), Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA), and the Northern Ghana Food Security and Nutrition Monitoring System.
Data from the Demographic and Health Survey, which was last conducted in Ghana 2008, provides the baseline for nutrition and maternal and child health interventions. The USG will support this survey again in 2011, and therefore will have access to important data to assess the impact of the program at its midpoint. The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, conducted by UNICEF with support from USAID and planned for 2011 and 2015, will provide impact data to assess the success of the FTF program in Ghana at the conclusion of this Strategy period. Developing National/Regional Capacity to use Data: IFPRI (through the GSSP project) is helping to establish the CAADP Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) Node and will continue to provide the professional guidance to the country to ensure high quality statistical data remains available.
In addition, a Technical Services staffer will support the ASWG Secretariat in carrying out its functions effectively, including tasks like helping stakeholders (especially MOFA) keep track of agricultural related public and private sector investments and foreign support to the sector. There may be times where additional design work will be needed to create results monitoring frameworks for new activities and assist in modifying existing frameworks by adjusting indicators, defining baselines and setting targets. In addition, the Mission will be a partner in Joint Sector Reviews of agricultural sector performance conducted jointly by MOFA and development partners according to a mutual agreement the Mission supports for transparency, accountability, benchmarking, and results monitoring.
Impact Evaluations: The USG will ensure that evaluations for FTF will be adequately covered by above mentioned Technical Services PASA. One of its primary objectives is to evaluate and assess impact of the USAID/Ghana/EG portfolio of investments, in relationship to GOG and donor portfolios, and in relationship to Ghanaian needs in order to make progress towards MDGs and sustaining status of a middle income country. This includes providing relevant information for design of new and/or scaled-up projects as USG increases its investments in Ghana.
Evaluations will include both qualitative and quantitative methods. The hypothesis is that the development process itself can have a significant impact on and bring change to the Ghanaian environment. The objective is to test how much influence FTF programs have had on human behavior, human attitudes (e.g., trust in value chain systems), business and commercial practices, establishment of value chain linkages, increased livelihood options, smoothed out income flow over time (not just level of income), institutional efficiency and quality service delivery, and the programs’ impact on reducing key gender disparities. In addition, the programs should be evaluated to see if they were effective enough to bring about a transformative change or improvement in the lives of the poor, mainly in the northern regions.
","This Resilience and Reduction of Undernutrition program will increase resiliency of at least 40,000 food insecure households with women of reproductive age and children under two in the Northern region of Ghana ","Northern region of Ghana","","Household Hunger Index; percent children stunted; households benefitting from USG assistance.","Household Hunger Index; percent children stunted; households benefitting from USG assistance.","Vulnerable groups","","Complementary feeding>>>Complementary feeding>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/complementary_feeding","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11516","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","GHA","Ghana","Northern, Ghana|Western Region, Ghana","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Ghana, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 860,000 vulnerable Ghanaian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 324,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Ghana is making core investments in three key areas:
1. To achieve food security, agriculture programs will focus on driving a step-change in the volume and value performance of core staple value chains—starting with rice, maize and soy—and improving the governance of marine fisheries resources.
2. To help reduce malnutrition and improve household resilience of vulnerable populations, agriculture and nutrition programs will focus on a) improving access to diverse quality food, b) improving nutrition-related behaviors within vulnerable households, c) developing community mechanisms to identify and address their food and nutrition problems, and d) strengthening coordination of government and other actors to meet food security and nutrition objectives.
3. To improve the nutritional status of women and children, nutrition programs will focus on:
In addition to these three core areas, environment, natural resource management, climate change, and gender are incorporated as cross-cutting issues in all programs and activities as guiding principles.
Target Regions
A strategic focus on the rice, maize and soy value chains for five years could raise tens of thousands of people out of poverty, 75 percent of whom would be in northern Ghana. Improving marine fisheries governance in the Western Region will benefit fishery households and increase the nutritional status of fish consumers across Ghana.
Highlights
Northern Zone. The rural northern regions have the highest rates of food insecurity in the country—as much as seven times the national average. The northern zone program will aim to improve economic opportunities and diversify household income by doing the following:
Coastal Marine Fisheries Zone. Poverty in the coastal areas of Ghana is extensive, with the average welfare level among food farmers in rural coastal areas 12 percent below that in large urban centers such as Accra. Marine capture fisheries are the major economic activity along the coast and their importance reaches far beyond the coast. There is strong evidence that Ghana’s coastal ecosystems are already seriously degraded and experiencing erosion and will undoubtedly be under growing pressure with an oil and gas industry on its way. The Feed the Future program will:
National Scale Nutritional Programming. In coordination with other development partners, Feed the Future will support the Government of Ghana’s implementation of a comprehensive program of community-based management of acute malnutrition through a comprehensive behavior change program. This comprehensive package will improve nutrition-related behaviors and will be incorporated into programming in the Western, Central, and Greater Accra regions. Operational research will be conducted in 2011–2012 to better understand the extremely high rates of anemia among children in Ghana. This research will be used to develop key nutritional aspects of Feed the Future programming and to shape a national child anemia strategy and program that can be undertaken by Ghana Health Service and its development partners.
","Efforts to decrease poverty and improve options for food consumption will not have a significant impact upon the nutritional status of most Ghanaians unless they are accompanied by strong household and community understanding and motivation to change child feeding behaviors, and improvements in nutrition services and products that are offered to the public. For this reason, FTF in Ghana will invest resources through USAID/Ghana’s health program to prevent and treat undernutrition.
Improved nutrition-related behaviors and community norms regarding nutrition
USAID/Ghana is helping to expand and improve behavior change approaches related to nutrition and to develop training materials and approaches for infant and young children feeding and dietary diversity. In FY2011 a national Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) campaign will be launched using mass media, a range of educational and community action materials, and community-led efforts and interpersonal communication by health staff and community volunteers. This campaign is expected to contribute significantly to improved feeding practices and increase the prevalence of minimum acceptable diet among children 6–23 months. USAID’s Behavior Change Support Program (BCS) will design the national campaign with the active involvement of the GHS, coordinating outreach activities with JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), UNICEF, and the World Bank, all of which are active in nutrition promotion in the northern regions. This will ensure that messages heard across the country are uniform and consistent. This national campaign will target all adults who care for children less than five years of age throughout the country. Heads of extended families and household decision makers (most often men) will be a particular target group for this campaign, to improve allocation of household resources towards child nutrition. USAID will support all outreach components of this intervention in the regions currently targeted by USAID’s overall health program (Greater Accra, Central, and Western), and in the northern regions targeted by the Feed the Future program, while the other areas of the country will receive the same package of outreach materials delivered through other actors (GHS with support from UNICEF, JICA, World Bank, etc.)
Key messages and related activities will promote the following behaviors: Exclusive breastfeeding through the first six months of life; Complementary feeding as of six months of age; Dietary diversity Maternal nutrition Care of sick children; Utilization of maternal, child health and nutrition services; Household water treatment Hand washing with soap Safe sanitation practices.
Expanded community-based treatment of acute malnutrition of children
Since 2008, USAID/Ghana has supported a community-based program to treat acute undernutrition (CMAM). Through the FANTA-2 project (Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance), USAID provides technical assistance to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to integrate CMAM services into the district health system. A Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) Support Unit was established at the Nutrition Department of the GHS to provide technical support for CMAM implementation and coordination of CMAM activities in the country. From an initial pilot in two districts, the GHS plans to scale up the CMAM program nationally; USAID is already beginning this effort with support from UNICEF in the Northern Region. The CMAM platform also provides opportunities for improving the skills of health care providers, community outreach workers, mother support groups, and community health workers to provide quality nutrition services for mothers and children under two years of age.
To increase the reach and sustainability of the program to combat malnutrition in children, USAID is building private sector capacity for local production of ready-to-use food to be used in treatment of severely malnourished children. Local production is expected to start in FY 2011.
Expanded accessibility of safe quality foods available for child weaning in Ghana
The normal weaning foods used in Ghana are thin gruels based on cassava or other starches, which provide carbohydrates and assuage hunger but are otherwise quite poor in nutrition. In order to facilitate the adoption of improved weaning practices and increase the nutritional content of the diets of young children, USAID is exploring strategic partnerships to promote nutritional products that have a critical set of attributes including: a) would fill specific nutritional gaps in the existing diet of pregnant women and/or young children; b) can be marketed at a low enough price point to be feasibly accessible by the lower income segments of the population; c) has a reasonable chance of becoming sustainable over the medium term; and d) has significant existing support including investment from other private sector, government or civil society agencies.
A variety of actors, including private sector companies, Ghanaian universities, and non-governmental groups, have approached USAID with potential products and strategies in this regard. USAID will continue to track the progress of the different initiatives already underway, including several that already have support from other USAID programs such as CRSPs (Collaborative Research Support Program), and will determine whether any of them are likely to meet the four criteria listed above.
A critical related issue is access to clean and safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, which greatly impact the health of women and children and will be assessed and considered in the context of this intervention.
Causes of severe levels of anemia among children in Ghana identified and addressed
The levels of maternal and children anemia in Ghana, 59 percent and 78 percent respectively, actually increased between 2003 and 2008 according to the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, even though other health indicators improved over the same period.
Maternal anemia is a major factor in both maternal and infant health in Ghana, which are the focus of USAID’s current maternal and child health program. To address the problem of maternal anemia, USAID/Ghana is providing support and technical assistance for quality prenatal services, coordinated with malaria prevention and deworming activities. USAID’s ongoing programs to improve the quality of maternal health services will include a sharper focus on maternal anemia prevention and treatment during the prenatal period.
Unlike maternal anemia, there is not a sufficient evidence base nor are there extensive programmatic experiences to inform child anemia programs. The causes of anemia in young children are multi-faceted, and while closely linked to maternal health and nutrition, cannot be explained by poor maternal nutrition alone. Many factors including dietary insufficiency during weaning, repeated bouts of malaria, diarrhea and other diseases, intestinal parasites, and even high prevalence of the sickling trait have been posited to explain the extraordinary levels of child anemia in Ghana. Some of these factors are being addressed through other programs, such as the expansion of malaria prevention programs and school-based deworming interventions. However there is a compelling need to obtain current information on the relative importance of contributing factors, service delivery challenges, and barriers to reducing prevalence of anemia in young children. USAID will consider supporting Ghanaian public health and nutrition research institutions to perform operations research that will include problem identification and the development and application of improved tools, technologies, and approaches for addressing child anemia. Approaches identified as being the most promising will be field tested by existing USAID health activities to determine their potential to be scaled up to a national level. This activity will be performed in collaboration with other established and recognized institutions to contribute to local capacity strengthening and sustainability.
","Improved nutrition related behaviors
Improved utilization of maternal and child health and nutrition services
USAID/Ghana will continue using the basic methodology of its existing Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) for 2009–2013 that includes its monitoring of regular Development Assistance funds, GFSR, and FTF funds. With technical support to be provided by USAID/Washington, USAID/Ghana will build on its current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to design and establish a comprehensive new FTF M&E system and PMP in 2011. In addition, the Mission has several years of experience using the Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA) monitoring and reporting system which will form the foundation for FTF monitoring and reporting. Since Mission implementing partners will be the source of a great deal of information, their own monitoring and reporting systems will be set up to provide the appropriate sex-disaggregated data, results, indicators, followed by regular monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual reports to comply with the Operating Unit’s overall M&E system requirements. The Mission will be more watchful in ensuring that sex-disaggregated data is collected at all levels of indicators (outputs, outcomes and impacts), and will use available resources to invest in more in-depth analysis of the impacts of programs on men and women.
Data Quality and Management: FTF M&E will benefit greatly from assistance provided by the USAID’s GSSP project to strengthen Ghana’s agricultural statistics system. A new system is being launched in 2011 called the Ghana Agricultural Production Survey (GAPS). The key improvements to be made in the current Multi-Round Crop and Livestock Survey (MRCLS) are a disaggregated and updated sample design (district representativeness), expanded scope and depth of (geo-referenced) agricultural information collected, and new and enhanced management system consisting of improved data management practices and tailored software for improved and timely data processing, monitoring, and reporting. This resource will provide unprecedented household (gender disaggregated) information on an annual basis to help report on a number of FTF indicators.
Other than the in-house sources of information, various other M&E analytical tools, structures, and approaches will be considered for establishing baselines and constant monitoring. These options include instruments like the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS- the local version of the LSMS), Participatory Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment (PPVA), Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA), and the Northern Ghana Food Security and Nutrition Monitoring System.
Data from the Demographic and Health Survey, which was last conducted in Ghana 2008, provides the baseline for nutrition and maternal and child health interventions. The USG will support this survey again in 2011, and therefore will have access to important data to assess the impact of the program at its midpoint. The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, conducted by UNICEF with support from USAID and planned for 2011 and 2015, will provide impact data to assess the success of the FTF program in Ghana at the conclusion of this Strategy period.
Developing National/Regional Capacity to use Data: IFPRI (through the GSSP project) is helping to establish the CAADP Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) Node and will continue to provide the professional guidance to the country to ensure high quality statistical data remains available.
In addition, a Technical Services staffer will support the ASWG Secretariat in carrying out its functions effectively, including tasks like helping stakeholders (especially MOFA) keep track of agricultural related public and private sector investments and foreign support to the sector. There may be times where additional design work will be needed to create results monitoring frameworks for new activities and assist in modifying existing frameworks by adjusting indicators, defining baselines and setting targets. In addition, the Mission will be a partner in Joint Sector Reviews of agricultural sector performance conducted jointly by MOFA and development partners according to a mutual agreement the Mission supports for transparency, accountability, benchmarking, and results monitoring.
Impact Evaluations: The USG will ensure that evaluations for FTF will be adequately covered by above mentioned Technical Services PASA. One of its primary objectives is to evaluate and assess impact of the USAID/Ghana/EG portfolio of investments, in relationship to GOG and donor portfolios, and in relationship to Ghanaian needs in order to make progress towards MDGs and sustaining status of a middle income country. This includes providing relevant information for design of new and/or scaled-up projects as USG increases its investments in Ghana.
Evaluations will include both qualitative and quantitative methods. The hypothesis is that the development process itself can have a significant impact on and bring change to the Ghanaian environment. The objective is to test how much influence FTF programs have had on human behavior, human attitudes (e.g., trust in value chain systems), business and commercial practices, establishment of value chain linkages, increased livelihood options, smoothed out income flow over time (not just level of income), institutional efficiency and quality service delivery, and the programs’ impact on reducing key gender disparities. In addition, the programs should be evaluated to see if they were effective enough to bring about a transformative change or improvement in the lives of the poor, mainly in the northern regions.
","Reaching nearly 324,000 children, improving their nutrition to prevent stunting and child mortality.","About 75 percent of Ghanaians assisted would be in northern Ghana","","Lead indicators will include: prevalence of women with anemia; prevalence of childhood anemia; prevalence of diarrheal diseases, diet diversity among children under five; percent of children who are wasted.","Lead indicators will include: prevalence of women with anemia; prevalence of childhood anemia; prevalence of diarrheal diseases, diet diversity among children under five; percent of children who are wasted.","Vulnerable groups","","eLENA titles related to prevention or treatment of moderate acute malnutrition in children>>>Supplementary feeding in community settings for promoting child growth>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/child_growth|Food supplementation in children with moderate acute malnutrition>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/food_children_mam","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11523","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","LBR","Liberia","Bong County, Liberia|Lofa County, Liberia| Nimba County, Liberia|Grand Bassa County, Liberia|Montserrado County, Liberia|Margibi, Liberia","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Liberia, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 332,000 vulnerable Liberian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 96,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Liberia is making core investments in three key areas:
1. Transforming Staples’ Value Chains
2. Developing Income and Diet Diversification Value Chains
Target region
The Feed the Future Strategy is focusing on counties with the highest populations, the most farmers, the largest numbers living in poverty, and the greatest potential for agriculture development: Bong, Lofa, Nimba, Grand Bassa, Montserrado, and Margibi. These counties are located along Liberia’s main economic development corridors and collectively include around 75 percent of all Liberian households. Nutrition activities are focused in Bong, Lofa and Nimba counties.
","FTF interventions will encourage employment of women extension agents in the public sector and ensure that they are well represented in extension-related training activities in the public and private sectors. Women typically have more limited access to seeds, tools, credit, and marketing information than men. Liberia FTF MYS activities will give explicit attention to issues of equity in access in order to increase women‘s access and FTF will also provide support for women to participate in producer/marketing groups and associations.
Through private and public sector extension, USAID will provide lead farmers and producer organizations identified as change agents with specialized skills. Change agents will also receive support to acquire planting material and inputs through public and private sector channels. Availability of improved planting materials is facilitated through investments in CARI, private sector players, and CORAF. USAID will promote suppliers of seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, tools, and livestock by developing their technical knowledge and skills and through support for increased agricultural credit. These entrepreneurs will provide services to others in their respective value chains. Over the five years of the FTF program, both the public and private provision of extension services will reinforce and expand the skill sets of change agents to increase productivity and coordinate with county and local health service providers to extend the reach of nutrition-related behavior change in order both to raise incomes and to improve health outcomes.
Small-scale rice and cassava processors will be a central focus of FTF interventions. Those interventions will help processors to build a supplier base, acquire equipment, access finance, and implement appropriate business practices. It is expected that they will then provide farmers with technical assistance to assure themselves of sufficient supplies of quality commodities to process. The program will work with and support both processors and traders to invest in processing equipment, storage facilities, and transport. It will work with farmers on improving post-harvest handling practices and on producing a consistent and predictable flow of goods. Over the five years, USAID direct beneficiaries will develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes - plus have the capital, equipment, clients, and market linkages - to continue to expand their production, processing, and/or marketing businesses.
Given the paucity of reliable data, a significant initial activity in the primary implementation mechanism for the Liberia FTF MYS – USAID‘s Food and Enterprise Development program - will be directed to a series of baseline surveys to collect production, labor, and market information and to facilitate MOA data collection and analysis, especially related to the focus counties. Based on the prioritized constraints that are identified, targeted and sequenced support will be directed to specific steps on the value chain, including to:
Nutritional benefits will accrue from both increased availability of and access to Liberia‘s primary food staples (rice and cassava). Increased commercialization will provide smallholders the increased incomes needed to obtain more and better food and improved processing will promote fortification to enhance the nutritional value of cassava and to improve the quality of rice. Public and private extension change agents will be trained to engage farmers, communities and farmer organizations across the range of behavioral change needed to promote essential nutrition actions.
","The Feed the Future MYS and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) activities will have the following four overarching objectives:
The FTF M&E system is designed flexibly to take into account the systems and indicators being implemented by aligned USG activities, as well as those which the GOL is developing under LASIP reflecting the Government‘s CAADP commitments. The Mission‘s newly-awarded M&E program will facilitate the coordination and collaboration work to build the FTF M&E system with appropriate linkages reflecting WOG activities that impact on the FTF Results Framework.
Collecting, managing, and reporting data to track indicators is a critical component of Liberia‘s FTF M&E activities. There are three basic levels at which data will be collected: at the national, target-county, and project-levels; the latter two being the zones of influence‘ of Liberia‘s FTF program. In general, national-level data will be collected every five or every two years, depending on data source. Typically, target-county level data will be collected every two years or mid-way through the FTF program, depending on data source. Project-level data will be collected annually. Given that much of the data will be for agriculture, data collection will reflect systems, which span growing seasons across more than a single year. The centrally-funded M&E contractor, recently awarded by the Mission, will work with USAID Implementing Partners (IP), GOL, and other entities as appropriate in data collection, management, and reporting as well as in conducting baselines. These will be collective efforts reflecting the importance of data collection and baselines not only for USG priorities but also to partners and other stakeholders in the private sector and GOL.
Ensuring baseline data are available to measure changes resulting from FTF interventions and to contextually monitor the situation in Liberia is essential to the FTF program. For the eight higher-level indicators, USAID/Liberia will coordinate with the centrally-funded contractor to confirm available national-level baseline data for the poverty and agriculture sector GDP indicators. The centrally-funded contractor will lead efforts to obtain baseline data on per capita income at the target county level. Reliable data on underweight, stunted, and wasted children, as well as on underweight women, are available from Liberia‘s Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey (CFSNS), a bi-annual survey endorsed and led by GOL with World Food Program oversight. These baseline data are given in Annex C. As the indicator on women‘s empowerment is being developed, USAID/Liberia will address baseline needs for it as further information on requirements becomes available.
There are an additional six indicators which require baselines to measure project-level activity. In collaboration with the MOA, USAID/Liberia IPs will lead baseline data collection on crop and animal production improvements (indicators 9 and 10 in the results framework), on the value of incremental sales (indicator 16 in the results framework), and on the application of improved technologies and practices by individuals and organizations receiving USG assistance (indicators 13 and 15 in the results framework).
Prior to initiation of FTF MYS activities under the FED program, the Mission will initiate a pre- and post-impact evaluation process to articulate the relevant analytical framework for evaluating program impact in the target counties. Current expectations are to utilize a quasi-experimental design for the impact evaluation. However, a final determination has not been made and plans are to further discuss with the Mission‘s M&E program and others. In addition, Liberia is a non-presence, monitored member of the West Africa regional Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET). The FTF M&E activities will utilize these data on food prices, regional trade flows, market development in data frameworks for on-going assessment and monitoring of both impacts and risks.
Currently, Liberia‘s capacity to collect, process, and report data is extremely weak. While USAID/Liberia identified some sources of reliable data, notably that reported in the 2010 CFSNS, there is a paucity of agricultural and trade data available. To address this, USAID will work closely with GOL to build Liberian capacity in this area. The GOL has the primary responsibility to collect poverty, rural and agricultural statistics but the FTF M&E system will support and strengthen the GOL‘s activity in cooperation with other development partners. It will also strengthen the MOA‘s Food Security and Nutrition Unit and the Agriculture Coordination Committee to build compatible and consistent M&E systems for food security related activities. The FTF M&E system will support the capacity of critical national institutions especially the Liberian Institute of Statistics and Geo Information Services (LISGIS) and the MOA to improve the reliability, timeliness, and relevance of data for which they are responsible. It will strengthen these institutions to setup management information systems to inform high-level decision-making and will encourage the involvement of these critical institutions in oversight of FTF activities using the M&E system as the focal point. Furthermore, it will carry these activities to the county level and in particular will emphasize MOA M&E capacity in Bong, Lofa, Nimba, and Grand Bassa counties.
","Planned interventions targeted at the key value chain constraints and implemented via the actions of private and public change agents will reach over 92,000 rice and cassava farmers in the six target counties","Bong, Lofa, Nimba, Grand Bassa, Montserrado, and Margibi. These counties are located along Liberia’s main economic development corridors and collectively include around 75 percent of all Liberian households. Nutrition activities are focused in Bong, Lofa ","","Gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product (crop/animal varies by county);Percent increases in crop yields; Number of farmers and others who have applied new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance; Number of private enterprises; producer orgs; water users, trade, business associations; &amp; CBOs that applied new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance; Value of incremental sales (collected at farm-level) attributed to FTF implementation; Value of agricultural and rural loans; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under six months of age; Prevalence of anemia among women of reproductive age","Gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product (crop/animal varies by country);Percent increases in crop yields; Number of individuals who have received USG supported short-term ag sector productivity or food security training;Number of new additional ha under improved technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance; Number of farmers and others who have applied new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance; Number of private enterprises; producer orgs; water users, trade, business associations; & CBOs receiving USG assistance; Number of private enterprises; producer orgs; water users, trade, business associations; & CBOs that applied new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance; Value of incremental sales (collected at farm-level) attributed to FTF implementation; Kilometers of roads improved or constructed; Value of agricultural and rural loans; Value of new private sector investment in the ag sector or food chain leveraged by FTF implementation; Number new laws and policies implemented to support private enterprise growth; Number of jobs attributed to FTF implementation; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under six months of age; Prevalence of anemia among women of reproductive age","Vulnerable groups","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","Supplies","Promote high-yield seed and related inputs, including demonstration plots to test the use of improved seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides, and to introduce better land and water practices and farming methods;","Staff skills/training","Build capacity in both public (county-level) and private sector extension, including farmer organizations, traders or other private sector actors to invest in small sized processing mills and storage facilities","Financial resources","Provide access to finance and credit guarantees, directed at lead farmers and small processors","Stakeholder","Implement training to capacitate processors to become key change agents in market and credit transactions","Communication","Improve the transparency of market price information to farmers and strengthen business service providers, as an alternative means to make extension type services","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11523","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","LBR","Liberia","Bong County, Liberia|Lofa County, Liberia| Nimba County, Liberia|Grand Bassa County, Liberia|Montserrado County, Liberia|Margibi, Liberia","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Liberia, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 332,000 vulnerable Liberian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 96,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Liberia is making core investments in three key areas:
1. Transforming Staples’ Value Chains
2. Developing Income and Diet Diversification Value Chains
Target region
The Feed the Future Strategy is focusing on counties with the highest populations, the most farmers, the largest numbers living in poverty, and the greatest potential for agriculture development: Bong, Lofa, Nimba, Grand Bassa, Montserrado, and Margibi. These counties are located along Liberia’s main economic development corridors and collectively include around 75 percent of all Liberian households. Nutrition activities are focused in Bong, Lofa and Nimba counties.
","FTF Core Program 2 will undertake investments in horticulture pilots to encourage smallholders in relevant areas of all focus counties over time, but will initially focus on peri-urban locations near Monrovia which are close to the largest and most lucrative market and minimize constraints related to storage and transport. These activities will build on a change agent model similar to that for the rice and cassava value chains by supporting lead traders and lead farmers to acquire equipment for transport and storage and to acquire business and marketing knowledge. Key FTF horticulture interventions will include formation and strengthening of farmer associations, post-harvest management and logistics support, promoting public-private partnerships, and providing information and training for behavior changes to promote improved family nutrition.
FTF investments to develop the goat value chain will implement pilot activities that are closely coordinated with the substantial USDA Food for Progress goat value chain enhancement program that will be working to re-establish breed stock and infrastructure for processing. The change agent focus of investment will be on community animal health workers and Core Program 2 activities will train and lend support to them so that they can directly assist improved breeding through the provision of services and infrastructure, making commercialization profitable. USAID/Liberia will determine the scope and scale of change agent engagement in pilot sites based on local conditions and in close coordination with the USDA program.
The US Government in Liberia will make an estimated 30 percent of FTF MYS investments in Core Program 2, with roughly 60 percent of these directed to interventions to address vegetable value chain pilot activities and the remaining 40 percent for implementation of goat pilots. Reflecting the phased approach to Liberia FTF value chain interventions, only 10 percent of first-year investment will be in the diet diversification value chains, while 63 percent of MYS vegetable and goat value chain investments will be carried out in years four and five. As with Core Program Area 1, given the lack of reliable data a significant initial activity in the primary implementation mechanism for the Liberia FTF MYS – USAID‘s Food and Enterprise Development program - will be directed to ensure relevant baseline surveys to collect production, employment, and market information and to facilitate data collection and analysis, especially related to the focus counties. These investments will be phased to take advantage of opportunities that already exist in peri-urban areas for vegetables and related to the USDA program for goats. Within the proposed total program level, anticipated investment levels in these value chains will be lower in the first two years of strategy implementation and will ramp.
","","
The Feed the Future MYS and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) activities will have the following four overarching objectives:
The FTF M&E system is designed flexibly to take into account the systems and indicators being implemented by aligned USG activities, as well as those which the GOL is developing under LASIP reflecting the Government‘s CAADP commitments. The Mission‘s newly-awarded M&E program will facilitate the coordination and collaboration work to build the FTF M&E system with appropriate linkages reflecting WOG activities that impact on the FTF Results Framework.
Collecting, managing, and reporting data to track indicators is a critical component of Liberia‘s FTF M&E activities. There are three basic levels at which data will be collected: at the national, target-county, and project-levels; the latter two being the ‗zones of influence‘ of Liberia‘s FTF program. In general, national-level data will be collected every five or every two years, depending on data source. Typically, target-county level data will be collected every two years or mid-way through the FTF program, depending on data source. Project-level data will be collected annually. Given that much of the data will be for agriculture, data collection will reflect systems, which span growing seasons across more than a single year. The centrally-funded M&E contractor, recently awarded by the Mission, will work with USAID Implementing Partners (IP), GOL, and other entities as appropriate in data collection, management, and reporting as well as in conducting baselines. These will be collective efforts reflecting the importance of data collection and baselines not only for USG priorities but also to partners and other stakeholders in the private sector and GOL.
Ensuring baseline data are available to measure changes resulting from FTF interventions and to contextually monitor the situation in Liberia is essential to the FTF program. For the eight higher-level indicators, USAID/Liberia will coordinate with the centrally-funded contractor to confirm available national-level baseline data for the poverty and agriculture sector GDP indicators. The centrally-funded contractor will lead efforts to obtain baseline data on per capita income at the target county level. Reliable data on underweight, stunted, and wasted children, as well as on underweight women, are available from Liberia‘s Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey (CFSNS), a bi-annual survey endorsed and led by GOL with World Food Program oversight. These baseline data are given in Annex C. As the indicator on women‘s empowerment is being developed, USAID/Liberia will address baseline needs for it as further information on requirements becomes available.
Gender is a cross-cutting issue in the GOL‘s agriculture sector investment plan and is integrated in the US Government‘s Liberia FTF MYS. To measure FTF gender impacts, USAID/Liberia will disaggregate data as appropriate by gendered household type or by sex and will track data for the women‘s empower index being developed as well as for women specific indicators in the RF. Annex C identifies indicators to be disaggregated by gendered household type or by sex (as well as by other characteristics). Data will be disaggregated by gendered household type for the following indicators: prevalence of poverty, per capita income, gross margin per unit of land/animal, increases in crop yields, and prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger. There are numerous indicators which will be disaggregated by sex. These are identified in Annex C. The Liberia RF also considers women specific indicators including prevalence of underweight women, women‘s dietary diversity, and prevalence of anemia among women. It is expected that a rich picture of the extent to which the FTF program is achieving positive gender impacts will emerge via this disaggregation. And in particular, the tracking will allow USAID/Liberia to make rapid programming adjustments in this regard if necessary.
Prior to initiation of FTF MYS activities under the FED program, the Mission will initiate a pre- and post-impact evaluation process to articulate the relevant analytical framework for evaluating program impact in the target counties. Current expectations are to utilize a quasi-experimental design for the impact evaluation. However, a final determination has not been made and plans are to further discuss with the Mission‘s M&E program and others. In addition, Liberia is a non-presence, monitored member of the West Africa regional Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET). The FTF M&E activities will utilize these data on food prices, regional trade flows, market development in data frameworks for on-going assessment and monitoring of both impacts and risks.
Currently, Liberia‘s capacity to collect, process, and report data is extremely weak. While USAID/Liberia identified some sources of reliable data, notably that reported in the 2010 CFSNS, there is a paucity of agricultural and trade data available. To address this, USAID will work closely with GOL to build Liberian capacity in this area. The GOL has the primary responsibility to collect poverty, rural and agricultural statistics but the FTF M&E system will support and strengthen the GOL‘s activity in cooperation with other development partners. It will also strengthen the MOA‘s Food Security and Nutrition Unit and the Agriculture Coordination Committee to build compatible and consistent M&E systems for food security related activities. The FTF M&E system will support the capacity of critical national institutions especially the Liberian Institute of Statistics and Geo Information Services (LISGIS) and the MOA to improve the reliability, timeliness, and relevance of data for which they are responsible. It will strengthen these institutions to setup management information systems to inform high-level decision-making and will encourage the involvement of these critical institutions in oversight of FTF activities using the M&E system as the focal point. Furthermore, it will carry these activities to the county level and in particular will emphasize MOA M&E capacity in Bong, Lofa, Nimba, and Grand Bassa counties.
In-line with FTF‘s global knowledge learning agenda, USAID/Liberia will engage in the following activities:
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Liberia, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 332,000 vulnerable Liberian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 96,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Liberia is making core investments in three key areas:
1. Transforming Staples’ Value Chains
2. Developing Income and Diet Diversification Value Chains
Target region
The Feed the Future Strategy is focusing on counties with the highest populations, the most farmers, the largest numbers living in poverty, and the greatest potential for agriculture development: Bong, Lofa, Nimba, Grand Bassa, Montserrado, and Margibi. These counties are located along Liberia’s main economic development corridors and collectively include around 75 percent of all Liberian households. Nutrition activities are focused in Bong, Lofa and Nimba counties.
","FTF investments in Core Program 3 will address selected aspects of the LASIP program for institutional development to support the value chains that are the focus of Core Program Areas 1 and 2. FTF investments in agriculture policy, advocacy support, and research will fund key institutions to carry out actionable research leading to improved land, soil, and water resource management and use and agronomic practices and more productive animal husbandry. FTF Program Area 3 activities will be integrated in the value chain support in order to expand the capacity of civil society groups to analyze and advocate for policy reforms (e.g., in regard to rice pricing and sanitary and food safety standards for food and meat processing) and to help create a more market-friendly policies and an improved trading environment for Liberian smallholders.
The Liberia FTF MYS will assist the MOA to define and implement its decentralized, demand-driven, participatory, pluralistic (i.e., engaging public, private, civil society actors), and accountable agricultural extension system. The critical role of women extension agents will be emphasized and opportunities for them to develop professionally, both in terms of education and field practice, will be supported. Program Area 3 investments will target partnerships with the public and private sectors and other development partners to: accelerate adoption of modern agronomic technologies and practices at the farm level; create effective knowledge distribution mechanisms; and build capacity of the MOA to provide specialized extension services. Revised agricultural extension curricula will provide more effective training in areas such as land use and techniques to reduce soil fertility losses, water resources management, low-cost and organic fertilizers, post-harvest loss reduction, pest management measures, participatory extension methodologies, women‘s participation in extension activities, farmer organization development, participatory rural appraisal, farmer field school methodology, and farmer-to-farmer extension. These investments will support widespread provision of high quality extension to Liberian smallholders. Core Program 3 interventions on market structure development will create opportunities to establish market information systems to support private and public decision making and invest in alternative profit sharing/contract models between change agents and farmers to ensure equitable market exchanges, based on transparent information and rational decision making behavior. These activities will provide the foundation for fair and transparent markets accessible to all Liberian smallholders.
All FTF MYS investments in Core Program 3 will be integrated to support value chain activities in transforming rice and cassava staples value chains and piloting the income and diet diversification vegetable and goat value chains. Thus, these activities to advance the enabling environment and build capacity will contribute to ensure benefits of the value chain investments reach all 142,375 households the program will work with, including the 91,120 poor households.
","","
The Feed the Future MYS and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) activities will have the following four overarching objectives:
The FTF M&E system is designed flexibly to take into account the systems and indicators being implemented by aligned USG activities, as well as those which the GOL is developing under LASIP reflecting the Government‘s CAADP commitments. The Mission‘s newly-awarded M&E program will facilitate the coordination and collaboration work to build the FTF M&E system with appropriate linkages reflecting WOG activities that impact on the FTF Results Framework.
Collecting, managing, and reporting data to track indicators is a critical component of Liberia‘s FTF M&E activities. There are three basic levels at which data will be collected: at the national, target-county, and project-levels; the latter two being the ‗zones of influence‘ of Liberia‘s FTF program. In general, national-level data will be collected every five or every two years, depending on data source. Typically, target-county level data will be collected every two years or mid-way through the FTF program, depending on data source. Project-level data will be collected annually. Given that much of the data will be for agriculture, data collection will reflect systems, which span growing seasons across more than a single year. The centrally-funded M&E contractor, recently awarded by the Mission, will work with USAID Implementing Partners (IP), GOL, and other entities as appropriate in data collection, management, and reporting as well as in conducting baselines. These will be collective efforts reflecting the importance of data collection and baselines not only for USG priorities but also to partners and other stakeholders in the private sector and GOL.
Ensuring baseline data are available to measure changes resulting from FTF interventions and to contextually monitor the situation in Liberia is essential to the FTF program. For the eight higher-level indicators, USAID/Liberia will coordinate with the centrally-funded contractor to confirm available national-level baseline data for the poverty and agriculture sector GDP indicators. The centrally-funded contractor will lead efforts to obtain baseline data on per capita income at the target county level. Reliable data on underweight, stunted, and wasted children, as well as on underweight women, are available from Liberia‘s Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey (CFSNS), a bi-annual survey endorsed and led by GOL with World Food Program oversight. These baseline data are given in Annex C. As the indicator on women‘s empowerment is being developed, USAID/Liberia will address baseline needs for it as further information on requirements becomes available.
Gender is a cross-cutting issue in the GOL‘s agriculture sector investment plan and is integrated in the US Government‘s Liberia FTF MYS. To measure FTF gender impacts, USAID/Liberia will disaggregate data as appropriate by gendered household type or by sex and will track data for the women‘s empower index being developed as well as for women specific indicators in the RF. Annex C identifies indicators to be disaggregated by gendered household type or by sex (as well as by other characteristics). Data will be disaggregated by gendered household type for the following indicators: prevalence of poverty, per capita income, gross margin per unit of land/animal, increases in crop yields, and prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger. There are numerous indicators which will be disaggregated by sex. These are identified in Annex C. The Liberia RF also considers women specific indicators including prevalence of underweight women, women‘s dietary diversity, and prevalence of anemia among women. It is expected that a rich picture of the extent to which the FTF program is achieving positive gender impacts will emerge via this disaggregation. And in particular, the tracking will allow USAID/Liberia to make rapid programming adjustments in this regard if necessary.
Prior to initiation of FTF MYS activities under the FED program, the Mission will initiate a pre- and post-impact evaluation process to articulate the relevant analytical framework for evaluating program impact in the target counties. Current expectations are to utilize a quasi-experimental design for the impact evaluation. However, a final determination has not been made and plans are to further discuss with the Mission‘s M&E program and others. In addition, Liberia is a non-presence, monitored member of the West Africa regional Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET). The FTF M&E activities will utilize these data on food prices, regional trade flows, market development in data frameworks for on-going assessment and monitoring of both impacts and risks.
Currently, Liberia‘s capacity to collect, process, and report data is extremely weak. While USAID/Liberia identified some sources of reliable data, notably that reported in the 2010 CFSNS, there is a paucity of agricultural and trade data available. To address this, USAID will work closely with GOL to build Liberian capacity in this area. The GOL has the primary responsibility to collect poverty, rural and agricultural statistics but the FTF M&E system will support and strengthen the GOL‘s activity in cooperation with other development partners. It will also strengthen the MOA‘s Food Security and Nutrition Unit and the Agriculture Coordination Committee to build compatible and consistent M&E systems for food security related activities. The FTF M&E system will support the capacity of critical national institutions especially the Liberian Institute of Statistics and Geo Information Services (LISGIS) and the MOA to improve the reliability, timeliness, and relevance of data for which they are responsible. It will strengthen these institutions to setup management information systems to inform high-level decision-making and will encourage the involvement of these critical institutions in oversight of FTF activities using the M&E system as the focal point. Furthermore, it will carry these activities to the county level and in particular will emphasize MOA M&E capacity in Bong, Lofa, Nimba, and Grand Bassa counties.
In-line with FTF‘s global knowledge learning agenda, USAID/Liberia will engage in the following activities:
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Tanzania, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 430,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
Feed the Future Tanzania also aims to:
To help meet its objectives Feed the Future Tanzania is making core investments in four key areas:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 1A: SYSTEMS TRANSFORMATION THROUGH AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING
The first set of core investments contribute to IRs 1-3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. These core investments play a role in systems transformation, with a primary focus on rice and targeted interventions in maize and horticulture as secondary value chains. The main objective is inclusive agriculture sector growth, which will be accomplished through increased agricultural productivity, expanded markets and trade, increased private sector investment in agriculture- and nutrition-related activities, and increased agricultural value chain on- and off-farm jobs. Investment in these value chains will improve availability and access to staple foods and improve nutrition. USG investments will facilitate the competitiveness of smallholders in rice, maize and horticulture.
NAFAKA – Staples Value Chain Development (Rice and Maize)
Description: This program will facilitate the competitiveness of the smallholder-based rice value chain, and balance these impacts on growth with broader efforts to reduce poverty through investments aimed at improving the competitiveness and productivity of the maize value chain. This includes support to the Morogoro and Arusha-based Agricultural Research Station and National Seed Laboratory. Specific activities will:
Market-Based Solutions to Reduce Poverty and Improve Nutrition
The purpose of this project is to strengthen the capabilities of the agro-processors operating in the FTF targeted geographic areas for the staple grains of rice and maize and a range of horticultural products to build sustainable enterprises and expand and diversify the production and marketing of nutritious processed foods. This will include an array of support to processors of different scales of operations, farmers, public sector institutions involved in food technology and safety, agribusinesses, and traders.
Sustainable Horticulture for Income and Food Security in Tanzania (SHIFT)
This sustainable agriculture program aims to increase demand by expanding market opportunities for smallholder horticultural producers and processors in domestic, regional and international markets, and will work with farmers to build supply by introducing sustainable agricultural practices, increasing productivity, and reducing postharvest losses. Activities will include farmer association capacity building, nutrition education, and developing market hubs. The geographic focus is in the southern regions, and falls within the SAGCOT.
Tanzania Agriculture Productivity Program (TAPP)
This program aims to increase smallholder farmer incomes through enhanced productivity and improved domestic and export marketing of agricultural products. This program provides business services to farmers and associations in six target zones in the northern regions (Arusha, Moshi/Hai, Lushoto, Morogoro, Coast and Zanzibar). The activities include management training, marketing tools, business lobbying skills, and technical assistance for developing and marketing policy reforms. In implementing these activities, the program focuses on strengthening producer associations and preparing them to graduate from TAPP support and sustain their activities. The program strengthens market linkages by expanding domestic and export market outgrower schemes.
NAFAKA – Staples Value Chain Development (Rice and Maize)
Market-Based Solutions to Reduce Poverty and Improve Nutrition
Sustainable Horticulture for Income and Food Security in Tanzania (SHIFT)
Tanzania Agriculture Productivity Program (TAPP)
Overview
A participatory approach, which calls for active participation of all stakeholders, will be used to monitor and evaluate (M&E) FTF Tanzania. The design of the M&E system will be based on the usefulness of the data and information which is collected and processed at the different levels and intervals of program implementation and operationalization. M&E for FTF will involve on-going monitoring of program activities in the participating districts, annual evaluations, annual review workshops, beneficiary assessments, mid-term review and terminal evaluation.
Evaluations will be carried out using an independent entity to assess annual program performance. In addition, FTF Tanzania will organize annual review workshops for the duration of the program to enable implementing partners to share information on program implementation performance. FTF will also draw lessons and experiences from these workshops that can be taken into account when planning activities for subsequent years of implementation.
A matrix for the selected FTF indicators is attached as Annex A. FTF Tanzania has received assistance from USAID‘s Bureau for Food Security to provide M&E technical assistance. A preliminary M&E plan has been developed for FTF Tanzania which will be completed in September 2011 once the FTF M&E implementing partner, The Mitchell Group (TMG), has arrived in Tanzania and is fully operational.
Performance Evaluations
Performance evaluations will be carried out for selected FTF Tanzania projects to ascertain the trends in achieving project results of the FTF interventions, to document the overall progress toward objectives, and to assess what is working and what is not and why. One evaluation will be done in project year one (PY 1), another in PY 3 and the last one in PY 5. A mid-term review is planned for the end of PY 2 to assess overall progress and impact of FTF implementation, to provide for corrective actions to enhance performance of FTF, and to provide recommendations for future program designs. These recommendations will be confirmed in the terminal evaluation to be carried out in PY 5.
Qualitative and participatory methods will be utilized for the performance evaluations. Evaluators will utilize methods such as observation, focus groups, key informant interviews, stakeholder interviews and rapid survey techniques to assess progress. These techniques often provide critical insights into beneficiaries‘ perspectives on the value of programs to them, the processes that may have affected outcomes, and a deeper interpretation of results observed. Specific targets for the indicators at the outcome and output levels will be developed once FTF Tanzania has carried out the baseline survey in the FTF target areas along with the preparation of Performance Monitoring Plans.
Impact Evaluation
In addition to performance evaluations, FTF Tanzania will design an impact evaluation to test a selected development hypothesis for FTF. Ideally the impact evaluation will utilize Experimental Methodology to design and conduct the impact evaluation. This methodology will incorporate a rigorously defined counterfactual and will utilize experimental design to test the development hypothesis. At a minimum, quasi-experimental methods will be utilized to test the selected hypothesis and to determine the attribution of FTF project impacts. The Impact Evaluation will be carried out under the guidance of TMG.
Program Monitoring
All programs receiving resources under FTF Tanzania will be expected to use rigorous M&E systems that will feed into the broader FTF and GOT M&E frameworks. To the extent possible, examples of participatory methodologies built into program implementation to engage program beneficiaries in knowledge sharing, learning, and potential behavior change opportunities will be encouraged. In addition to the standard reporting requirements, the M&E program will develop and undertake baseline and other survey/assessment work (e.g. household, facility, market) to contribute to the larger M&E framework under FTF. Selected programs will designate a full-time M&E Specialist to appropriately monitor progress and engage in reporting systems for FTF as they are developed. These M&E Specialists will work to ensure that program results are jointly monitored with the ASDP and contribute to their reporting systems. The M&E Specialists will participate in annual meetings that include all implementing partners for FTF Tanzania, the FTF working group, and GOT representatives from relevant ministries.
Baselines
Baseline surveys will be required for several of the indicators listed in the annex. During 2011, a comprehensive baseline survey will be carried out by the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics under the guidance of TMG. This baseline data will assist FTF Tanzania to set targets, monitor progress toward those targets and to initiate mid-course corrections for its programs and activities. The baseline will inform FTF Tanzania with data to determine whether or not selected activities are likely to achieve their targets.
Links to Government Monitoring Systems
The GOT will conduct rigorous M&E of their CAADP plan and supporting strategies such as the ASDP. To the extent possible, the FTF M&E framework is intended to utilize information that GOT already collects, especially at the national level. The M&E program will provide direct support to the GOT‘s National Bureau of Statistics. FTF investments in M&E will also be linked with the GOT monitoring mechanisms to build host country capacity and ability to analyze and report on results. A monitoring conceptual framework will set the stage for ensuring progress against targets, provide opportunities for learning, and employ participatory methods. Monitoring activities will support GOT analytical capacity building.
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Tanzania, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 430,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
Feed the Future Tanzania also aims to:
To help meet its objectives Feed the Future Tanzania is making core investments in four key areas:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 2: IMPROVING NUTRITION
Contributes to IR 4: Increased resilience of vulnerable communities and households, IR 5: Improved access to diverse and quality foods, IR 6: Improved nutrition-related behaviors and IR 7: Improved utilization of maternal and child health and nutrition services.
The second set of core investments will focus on scaling up the delivery of a comprehensive package of nutrition interventions in regions of the country with the highest rates of chronic undernutrition among children under five (also referred to as stunting) and maternal anemia. It will also focus on raising the problem of undernutrition as a key development challenge and policy issue for Tanzania to address in order to meet the objectives set forth in the CAADP and the MKUKUTA II/ MKUZA II.
Another key priority area for nutrition under FTF Tanzania will be to maximize opportunities for ―smart integration‖ with other USG investments under the Global Health Initiative. This will mean strengthening and building nutrition components into new and existing safety net, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, malaria and water/sanitation/hygiene programs in order to maximize synergies and leverages additional nutrition results in programs that may or may not have nutrition of children or pregnant women as a main focus of their work.
Flagship Nutrition Program
The USG has developed a new program under FTF and the Global Health Initiative designed to reduce rates of chronic undernutrition (stunting) among children under-five and maternal anemia among women of reproductive age. The program will cover the following:
Overview
A participatory approach, which calls for active participation of all stakeholders, will be used to monitor and evaluate (M&E) FTF Tanzania. The design of the M&E system will be based on the usefulness of the data and information which is collected and processed at the different levels and intervals of program implementation and operationalization. M&E for FTF will involve on-going monitoring of program activities in the participating districts, annual evaluations, annual review workshops, beneficiary assessments, mid-term review and terminal evaluation.
Evaluations will be carried out using an independent entity to assess annual program performance. In addition, FTF Tanzania will organize annual review workshops for the duration of the program to enable implementing partners to share information on program implementation performance. FTF will also draw lessons and experiences from these workshops that can be taken into account when planning activities for subsequent years of implementation.
A matrix for the selected FTF indicators is attached as Annex A. FTF Tanzania has received assistance from USAID‘s Bureau for Food Security to provide M&E technical assistance. A preliminary M&E plan has been developed for FTF Tanzania which will be completed in September 2011 once the FTF M&E implementing partner, The Mitchell Group (TMG), has arrived in Tanzania and is fully operational.
Performance Evaluations
Performance evaluations will be carried out for selected FTF Tanzania projects to ascertain the trends in achieving project results of the FTF interventions, to document the overall progress toward objectives, and to assess what is working and what is not and why. One evaluation will be done in project year one (PY 1), another in PY 3 and the last one in PY 5. A mid-term review is planned for the end of PY 2 to assess overall progress and impact of FTF implementation, to provide for corrective actions to enhance performance of FTF, and to provide recommendations for future program designs. These recommendations will be confirmed in the terminal evaluation to be carried out in PY 5.
Qualitative and participatory methods will be utilized for the performance evaluations. Evaluators will utilize methods such as observation, focus groups, key informant interviews, stakeholder interviews and rapid survey techniques to assess progress. These techniques often provide critical insights into beneficiaries‘ perspectives on the value of programs to them, the processes that may have affected outcomes, and a deeper interpretation of results observed. Specific targets for the indicators at the outcome and output levels will be developed once FTF Tanzania has carried out the baseline survey in the FTF target areas along with the preparation of Performance Monitoring Plans.
Impact Evaluation
In addition to performance evaluations, FTF Tanzania will design an impact evaluation to test a selected development hypothesis for FTF. Ideally the impact evaluation will utilize Experimental Methodology to design and conduct the impact evaluation. This methodology will incorporate a rigorously defined counterfactual and will utilize experimental design to test the development hypothesis. At a minimum, quasi-experimental methods will be utilized to test the selected hypothesis and to determine the attribution of FTF project impacts. The Impact Evaluation will be carried out under the guidance of TMG.
Program Monitoring
All programs receiving resources under FTF Tanzania will be expected to use rigorous M&E systems that will feed into the broader FTF and GOT M&E frameworks. To the extent possible, examples of participatory methodologies built into program implementation to engage program beneficiaries in knowledge sharing, learning, and potential behavior change opportunities will be encouraged. In addition to the standard reporting requirements, the M&E program will develop and undertake baseline and other survey/assessment work (e.g. household, facility, market) to contribute to the larger M&E framework under FTF. Selected programs will designate a full-time M&E Specialist to appropriately monitor progress and engage in reporting systems for FTF as they are developed. These M&E Specialists will work to ensure that program results are jointly monitored with the ASDP and contribute to their reporting systems. The M&E Specialists will participate in annual meetings that include all implementing partners for FTF Tanzania, the FTF working group, and GOT representatives from relevant ministries.
Baselines
Baseline surveys will be required for several of the indicators listed in the annex. During 2011, a comprehensive baseline survey will be carried out by the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics under the guidance of TMG. This baseline data will assist FTF Tanzania to set targets, monitor progress toward those targets and to initiate mid-course corrections for its programs and activities. The baseline will inform FTF Tanzania with data to determine whether or not selected activities are likely to achieve their targets.
Links to Government Monitoring Systems
The GOT will conduct rigorous M&E of their CAADP plan and supporting strategies such as the ASDP. To the extent possible, the FTF M&E framework is intended to utilize information that GOT already collects, especially at the national level. The M&E program will provide direct support to the GOT‘s National Bureau of Statistics. FTF investments in M&E will also be linked with the GOT monitoring mechanisms to build host country capacity and ability to analyze and report on results. A monitoring conceptual framework will set the stage for ensuring progress against targets, provide opportunities for learning, and employ participatory methods. Monitoring activities will support GOT analytical capacity building.
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Tanzania, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 430,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
Feed the Future Tanzania also aims to:
To help meet its objectives Feed the Future Tanzania is making core investments in four key areas:
Overview
A participatory approach, which calls for active participation of all stakeholders, will be used to monitor and evaluate (M&E) FTF Tanzania. The design of the M&E system will be based on the usefulness of the data and information which is collected and processed at the different levels and intervals of program implementation and operationalization. M&E for FTF will involve on-going monitoring of program activities in the participating districts, annual evaluations, annual review workshops, beneficiary assessments, mid-term review and terminal evaluation.
Evaluations will be carried out using an independent entity to assess annual program performance. In addition, FTF Tanzania will organize annual review workshops for the duration of the program to enable implementing partners to share information on program implementation performance. FTF will also draw lessons and experiences from these workshops that can be taken into account when planning activities for subsequent years of implementation.
A matrix for the selected FTF indicators is attached as Annex A. FTF Tanzania has received assistance from USAID‘s Bureau for Food Security to provide M&E technical assistance. A preliminary M&E plan has been developed for FTF Tanzania which will be completed in September 2011 once the FTF M&E implementing partner, The Mitchell Group (TMG), has arrived in Tanzania and is fully operational.
Performance Evaluations
Performance evaluations will be carried out for selected FTF Tanzania projects to ascertain the trends in achieving project results of the FTF interventions, to document the overall progress toward objectives, and to assess what is working and what is not and why. One evaluation will be done in project year one (PY 1), another in PY 3 and the last one in PY 5. A mid-term review is planned for the end of PY 2 to assess overall progress and impact of FTF implementation, to provide for corrective actions to enhance performance of FTF, and to provide recommendations for future program designs. These recommendations will be confirmed in the terminal evaluation to be carried out in PY 5.
Qualitative and participatory methods will be utilized for the performance evaluations. Evaluators will utilize methods such as observation, focus groups, key informant interviews, stakeholder interviews and rapid survey techniques to assess progress. These techniques often provide critical insights into beneficiaries‘ perspectives on the value of programs to them, the processes that may have affected outcomes, and a deeper interpretation of results observed. Specific targets for the indicators at the outcome and output levels will be developed once FTF Tanzania has carried out the baseline survey in the FTF target areas along with the preparation of Performance Monitoring Plans.
Impact Evaluation
In addition to performance evaluations, FTF Tanzania will design an impact evaluation to test a selected development hypothesis for FTF. Ideally the impact evaluation will utilize Experimental Methodology to design and conduct the impact evaluation. This methodology will incorporate a rigorously defined counterfactual and will utilize experimental design to test the development hypothesis. At a minimum, quasi-experimental methods will be utilized to test the selected hypothesis and to determine the attribution of FTF project impacts. The Impact Evaluation will be carried out under the guidance of TMG.
Program Monitoring
All programs receiving resources under FTF Tanzania will be expected to use rigorous M&E systems that will feed into the broader FTF and GOT M&E frameworks. To the extent possible, examples of participatory methodologies built into program implementation to engage program beneficiaries in knowledge sharing, learning, and potential behavior change opportunities will be encouraged. In addition to the standard reporting requirements, the M&E program will develop and undertake baseline and other survey/assessment work (e.g. household, facility, market) to contribute to the larger M&E framework under FTF. Selected programs will designate a full-time M&E Specialist to appropriately monitor progress and engage in reporting systems for FTF as they are developed. These M&E Specialists will work to ensure that program results are jointly monitored with the ASDP and contribute to their reporting systems. The M&E Specialists will participate in annual meetings that include all implementing partners for FTF Tanzania, the FTF working group, and GOT representatives from relevant ministries.
Baselines
Baseline surveys will be required for several of the indicators listed in the annex. During 2011, a comprehensive baseline survey will be carried out by the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics under the guidance of TMG. This baseline data will assist FTF Tanzania to set targets, monitor progress toward those targets and to initiate mid-course corrections for its programs and activities. The baseline will inform FTF Tanzania with data to determine whether or not selected activities are likely to achieve their targets.
Links to Government Monitoring Systems
The GOT will conduct rigorous M&E of their CAADP plan and supporting strategies such as the ASDP. To the extent possible, the FTF M&E framework is intended to utilize information that GOT already collects, especially at the national level. The M&E program will provide direct support to the GOT‘s National Bureau of Statistics. FTF investments in M&E will also be linked with the GOT monitoring mechanisms to build host country capacity and ability to analyze and report on results. A monitoring conceptual framework will set the stage for ensuring progress against targets, provide opportunities for learning, and employ participatory methods. Monitoring activities will support GOT analytical capacity building.
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Tanzania, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 430,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
Feed the Future Tanzania also aims to:
To help meet its objectives Feed the Future Tanzania is making core investments in four key areas:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 3: CAPACITY BUILDING AND SUPPORT SERVICES
Contributes to IR 1: Improved agricultural productivity, IR 2: Expanding markets and trade, IR 3: Increased private investment in agriculture- and nutrition-related activities, IR 4: Increased resilience of vulnerable communities and households, IR 5: Improved access to diverse and quality foods, IR 6: Improved nutrition-related behaviors, IR 7: Improved utilization of maternal and child health and nutrition services, and IR 8: Improved enabling policy environment for both agriculture and nutrition.
Tanzania‘s food security and overall agricultural performance into the medium-term will be predicated upon the CAADP process and the accompanying Country Investment Plan (CIP). FTF investments will help support the drafting of the CAADP investment plan and also assist with its successful implementation in collaboration with all partners. FTF Tanzania will invest in building government capacity for policy-making, analysis, and interpretation and delivering on Tanzania‘s CAADP investment plan.
The investments will support host-country leadership and strategy planning to develop sustainability through a new generation of leadership. The USG will provide short- and long-term high-level policymaking support to GOT to develop and deliver on a robust, comprehensive CAADP investment plan and to build a formal mechanism for public-private sector dialogue. Investments will increase the capacity of Tanzanians to act as change agents for transforming the sector.
In addition, FTF will invest in research and development to build Tanzania‘s capacity to respond to challenges through innovations. FTF supports collaborative research to enhance Tanzania‘s ability to improve productivity, especially in light of climate change impacts and other constraints, both agronomic and economic.
Finally, one of the important parts of strengthening the capacity of Tanzanian agriculture is through supporting market-based financial services, including through a variety of loan programs. FTF Tanzania is utilizing innovative methods to increasing rural financing opportunities, especially through microfinance.
FTF staff and partners involved in this component will ensure that gender equitable policies are included in the TAFSIP and in its implementation, that women participate in leadership and training programs, and that women are involved in program activities with Sokoine University of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Research System.
Sokoine University of Agriculture Capacity Building
This program will expand and improve the quality of training in agricultural fields and research in support of FTF Tanzania. By supporting Sokoine University of Agriculture through a direct mechanism, FTF Tanzania will build the capacity of this Tanzanian institution to respond to agricultural issues.
This program will strengthen the training and research capacities of Sokoine University of Agriculture and the Tanzanian National Agricultural Research System. The program will support collaborative research, foster leadership in training and research through long-term training in agriculture, strengthen the capacity of Sokoine University of Agriculture, and promote tripartite Sokoine University if Agriculture - U.S. University - South-South University Cooperation.
","Overview
A participatory approach, which calls for active participation of all stakeholders, will be used to monitor and evaluate (M&E) FTF Tanzania. The design of the M&E system will be based on the usefulness of the data and information which is collected and processed at the different levels and intervals of program implementation and operationalization. M&E for FTF will involve on-going monitoring of program activities in the participating districts, annual evaluations, annual review workshops, beneficiary assessments, mid-term review and terminal evaluation.
Evaluations will be carried out using an independent entity to assess annual program performance. In addition, FTF Tanzania will organize annual review workshops for the duration of the program to enable implementing partners to share information on program implementation performance. FTF will also draw lessons and experiences from these workshops that can be taken into account when planning activities for subsequent years of implementation.
A matrix for the selected FTF indicators is attached as Annex A. FTF Tanzania has received assistance from USAID‘s Bureau for Food Security to provide M&E technical assistance. A preliminary M&E plan has been developed for FTF Tanzania which will be completed in September 2011 once the FTF M&E implementing partner, The Mitchell Group (TMG), has arrived in Tanzania and is fully operational.
Performance Evaluations
Performance evaluations will be carried out for selected FTF Tanzania projects to ascertain the trends in achieving project results of the FTF interventions, to document the overall progress toward objectives, and to assess what is working and what is not and why. One evaluation will be done in project year one (PY 1), another in PY 3 and the last one in PY 5. A mid-term review is planned for the end of PY 2 to assess overall progress and impact of FTF implementation, to provide for corrective actions to enhance performance of FTF, and to provide recommendations for future program designs. These recommendations will be confirmed in the terminal evaluation to be carried out in PY 5.
Qualitative and participatory methods will be utilized for the performance evaluations. Evaluators will utilize methods such as observation, focus groups, key informant interviews, stakeholder interviews and rapid survey techniques to assess progress. These techniques often provide critical insights into beneficiaries‘ perspectives on the value of programs to them, the processes that may have affected outcomes, and a deeper interpretation of results observed. Specific targets for the indicators at the outcome and output levels will be developed once FTF Tanzania has carried out the baseline survey in the FTF target areas along with the preparation of Performance Monitoring Plans.
Impact Evaluation
In addition to performance evaluations, FTF Tanzania will design an impact evaluation to test a selected development hypothesis for FTF. Ideally the impact evaluation will utilize Experimental Methodology to design and conduct the impact evaluation. This methodology will incorporate a rigorously defined counterfactual and will utilize experimental design to test the development hypothesis. At a minimum, quasi-experimental methods will be utilized to test the selected hypothesis and to determine the attribution of FTF project impacts. The Impact Evaluation will be carried out under the guidance of TMG.
Program Monitoring
All programs receiving resources under FTF Tanzania will be expected to use rigorous M&E systems that will feed into the broader FTF and GOT M&E frameworks. To the extent possible, examples of participatory methodologies built into program implementation to engage program beneficiaries in knowledge sharing, learning, and potential behavior change opportunities will be encouraged. In addition to the standard reporting requirements, the M&E program will develop and undertake baseline and other survey/assessment work (e.g. household, facility, market) to contribute to the larger M&E framework under FTF. Selected programs will designate a full-time M&E Specialist to appropriately monitor progress and engage in reporting systems for FTF as they are developed. These M&E Specialists will work to ensure that program results are jointly monitored with the ASDP and contribute to their reporting systems. The M&E Specialists will participate in annual meetings that include all implementing partners for FTF Tanzania, the FTF working group, and GOT representatives from relevant ministries.
Baselines
Baseline surveys will be required for several of the indicators listed in the annex. During 2011, a comprehensive baseline survey will be carried out by the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics under the guidance of TMG. This baseline data will assist FTF Tanzania to set targets, monitor progress toward those targets and to initiate mid-course corrections for its programs and activities. The baseline will inform FTF Tanzania with data to determine whether or not selected activities are likely to achieve their targets.
Links to Government Monitoring Systems
The GOT will conduct rigorous M&E of their CAADP plan and supporting strategies such as the ASDP. To the extent possible, the FTF M&E framework is intended to utilize information that GOT already collects, especially at the national level. The M&E program will provide direct support to the GOT‘s National Bureau of Statistics. FTF investments in M&E will also be linked with the GOT monitoring mechanisms to build host country capacity and ability to analyze and report on results. A monitoring conceptual framework will set the stage for ensuring progress against targets, provide opportunities for learning, and employ participatory methods. Monitoring activities will support GOT analytical capacity building.
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Tanzania, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 430,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
Feed the Future Tanzania also aims to:
To help meet its objectives Feed the Future Tanzania is making core investments in four key areas:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 4: ENABLING POLICY ENVIRONMENT
Contributes to IR 8: Improved enabling policy environment and good governance for both agriculture and nutrition
FTF Tanzania will support policy reform and address major agricultural policy and governance issues by building the capacity of the government and private sector to conduct analyses and take action to identify and address the binding constraints to agricultural development. The USG will promote policies that provide an enabling environment for private sector investment in agriculture, create more certain and consistent trade policies, develop and assist in the implementation of more gender equitable policies and focus on policies that enable the implementation of key nutritional interventions. These will include policies and legal issues related to agricultural inputs, credit, markets, and land and trade policy. In order for any of the investments in food security to have the intended impact, a supportive policy environment is foundational.
Tanzania has overarching policy challenges that can seriously impact its performance with food security and its possible role as a regional provider into the future. The recent AgCLIR assessment for Tanzania identified several key policy issues that currently inhibit transformational agricultural growth, including: policy instability, multiplicity of local taxes, and a weak legal framework to protect property rights.
FTF will actively work to develop the GOT‘s capacity to analyze and implement policy instruments that address both short and long-term food security needs. Possible interventions include:
To ensure that policies that cause market distortion are avoided, FTF will create a robust monitoring system for policy reforms and will promote mutual accountability based on a consultative process rather than imposing conditionality.
One of the main challenges to promoting good governance in Tanzania is access to information by the public and by pressure groups, which is necessary for holding the government accountable in use of resources for provision of public services such as rural roads or extension. FTF will establish a communications strategy that will enhance access to information on food security and agriculture so as to foster public awareness on the program, and on state and private sector performance in the sector. The program will build upon the existing processes for ―Agricultural Sector Review‖ and ―Public Expenditure Review‖ which are held annually.
The participation of civil society, media and NGOs in shaping an agricultural development program is essential to ensuring that a program articulates the needs of the majority, including vulnerable segments of the population such as women and children. Civil society and NGOs can also assist in holding the government accountable for its performance. FTF Tanzania will support some local NGOs and civil society organizations to champion policy reforms. USG has started, and will continue, to engage civil society in the shaping of FTF, and encourage them to participate in the implementation process. The U.S. Government advocated for more engagement of civil society in the CAADP process, resulting in the engagement of the Agriculture Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF) in the CAADP Task Force and the Drafting Team for TAFSIP. As the U.S. Government assumes the leadership of the donors‘ group for agriculture in July 2011, it will engage more NGOs and civil society organizations in the Agricultural Sector and Public Expenditure Reviews.
FTF Tanzania will advocate for policies that will address gender disparities in access to resources. For instance, the ―Secured Transactions Reforms‖ would create a legal framework to support the use of movable assets as collateral for accessing credit by small and medium enterprises. Such a system would enhance equitable access to credit, as the current system relies on the use of fixed assets such as land, and thereby often excludes women, who under traditional cultural practices have limited opportunity to land titling.
Enabling Policy Environment for Agricultural Sector Growth
The project‘s primary goal is to advance policy reform efforts in key areas identified as the critical barriers to transformation of the agriculture sector. The purpose of this project is to develop a policy partnership between government, private sector organizations, and research institutions to achieve key policy reforms in the agriculture sector and related business environment that will ensure successful implementation of the GOT‘s agriculture investment plan and FTF. The project will: strengthen the capacities of GOT institutions, the private sector, and other stakeholders for policy research and implementation of policy change that informs the CAADP process and FTF on constraints to growth; promotes dialogue among all stakeholders and partners; identifies and develops consensus on specific policies that need to be analyzed and changed; and monitors the implementation and impact of reforms intended to enable increased private investments in agriculture and trade.
Overview
A participatory approach, which calls for active participation of all stakeholders, will be used to monitor and evaluate (M&E) FTF Tanzania. The design of the M&E system will be based on the usefulness of the data and information which is collected and processed at the different levels and intervals of program implementation and operationalization. M&E for FTF will involve on-going monitoring of program activities in the participating districts, annual evaluations, annual review workshops, beneficiary assessments, mid-term review and terminal evaluation.
Evaluations will be carried out using an independent entity to assess annual program performance. In addition, FTF Tanzania will organize annual review workshops for the duration of the program to enable implementing partners to share information on program implementation performance. FTF will also draw lessons and experiences from these workshops that can be taken into account when planning activities for subsequent years of implementation.
A matrix for the selected FTF indicators is attached as Annex A. FTF Tanzania has received assistance from USAID‘s Bureau for Food Security to provide M&E technical assistance. A preliminary M&E plan has been developed for FTF Tanzania which will be completed in September 2011 once the FTF M&E implementing partner, The Mitchell Group (TMG), has arrived in Tanzania and is fully operational.
Performance Evaluations
Performance evaluations will be carried out for selected FTF Tanzania projects to ascertain the trends in achieving project results of the FTF interventions, to document the overall progress toward objectives, and to assess what is working and what is not and why. One evaluation will be done in project year one (PY 1), another in PY 3 and the last one in PY 5. A mid-term review is planned for the end of PY 2 to assess overall progress and impact of FTF implementation, to provide for corrective actions to enhance performance of FTF, and to provide recommendations for future program designs. These recommendations will be confirmed in the terminal evaluation to be carried out in PY 5.
Qualitative and participatory methods will be utilized for the performance evaluations. Evaluators will utilize methods such as observation, focus groups, key informant interviews, stakeholder interviews and rapid survey techniques to assess progress. These techniques often provide critical insights into beneficiaries‘ perspectives on the value of programs to them, the processes that may have affected outcomes, and a deeper interpretation of results observed. Specific targets for the indicators at the outcome and output levels will be developed once FTF Tanzania has carried out the baseline survey in the FTF target areas along with the preparation of Performance Monitoring Plans.
Impact Evaluation
In addition to performance evaluations, FTF Tanzania will design an impact evaluation to test a selected development hypothesis for FTF. Ideally the impact evaluation will utilize Experimental Methodology to design and conduct the impact evaluation. This methodology will incorporate a rigorously defined counterfactual and will utilize experimental design to test the development hypothesis. At a minimum, quasi-experimental methods will be utilized to test the selected hypothesis and to determine the attribution of FTF project impacts. The Impact Evaluation will be carried out under the guidance of TMG.
Program Monitoring
All programs receiving resources under FTF Tanzania will be expected to use rigorous M&E systems that will feed into the broader FTF and GOT M&E frameworks. To the extent possible, examples of participatory methodologies built into program implementation to engage program beneficiaries in knowledge sharing, learning, and potential behavior change opportunities will be encouraged. In addition to the standard reporting requirements, the M&E program will develop and undertake baseline and other survey/assessment work (e.g. household, facility, market) to contribute to the larger M&E framework under FTF. Selected programs will designate a full-time M&E Specialist to appropriately monitor progress and engage in reporting systems for FTF as they are developed. These M&E Specialists will work to ensure that program results are jointly monitored with the ASDP and contribute to their reporting systems. The M&E Specialists will participate in annual meetings that include all implementing partners for FTF Tanzania, the FTF working group, and GOT representatives from relevant ministries.
Baselines
Baseline surveys will be required for several of the indicators listed in the annex. During 2011, a comprehensive baseline survey will be carried out by the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics under the guidance of TMG. This baseline data will assist FTF Tanzania to set targets, monitor progress toward those targets and to initiate mid-course corrections for its programs and activities. The baseline will inform FTF Tanzania with data to determine whether or not selected activities are likely to achieve their targets.
Links to Government Monitoring Systems
The GOT will conduct rigorous M&E of their CAADP plan and supporting strategies such as the ASDP. To the extent possible, the FTF M&E framework is intended to utilize information that GOT already collects, especially at the national level. The M&E program will provide direct support to the GOT‘s National Bureau of Statistics. FTF investments in M&E will also be linked with the GOT monitoring mechanisms to build host country capacity and ability to analyze and report on results. A monitoring conceptual framework will set the stage for ensuring progress against targets, provide opportunities for learning, and employ participatory methods. Monitoring activities will support GOT analytical capacity building.
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Zambia, Feed the future aims to help an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 173,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Zambia is making core investments in four key areas:
1. Oilseeds, legumes, maize and horticulture value chains
2. Enabling Environment
3. Economic Resilience
4. Nutrition
Target Regions
Feed the Future is focusing its efforts in two areas: the Eastern Province, with a value chain focus on oilseeds, legumes and maize; and selected peri-urban districts near Lusaka, connecting to Eastern Province, with a particular focus on horticulture.
Highlights
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process. Zambia’s CAADP Compact was signed in January 2011, and development of the Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan has begun. Through this Compact the Government of the Republic of Zambia is committed to the following:
Diversification of staple crop production. Diversification of selected staple value chains will:
Gender. The Zambia strategy strives to maximize the positive impact on female farmers and ensure equitable benefits for men and women by:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 1: DIVERSIFICATION OF PRODUCTION AND INCOME – UPGRADE VALUE CHAINS
The first set of core investments in the Zambia FTF strategy contributes to systems transformation, with a primary focus on oilseeds and legumes and targeted interventions in the maize value chain, and a secondary focus on horticulture.
Feed the Future Value Chain Investments
USAID/Zambia will have several programs that contribute significantly to upgrading the oilseeds, legumes and maize value chains. This will be accomplished through several planned mechanisms, including: 1) the Production, Finance and Improved Technology Plus program, which is designed to increase food security and decrease hunger through agriculture-led growth and inclusive market access by smallholder farmers; and 2) public-private partnerships including Global Development Alliances (GDAs) to leverage private sector activity and promote market sustainability through private sector models. These efforts will stimulate agricultural growth and significantly contribute to the Millennium Development Goal 1 of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger by 2015. The programs will build on previous USAID-funded activities by closely linking efforts to enhance input supply with output markets, promoting value-added rural enterprises linked to selected value chains, and ensuring that women fully benefit from value chain development. One of the challenges of the previous program, given its focus on private sector sustainability, was to ensure female participation. Lessons learned from the successful Production, Finance and Improved Technologies (PROFIT) program, which closes in 2011, will be incorporated into new programs.
Programs will focus specifically on maize and oilseed/legume (particularly, groundnut, soya and sunflower) value chains in Eastern province and horticulture value chains in peri-urban Lusaka. Through this geographic focus, USAID-funded FTF activities will reach up to 25 percent of Zambian men and women smallholder farmers. Maize value chain work will focus on increasing productivity in order to meet food security. Smallholders will be benefit from an integrated approach that provides for maize food security and enables smallholders to diversify into commercial crops.
Illustrative Examples of Value Chain Activities
In-depth analysis of selected value chains. The program will conduct in-depth economic value chain analysis including market (both domestic and export) assessments, competition/profitability analyses, gender analyses, and strategies for Zambian value chains to improve competitiveness in light of market opportunities and constraints.
Value chain finance. Both the demand and supply side of value chain finance will be addressed to increase the competitiveness of selected value chains. Options to increase access to production and processing credit may include insurance, operating leases and expansion of e-banking. Activities to expand access to credit and financial services to both men and women will be assessed and implemented through a variety of mechanisms, partners and tools, including intermediary businesses, credit guarantees, microfinance and commercial banking products oriented to benefit smallholder farmers.
Provide local trade information and services. Local provider(s) of trade information and services will be supported to aid producers’ entry into local, regional and international markets, including sanitary and phytosanitary protocols, import requirements, customs and borders procedures, and contact points. The program will take extra effort to ensure equal access to information for women. The Zambia Agricultural Commodity Exchange (ZAMACE) will require support that will be gradually phased out, with the goal of achieving sustainability through self-sufficient funding of operations within three years.
Target regional export markets. The program will develop a strategy for targeting profitable export markets for Zambian products initially in the maize, legume and horticulture sectors. USAID/Zambia’s experience thus far has shown that in many cases regional markets provide more opportunities for exporters (particularly smallholders) than more distant international markets. Efforts will be made to ensure both men and women producers can access export markets.
Promote rural enterprise and cooperative development, particularly in value-added processing of selected value chains. Activities will also address marketing constraints faced by smallholder farmers, in particular women. The project will identify key agents that can create rural employment and opportunities for value addition, including cooperatives, traders, processors and agribusinesses that warehouse commodities. Governance, operations and capacity of Zambian organizations and firms that link farmers to value-added markets, including animal feed, high protein products, cooking oil and canned vegetables, will be strengthened. In particular, women-based producer and marketing associations will be organized around selected value chains.
",".
","USAID/Zambia will monitor and evaluate programs and activities throughout the strategy period to ensure that those investments are achieving objectives and maximizing returns to investments. Though many of the investments will be managed and monitored primarily by USAID, some investments will originate from other USG agencies and by government, donors, or the private sector. The Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan will provide a framework for the development of a more comprehensive national effort in agriculture and poverty reduction that will be supported through the USG FTF effort. CAADP monitoring is addressed below. The M&E framework for the USG FTF strategy outlined in this section will be inclusive and involve all government agencies investing in FTF areas, particularly in the FTF priority geographic area, Eastern province.
The geographic focus, co-location of investments, and the timing of the initiation of new investments provide the opportunity to establish a solid impact assessment framework as well. USAID/Zambia’s approach to monitoring and evaluation will be comprised of three components: 1) project-level reporting; 2) performance management/monitoring and evaluation; and, 3) external impact assessment to capture the aggregate impact of all investments and the relative contribution of different interventions to the extent feasible.
The FTF strategy will be implemented primarily through two of the USAID/Zambia CDCS Development Objectives (DO) and will meet the requirements of CDCS Development Objectives: (1) engage in """"rigorous"""" impact evaluations; and (2) build local capacity for monitoring and evaluation. The USAID/Zambia Mission has committed to implementing the operational research, managing for results, evaluation and local capacity-building model in its CDCS, and this will apply as well to FTF.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The FTF Performance Monitoring Plan will include indicators measuring progress towards achieving results at all levels. For each indicator, the data source and methodology, baseline, targets, and a calendar of performance management tasks, including a schedule for data collection, will be included. The selection of indicators to include in the PMP will be driven by ongoing and planned activities, the availability of baseline, and provisions made to ensure availability of data for the reference reporting period.
To monitor performance, the Mission will establish baselines and collect data for standard and customized indicators to track whether desired results are occurring and whether performance is on target. All programs receiving FTF resources will be expected to develop monitoring and evaluation strategies that are consistent with the USG Zambia’s FTF framework.
Initial stakeholder workshops will be held for the purposes of
Given that FTF has the intention to work with a broader range of partners, including local organizations, it is expected that some partners will have more limited reporting capacity. These organizations will need greater assistance, and it may be necessary to delegate the responsibility for some monitoring and reporting to external entities.
For higher level objectives, tracking performance will be beyond the manageable interest of individual projects. In particular, changes in incomes, nutritional status, and some community-level variables among others will be more appropriately measured across the program areas. The FTF Team is developing a consortium of stakeholders to assess existing data sources, and intends to identify an external entity to coordinate baseline and periodic data collection for specific indicators.
An FTF M&E plan will be finalized by the end of Fiscal Year 2011, outlining all indicators and the reporting responsibilities by all USAID/Zambia’s partners. Key FTF required indicators to be tracked and reported are listed in Annex B. Additional project-specific and other relevant indicators not included in the FTF required indicators will be added. It is important to note that all appropriate indicators will be sex-disaggregated.
EVALUATION
In line with the new evaluation policy, the FTF program intends to conduct a number of performance evaluations and impact evaluations. Evaluations of two programs closing in 2011, PROFIT and C-FAARM, will be useful for the FTF learning agenda. The USG FTF has a unique opportunity with a defined geographic focus and the initiation of new activities to establish an impact assessment framework to assess high level impact, as well as to identify the relative contribution of different intervention, such as value chain upgrading versus household level management skills. USAID/Zambia will work with partners and other agencies to develop an impact assessment methodology that is consistent with and contributes to the project performance monitoring framework, but will also test several development hypotheses.
An initial baseline survey will be conducted in Eastern province to establish current levels of key variables including incomes, nutritional status, household production and asset patterns, and agriculture technology levels. This baseline will draw from the latest survey methodologies, particularly recent work on gender and asset control24. An appropriate sampling framework will be established to assess impact, most likely on a biannual basis. A randomized approach will be considered for a sub-sample to maintain the integrity of the impact assessment; however, flexibility will be needed to consider mid-term correction in order to ensure the greatest impact over the period of the strategy.
In the context of the development challenges and opportunities identified in Zambia and outlined in Section 1.1, several development hypotheses are of interest for the impact assessment. In particular, the relative contribution will be assessed of community-level versus household-level interventions to reducing poverty and undernutrition, as well as the additional value of the co-location of interventions. Another hypothesis of interest to be tested is: By increasing productivity, improving household food security and linking smallholders to markets for agriculture commodities, FTF interventions will reduce the incentives for exploiting the natural resource base.
Performance Evaluation
The FTF program will schedule performance evaluations to focus on descriptive and normative questions including: project or program achievements (either at an intermediate point in execution or at the conclusion of an implementation period); program implementation; program perception and value; and other questions pertinent to program design, management and operational decision-making. These performance evaluations will incorporate before-after comparisons whenever feasible.
Impact Evaluation
The FTF program will conduct impact evaluations to measure the change in development outcomes attributable to FTF interventions. Impact evaluations will be based on cause-effect models and will require a credible and rigorously-defined counterfactual control. Impact evaluations with treatment and control groups help provide the strongest evidence of a relationship between interventions and measured outcomes. One hypothesis to be explored includes identifying increased benefits from combined interventions, particularly income-augmenting and nutrition-related activities. In the nutrition portfolio, the differential effect of geographically co-locating health programs active in nutrition with agriculture programs working on the productivity and diversity side of the nutrition equation can be tested.
LINK TO GOVERNMENT MONITORING SYSTEMS
USAID/Zambia has provided extensive support to the Government of Zambia in monitoring the agricultural sector, and in analyzing government data through the Food Security Research Project (FSRP). This support will continue and can be drawn upon to monitor agricultural trends. In addition, FSRP has expertise in analyzing surveys such as the biannual Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) which tracks poverty levels, and the Supplemental Surveys, which provide quality agricultural data. This expertise can be leveraged for improved performance monitoring by the GRZ, as well as for FTF performance.
The CAADP framework focuses largely on performance in the agricultural sector. For national performance toward other MDGs, particularly those related to nutrition and gender impacts, the FTF team will work with additional partners to identify appropriate data sources and performance monitoring modalities. For example, the Nutrition Cooperating Partners sub-group may be instrumental in the creation of a data monitoring platform according to the SUN Movement principles. However, the Zambia FTF framework will focus its efforts largely on performance for the targeted FTF areas and the contribution of these changes to national levels.
","Overall, an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—will receive targeted assistance to escape hunger and poverty","","","Increased productivity and income from selected value chains (gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product); Number of farmers, processors, and others who have applied new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance (disaggregated by sex); Value of incremental sales (collected at farm/firm level) attributed to FTF implementation (disaggregated by targeted commodity) (disaggregated by sex of household head); Value of new private sector investment in the agriculture sector or food chain leveraged by FTF implementation (Change in value – investments local and international); Increase in employment in value-added processing enterprises linked to selected commodities.","Increased productivity and income from selected value chains (gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product); Number of farmers, processors, and others who have applied new technologies or management practices as a result of USG assistance (disaggregated by sex); Value of incremental sales (collected at farm/firm level) attributed to FTF implementation (disaggregated by targeted commodity) (disaggregated by sex of household head); Value of new private sector investment in the agriculture sector or food chain leveraged by FTF implementation (Change in value – investments local and international); Increase in employment in value-added processing enterprises linked to selected commodities.","Vulnerable groups","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11545","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","ZMB","Zambia"," Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Central Province, Zambia","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Zambia, Feed the future aims to help an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 173,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Zambia is making core investments in four key areas:
1. Oilseeds, legumes, maize and horticulture value chains
2. Enabling Environment
3. Economic Resilience
4. Nutrition
Target Regions
Feed the Future is focusing its efforts in two areas: the Eastern Province, with a value chain focus on oilseeds, legumes and maize; and selected peri-urban districts near Lusaka, connecting to Eastern Province, with a particular focus on horticulture.
Highlights
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process. Zambia’s CAADP Compact was signed in January 2011, and development of the Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan has begun. Through this Compact the Government of the Republic of Zambia is committed to the following:
Diversification of staple crop production. Diversification of selected staple value chains will:
Gender. The Zambia strategy strives to maximize the positive impact on female farmers and ensure equitable benefits for men and women by:
Feed the Future Value Chain Research & Development Program
Research features prominently in the Feed the Future Initiative. The FTF research strategy has three objectives: advancing the productivity frontier, transforming production systems and enhancing dietary quality and food safety. The sustainable use of natural resources and adaptation to global climate changes are additional objectives. R&D investments will include several sub-components, through collaboration between international agriculture research centers, GRZ research institutes and public universities, private sector and other partners. The project will also incorporate a competitive grants program to promote public-private research and technology adoption. A key objective of the program is to enable these entities to directly implement activities within the life of the program. All programs will outline the steps, process and timeline to enable Zambian Government, NGO and other entities to be able to directly implement selected project activities within two years after the project has begun field implementation. Finally, to be effective, the programs must also actively involve both men and women in research design and trials to ensure appropriateness to their relative needs.
Some of the key issues that the agricultural research program in Zambia will address are outlined below.
The approach should include preliminary analysis to identify high pay-off interventions with the greatest potential to increase incomes and improve nutrition for a large number of smallholder maize-based farm households, with particular attention to gender-based constraints. These interventions may include varieties, management, alternative farm resource allocation and post-harvest approaches.
Possible components of a program include:
Low Productivity and Limited Production of Groundnuts--Limiting Their Contribution to Household Nutrition, Incomes and Women’s Empowerment
Illustrative activities include:
Widespread Aflatoxin Contamination--Reducing Food Quality and Limiting Exports
Responses to the aflatoxin problem in Zambia may include:
Role of Zambian Women in Science
The FTF strategy will also invest in the development of Zambian women scientists. The African Women in Research and Development (AWARD) program has successfully supported the career of up to nine Zambian women scientists in private and public research organizations as well as civil society organizations. The AWARD Fellows are paired with a leading scientist mentor in their field who supports the development of professional skills. Training in leadership and other professional skills such as writing and communication is provided. A current AWARD Fellow recently conducted a workshop on gender in the aquaculture sector, highlighting the importance of considering gender constraints in this sector. The AWARD Fellows also become mentors to younger women, thus extending the benefits of the program. The FTF strategy will continue this investment throughout the program and work with these scientists in order to strengthen the participation of women in agricultural research.
","
.
","
USAID/Zambia will monitor and evaluate programs and activities throughout the strategy period to ensure that those investments are achieving objectives and maximizing returns to investments. Though many of the investments will be managed and monitored primarily by USAID, some investments will originate from other USG agencies and by government, donors, or the private sector. The Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan will provide a framework for the development of a more comprehensive national effort in agriculture and poverty reduction that will be supported through the USG FTF effort. CAADP monitoring is addressed below. The M&E framework for the USG FTF strategy outlined in this section will be inclusive and involve all government agencies investing in FTF areas, particularly in the FTF priority geographic area, Eastern province.
The geographic focus, co-location of investments, and the timing of the initiation of new investments provide the opportunity to establish a solid impact assessment framework as well. USAID/Zambia’s approach to monitoring and evaluation will be comprised of three components:
The FTF strategy will be implemented primarily through two of the USAID/Zambia CDCS Development Objectives (DO) and will meet the requirements of CDCS Development Objectives:
The USAID/Zambia Mission has committed to implementing the operational research, managing for results, evaluation and local capacity-building model in its CDCS, and this will apply as well to FTF.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The FTF Performance Monitoring Plan will include indicators measuring progress towards achieving results at all levels. For each indicator, the data source and methodology, baseline, targets, and a calendar of performance management tasks, including a schedule for data collection, will be included. The selection of indicators to include in the PMP will be driven by ongoing and planned activities, the availability of baseline, and provisions made to ensure availability of data for the reference reporting period.
To monitor performance, the Mission will establish baselines and collect data for standard and customized indicators to track whether desired results are occurring and whether performance is on target. All programs receiving FTF resources will be expected to develop monitoring and evaluation strategies that are consistent with the USG Zambia’s FTF framework.
Initial stakeholder workshops will be held for the purposes of
Data quality assessments will be conducted regularly to ensure consistency and completeness. Data collected through monitoring will be used for periodic reports to stakeholders. Given that FTF has the intention to work with a broader range of partners, including local organizations, it is expected that some partners will have more limited reporting capacity. These organizations will need greater assistance, and it may be necessary to delegate the responsibility for some monitoring and reporting to external entities.
For higher level objectives, tracking performance will be beyond the manageable interest of individual projects. In particular, changes in incomes, nutritional status, and some community-level variables among others will be more appropriately measured across the program areas. The FTF Team is developing a consortium of stakeholders to assess existing data sources, and intends to identify an external entity to coordinate baseline and periodic data collection for specific indicators.
An FTF M&E plan will be finalized by the end of Fiscal Year 2011, outlining all indicators and the reporting responsibilities by all USAID/Zambia’s partners. Key FTF required indicators to be tracked and reported are listed in Annex B. Additional project-specific and other relevant indicators not included in the FTF required indicators will be added. It is important to note that all appropriate indicators will be sex-disaggregated.
EVALUATION
In line with the new evaluation policy, the FTF program intends to conduct a number of performance evaluations and impact evaluations. Evaluations of two programs closing in 2011, PROFIT and C-FAARM, will be useful for the FTF learning agenda. The USG FTF has a unique opportunity with a defined geographic focus and the initiation of new activities to establish an impact assessment framework to assess high level impact, as well as to identify the relative contribution of different intervention, such as value chain upgrading versus household level management skills. USAID/Zambia will work with partners and other agencies to develop an impact assessment methodology that is consistent with and contributes to the project performance monitoring framework, but will also test several development hypotheses.
An initial baseline survey will be conducted in Eastern province to establish current levels of key variables including incomes, nutritional status, household production and asset patterns, and agriculture technology levels. This baseline will draw from the latest survey methodologies, particularly recent work on gender and asset control24. An appropriate sampling framework will be established to assess impact, most likely on a biannual basis. A randomized approach will be considered for a sub-sample to maintain the integrity of the impact assessment; however, flexibility will be needed to consider mid-term correction in order to ensure the greatest impact over the period of the strategy.
In the context of the development challenges and opportunities identified in Zambia and outlined in Section 1.1, several development hypotheses are of interest for the impact assessment. In particular, the relative contribution will be assessed of community-level versus household-level interventions to reducing poverty and undernutrition, as well as the additional value of the co-location of interventions. Another hypothesis of interest to be tested is: By increasing productivity, improving household food security and linking smallholders to markets for agriculture commodities, FTF interventions will reduce the incentives for exploiting the natural resource base.
Performance Evaluation
The FTF program will schedule performance evaluations to focus on descriptive and normative questions including: project or program achievements (either at an intermediate point in execution or at the conclusion of an implementation period); program implementation; program perception and value; and other questions pertinent to program design, management and operational decision-making. These performance evaluations will incorporate before-after comparisons whenever feasible.
Impact Evaluation
The FTF program will conduct impact evaluations to measure the change in development outcomes attributable to FTF interventions. Impact evaluations will be based on cause-effect models and will require a credible and rigorously-defined counterfactual control. Impact evaluations with treatment and control groups help provide the strongest evidence of a relationship between interventions and measured outcomes. One hypothesis to be explored includes identifying increased benefits from combined interventions, particularly income-augmenting and nutrition-related activities. In the nutrition portfolio, the differential effect of geographically co-locating health programs active in nutrition with agriculture programs working on the productivity and diversity side of the nutrition equation can be tested.
LINK TO GOVERNMENT MONITORING SYSTEMS
USAID/Zambia has provided extensive support to the Government of Zambia in monitoring the agricultural sector, and in analyzing government data through the Food Security Research Project (FSRP). This support will continue and can be drawn upon to monitor agricultural trends. In addition, FSRP has expertise in analyzing surveys such as the biannual Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) which tracks poverty levels, and the Supplemental Surveys, which provide quality agricultural data. This expertise can be leveraged for improved performance monitoring by the GRZ, as well as for FTF performance.
The CAADP framework focuses largely on performance in the agricultural sector. For national performance toward other MDGs, particularly those related to nutrition and gender impacts, the FTF team will work with additional partners to identify appropriate data sources and performance monitoring modalities. For example, the Nutrition Cooperating Partners sub-group may be instrumental in the creation of a data monitoring platform according to the SUN Movement principles. However, the Zambia FTF framework will focus its efforts largely on performance for the targeted FTF areas and the contribution of these changes to national levels.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty","","","","","Vulnerable groups","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11545","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","ZMB","Zambia"," Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Central Province, Zambia","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Zambia, Feed the future aims to help an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 173,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Zambia is making core investments in four key areas:
1. Oilseeds, legumes, maize and horticulture value chains
2. Enabling Environment
3. Economic Resilience
4. Nutrition
Target Regions
Feed the Future is focusing its efforts in two areas: the Eastern Province, with a value chain focus on oilseeds, legumes and maize; and selected peri-urban districts near Lusaka, connecting to Eastern Province, with a particular focus on horticulture.
Highlights
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process. Zambia’s CAADP Compact was signed in January 2011, and development of the Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan has begun. Through this Compact the Government of the Republic of Zambia is committed to the following:
Diversification of staple crop production. Diversification of selected staple value chains will:
Gender. The Zambia strategy strives to maximize the positive impact on female farmers and ensure equitable benefits for men and women by:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 2: ENABLING ENVIRONMENT AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT
As an additional key strategy component, FTF Zambia will support the development of favorable agriculture policy through policy research and advocacy for reform. For example, continued policy reform is needed for maize to be competitive in regional markets, including a consistent and open border policy; small government strategic reserve; price-band management; and, use of the e-voucher system in input provision. Another critical investment is support to the GRZ to advance and complete the CAADP process, i.e., by helping the government develop a realistic but ambitious Country Investment Plan.
Several important policy objectives will be supported by the USG toward creating an enabling environment to achieve FTF objectives. These include:
USAID/Zambia has awarded a five-year project (2010-2015) that will assist stakeholders through a program of research, policy analysis, outreach, and training. Assistance provided will also support key agricultural policy stakeholders throughout the development and implementation of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). The project, the Food Security Research Project (FSRP), will work closely with the Agricultural Consultative Forum (ACF), a Zambian NGO that provides a forum for policy dialogue, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MACO), the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development (MLFD), the Central Statistical Office (CSO), and other selected Zambian organizations.
The FSRP and ACF will take center stage in carrying out independent research to form the basis for developing and promoting supportive agricultural policy in Zambia. The ACF will also remain flexible to build capacity of other Zambian institutions that support the goal of improving fact-based agricultural and economic policy formulation in Zambia to nurture local capacity and local dissemination of knowledge to the public through commissioning and mentoring of local groups to undertake policy analysis. ACF and FSRP efforts in the past have addressed sound market-based principles through institutional capacity building and empirically-based policy research. Those efforts will be intensified to better support the GRZ’s implementation of its CAADP Investment Plan, which is a critical component of the FTF.
New USG funding in the project will be directed to three general activities – capacity building, more active outreach within and beyond the agricultural sector, and improvements in the quality of basic agricultural data emerging from CSO and MACO. This work will be undertaken in collaboration with other efforts to improvements overall data collection management of the CSO, particularly that being spearheaded by the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID). FTF will also fund training to support public and civil society leaders engaged in the CAADP process, as well as training of women scientists.
Key Enabling Environment Program Areas
Analytical Capacity for Improved Agricultural Policy in Zambia. Weak human and institutional capacity to analyze agricultural policy contributes to the politicization of agriculture in Zambia and a weak business climate for agricultural investment. FTF assistance will improve the analytical capacity of Zambian stakeholders. Stronger ―home-grown‖ analytical capacity and greater public outreach will lead to a greater understanding of key issues affecting agriculture by both the public at large and policy makers within the government. Informed technocrats within the government, backed by a supportive public opinion, should be able to convince political leaders to make sound decisions in agricultural policy.
New Project Directions. Emphasis will be on ―Zambianizing‖ the research capacity, which previously was not deep enough, due to limited finances and limited scope of local institutions. Increased high-level USG attention to food security issues demands a more thorough understanding of GRZ priorities and donor commitments in the sector. FSRP and ACF activities will provide the analytical basis for future US and other donor investments in the agricultural sector to combat hunger and poverty, which are aligned with the GRZ’s CAADP Compact.
Thematic And Operational Support of the CAADP Agenda. FSRP has supported the CAADP Compact process, ensuring that critical agricultural policy issues are, and will be, reflected in future policy planning and programming. FSRP support has ensured Zambian ownership of the CAADP framework, including its policies, programs, and targets. FSRP will work with policy makers and stakeholders as before, but with the added mandate of contributing to the peer review process that is part of the CAADP framework, focusing specifically on public resource allocation, investments and the implementation of policies that are the backbone of the CAADP process. FSRP will advocate that the CAADP process include a wide range of stakeholders with broad food security objectives across all four CAADP Pillars, and not result in a concentrated focus on agricultural productivity.
Political Will and Technical Capacity Building. For civil society, the press, government technocrats, and other groups to effectively influence policy, they need fact-based positions and up-to-date information from credible entities. It is therefore important, and an explicit objective of FSRP, to put fact-based information in front of the body politic. Political will shifts when confronted by an aware and informed electorate.
On-going Research Areas
New Potential Research Areas
","
.
","
USAID/Zambia will monitor and evaluate programs and activities throughout the strategy period to ensure that those investments are achieving objectives and maximizing returns to investments. Though many of the investments will be managed and monitored primarily by USAID, some investments will originate from other USG agencies and by government, donors, or the private sector. The Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan will provide a framework for the development of a more comprehensive national effort in agriculture and poverty reduction that will be supported through the USG FTF effort. CAADP monitoring is addressed below. The M&E framework for the USG FTF strategy outlined in this section will be inclusive and involve all government agencies investing in FTF areas, particularly in the FTF priority geographic area, Eastern province.
The geographic focus, co-location of investments, and the timing of the initiation of new investments provide the opportunity to establish a solid impact assessment framework as well. USAID/Zambia’s approach to monitoring and evaluation will be comprised of three components:
The FTF strategy will be implemented primarily through two of the USAID/Zambia CDCS Development Objectives (DO) and will meet the requirements of CDCS Development Objectives:
The USAID/Zambia Mission has committed to implementing the operational research, managing for results, evaluation and local capacity-building model in its CDCS, and this will apply as well to FTF.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The FTF Performance Monitoring Plan will include indicators measuring progress towards achieving results at all levels. For each indicator, the data source and methodology, baseline, targets, and a calendar of performance management tasks, including a schedule for data collection, will be included. The selection of indicators to include in the PMP will be driven by ongoing and planned activities, the availability of baseline, and provisions made to ensure availability of data for the reference reporting period.
To monitor performance, the Mission will establish baselines and collect data for standard and customized indicators to track whether desired results are occurring and whether performance is on target. All programs receiving FTF resources will be expected to develop monitoring and evaluation strategies that are consistent with the USG Zambia’s FTF framework.
Initial stakeholder workshops will be held for the purposes of
Given that FTF has the intention to work with a broader range of partners, including local organizations, it is expected that some partners will have more limited reporting capacity. These organizations will need greater assistance, and it may be necessary to delegate the responsibility for some monitoring and reporting to external entities.
For higher level objectives, tracking performance will be beyond the manageable interest of individual projects. In particular, changes in incomes, nutritional status, and some community-level variables among others will be more appropriately measured across the program areas. The FTF Team is developing a consortium of stakeholders to assess existing data sources, and intends to identify an external entity to coordinate baseline and periodic data collection for specific indicators.
An FTF M&E plan will be finalized by the end of Fiscal Year 2011, outlining all indicators and the reporting responsibilities by all USAID/Zambia’s partners. Key FTF required indicators to be tracked and reported are listed in Annex B. Additional project-specific and other relevant indicators not included in the FTF required indicators will be added. It is important to note that all appropriate indicators will be sex-disaggregated.
EVALUATION
In line with the new evaluation policy, the FTF program intends to conduct a number of performance evaluations and impact evaluations. Evaluations of two programs closing in 2011, PROFIT and C-FAARM, will be useful for the FTF learning agenda. The USG FTF has a unique opportunity with a defined geographic focus and the initiation of new activities to establish an impact assessment framework to assess high level impact, as well as to identify the relative contribution of different intervention, such as value chain upgrading versus household level management skills. USAID/Zambia will work with partners and other agencies to develop an impact assessment methodology that is consistent with and contributes to the project performance monitoring framework, but will also test several development hypotheses.
An initial baseline survey will be conducted in Eastern province to establish current levels of key variables including incomes, nutritional status, household production and asset patterns, and agriculture technology levels. This baseline will draw from the latest survey methodologies, particularly recent work on gender and asset control24. An appropriate sampling framework will be established to assess impact, most likely on a biannual basis. A randomized approach will be considered for a sub-sample to maintain the integrity of the impact assessment; however, flexibility will be needed to consider mid-term correction in order to ensure the greatest impact over the period of the strategy.
In the context of the development challenges and opportunities identified in Zambia and outlined in Section 1.1, several development hypotheses are of interest for the impact assessment. In particular, the relative contribution will be assessed of community-level versus household-level interventions to reducing poverty and undernutrition, as well as the additional value of the co-location of interventions. Another hypothesis of interest to be tested is: By increasing productivity, improving household food security and linking smallholders to markets for agriculture commodities, FTF interventions will reduce the incentives for exploiting the natural resource base.
Performance Evaluation
The FTF program will schedule performance evaluations to focus on descriptive and normative questions including: project or program achievements (either at an intermediate point in execution or at the conclusion of an implementation period); program implementation; program perception and value; and other questions pertinent to program design, management and operational decision-making. These performance evaluations will incorporate before-after comparisons whenever feasible.
Impact Evaluation
The FTF program will conduct impact evaluations to measure the change in development outcomes attributable to FTF interventions. Impact evaluations will be based on cause-effect models and will require a credible and rigorously-defined counterfactual control. Impact evaluations with treatment and control groups help provide the strongest evidence of a relationship between interventions and measured outcomes. One hypothesis to be explored includes identifying increased benefits from combined interventions, particularly income-augmenting and nutrition-related activities. In the nutrition portfolio, the differential effect of geographically co-locating health programs active in nutrition with agriculture programs working on the productivity and diversity side of the nutrition equation can be tested.
LINK TO GOVERNMENT MONITORING SYSTEMS
USAID/Zambia has provided extensive support to the Government of Zambia in monitoring the agricultural sector, and in analyzing government data through the Food Security Research Project (FSRP). This support will continue and can be drawn upon to monitor agricultural trends. In addition, FSRP has expertise in analyzing surveys such as the biannual Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) which tracks poverty levels, and the Supplemental Surveys, which provide quality agricultural data. This expertise can be leveraged for improved performance monitoring by the GRZ, as well as for FTF performance.
The CAADP framework focuses largely on performance in the agricultural sector. For national performance toward other MDGs, particularly those related to nutrition and gender impacts, the FTF team will work with additional partners to identify appropriate data sources and performance monitoring modalities. For example, the Nutrition Cooperating Partners sub-group may be instrumental in the creation of a data monitoring platform according to the SUN Movement principles. However, the Zambia FTF framework will focus its efforts largely on performance for the targeted FTF areas and the contribution of these changes to national levels.
","","","","","","Vulnerable groups","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11545","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","ZMB","Zambia"," Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Central Province, Zambia","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Zambia, Feed the future aims to help an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 173,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Zambia is making core investments in four key areas:
1. Oilseeds, legumes, maize and horticulture value chains
2. Enabling Environment
3. Economic Resilience
4. Nutrition
Target Regions
Feed the Future is focusing its efforts in two areas: the Eastern Province, with a value chain focus on oilseeds, legumes and maize; and selected peri-urban districts near Lusaka, connecting to Eastern Province, with a particular focus on horticulture.
Highlights
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process. Zambia’s CAADP Compact was signed in January 2011, and development of the Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan has begun. Through this Compact the Government of the Republic of Zambia is committed to the following:
Diversification of staple crop production. Diversification of selected staple value chains will:
Gender. The Zambia strategy strives to maximize the positive impact on female farmers and ensure equitable benefits for men and women by:
CORE INVESTMENT AREA 3: ECONOMIC RESILIENCE
FTF investments in agricultural value chains will increase agricultural productivity and incomes. FTF investments in health and nutrition infrastructure will improve access to health and nutrition services and information at the district and community level. However, not all households will be able to benefit in the medium term from these investments. In addition, intra-household resource management, even in better-off agricultural households, can be a barrier to the translation of systemic investments in the agricultural and health infrastructure into improvements in benefits for women and children. The Zambia FTF strategy proposes a set of investments to address these two challenges. The investments will target households that are more vulnerable to food insecurity due to composition, illness, or other factors.
Economic Resilience Programming
FTF investments will focus on an integrated approach to building assets and risk reduction, and call for innovative models to link vulnerable households to value chain interventions and investments in community, district and provincial health systems. These programs will engage new partners and will be structured to ensure both small businesses and local partners have the capacity to participate. The program will enhance coping skills, build assets and increase rural incomes for vulnerable households in targeted areas, thereby significantly contributing to Millennium Development Goal 1 of halving the proportion of Zambians living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger by 2015.
The vulnerable and very poor have some minimum set of assets but have been unable to move towards longer-term economic well-being and health. Frequently donor and government assistance to these households has been in the form of humanitarian relief, economic transfers or subsidies (e.g., of staple foods). USAID/Zambia seeks to support innovative ideas, concepts and programs to increase the economic resilience of the very vulnerable Zambian rural population in targeted areas.
Investments under this core investment area aim to increase the food security of vulnerable and very poor rural households in targeted areas through interventions that reduce the number of hunger months, improve nutrition and health practices, and increase the value of household assets and the ability of households to productively use those assets. These achievements are expected to contribute significantly to reducing stunting and underweight levels in the targeted households over a five-year period.
Activities will target vulnerable groups in rural areas with a minimum set of assets (land and/or labor) and fall below the poverty line of $1.25/day. These attributes characterize a majority of smallholder agricultural producers in Eastern province. To identify more vulnerable households it will be necessary to include households according to additional characteristics such as: female-headed - widowed or divorced; household with person living with AIDS (PLWA) or other chronic and debilitating diseases; household caring for or headed by orphan or vulnerable child (OVC); or disabled household head or member.
Potential Activities
Investments will build upon USAID-funded activities that work in agricultural growth, nutrition and economic resilience efforts, such as the Title II program, the Consortium for Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition, AIDS, Resiliency and Markets (C-FAARM), closing out in 2011. The programs will implement innovative strategies and approaches to enable vulnerable rural households, including those affected by HIV/AIDS and other diseases, orphan and vulnerable child-headed households, and female-headed households, by improving food security through strengthened economic resilience. Special attention will be given to enabling very poor women to participate in expanding opportunities as producers, service providers and entrepreneurs.
Programs will take an integrated approach to improved food security – addressing availability, access and utilization components, as well as linkages to nutrition and health, and gender relations. Programs as diverse as micro-savings and lending, conditional cash transfers, ―farming as a family business‖ have all shown some potential to reduce vulnerability of poor households under specific conditions. Proposals will be expected to demonstrate scalability.
Recent evidence of preventive approaches to undernutrition in other countries provides direction for successful components of nutrition interventions. The promotion of Essential Nutrition Actions will be a fundamental component of all interventions. Other approaches will be considered. For example, a positive deviance model demonstrated that three-quarters of children under age five treated for undernutrition made significant weight gains when their diets included legumes and other high protein supplements, combined with improved health and sanitary practices, and access to clean water.18 Some microfinance schemes follow a positive deviance model in which seed capital is not injected into communities, but revolving loan funds are created based on the capital available within communities, and members increase their ability to borrow based on the amount of shares they are able (and willing) to invest in the loan fund. Savings-led financial services have been demonstrated to serve an important role in consumption smoothing. Small livestock may actually serve as savings accounts, easily converted into cash when needed. Approaches that target all farm household members, both men and women, have been shown to be effective in improving the use of resources and changing household food security. A recent gender assessment of the SIDA-funded agricultural support program reported that better internal management of household resources was a significant factor contributing to greater household food security for project participants, as measured by months of household food security19. Given strong evidence of the significance of women’s income to child nutrition, approaches that build better household management of resources and strengthen women’s effective control may have a high payoff.
Lessons learned from GCC/SL pilots on community and household use of forest resources will be incorporated into the FTF economic resilience activities. Many vulnerable households are dependent on communal resources for sources of wild foods and medicinal crops that supplement nutritional and income needs. Household use of agriculture and non-agricultural land, such as forests, for additional income will be examined to determine strategies that build resilience and improve land use, without increasing the pressure on non-agricultural lands.
","
It is envisaged that these activities will result in tangible benefits to households such as increased food availability, better management, and improved intra-household food allocation, with improved child food intake and greater diet diversity for vulnerable members. Some expected achievements leading to household level benefits include increased access of poor and very poor farming households to commercial sources of inputs and non-financial supporting services, including extension and agronomic services; increased productivity by poor and very poor farming households; application by very poor farming households of improved crop production and post-harvest practices; and increased access of poor and very poor farming households to financial services.
","
USAID/Zambia will monitor and evaluate programs and activities throughout the strategy period to ensure that those investments are achieving objectives and maximizing returns to investments. Though many of the investments will be managed and monitored primarily by USAID, some investments will originate from other USG agencies and by government, donors, or the private sector. The Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan will provide a framework for the development of a more comprehensive national effort in agriculture and poverty reduction that will be supported through the USG FTF effort. CAADP monitoring is addressed below. The M&E framework for the USG FTF strategy outlined in this section will be inclusive and involve all government agencies investing in FTF areas, particularly in the FTF priority geographic area, Eastern province.
The geographic focus, co-location of investments, and the timing of the initiation of new investments provide the opportunity to establish a solid impact assessment framework as well. USAID/Zambia’s approach to monitoring and evaluation will be comprised of three components:
The FTF strategy will be implemented primarily through two of the USAID/Zambia CDCS Development Objectives (DO) and will meet the requirements of CDCS Development Objectives:
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The FTF Performance Monitoring Plan will include indicators measuring progress towards achieving results at all levels. For each indicator, the data source and methodology, baseline, targets, and a calendar of performance management tasks, including a schedule for data collection, will be included. The selection of indicators to include in the PMP will be driven by ongoing and planned activities, the availability of baseline, and provisions made to ensure availability of data for the reference reporting period.
To monitor performance, the Mission will establish baselines and collect data for standard and customized indicators to track whether desired results are occurring and whether performance is on target. All programs receiving FTF resources will be expected to develop monitoring and evaluation strategies that are consistent with the USG Zambia’s FTF framework.
Initial stakeholder workshops will be held for the purposes of:
Data collected through monitoring will be used for periodic reports to stakeholders.
Given that FTF has the intention to work with a broader range of partners, including local organizations, it is expected that some partners will have more limited reporting capacity. These organizations will need greater assistance, and it may be necessary to delegate the responsibility for some monitoring and reporting to external entities.
For higher level objectives, tracking performance will be beyond the manageable interest of individual projects. In particular, changes in incomes, nutritional status, and some community-level variables among others will be more appropriately measured across the program areas. The FTF Team is developing a consortium of stakeholders to assess existing data sources, and intends to identify an external entity to coordinate baseline and periodic data collection for specific indicators.
An FTF M&E plan will be finalized by the end of Fiscal Year 2011, outlining all indicators and the reporting responsibilities by all USAID/Zambia’s partners. Key FTF required indicators to be tracked and reported are listed in Annex B. Additional project-specific and other relevant indicators not included in the FTF required indicators will be added. It is important to note that all appropriate indicators will be sex-disaggregated.
EVALUATION
In line with the new evaluation policy, the FTF program intends to conduct a number of performance evaluations and impact evaluations. Evaluations of two programs closing in 2011, PROFIT and C-FAARM, will be useful for the FTF learning agenda. The USG FTF has a unique opportunity with a defined geographic focus and the initiation of new activities to establish an impact assessment framework to assess high level impact, as well as to identify the relative contribution of different intervention, such as value chain upgrading versus household level management skills. USAID/Zambia will work with partners and other agencies to develop an impact assessment methodology that is consistent with and contributes to the project performance monitoring framework, but will also test several development hypotheses.
An initial baseline survey will be conducted in Eastern province to establish current levels of key variables including incomes, nutritional status, household production and asset patterns, and agriculture technology levels. This baseline will draw from the latest survey methodologies, particularly recent work on gender and asset control24. An appropriate sampling framework will be established to assess impact, most likely on a biannual basis. A randomized approach will be considered for a sub-sample to maintain the integrity of the impact assessment; however, flexibility will be needed to consider mid-term correction in order to ensure the greatest impact over the period of the strategy.
In the context of the development challenges and opportunities identified in Zambia and outlined in Section 1.1, several development hypotheses are of interest for the impact assessment. In particular, the relative contribution will be assessed of community-level versus household-level interventions to reducing poverty and undernutrition, as well as the additional value of the co-location of interventions. Another hypothesis of interest to be tested is: By increasing productivity, improving household food security and linking smallholders to markets for agriculture commodities, FTF interventions will reduce the incentives for exploiting the natural resource base.
Performance Evaluation
The FTF program will schedule performance evaluations to focus on descriptive and normative questions including: project or program achievements (either at an intermediate point in execution or at the conclusion of an implementation period); program implementation; program perception and value; and other questions pertinent to program design, management and operational decision-making. These performance evaluations will incorporate before-after comparisons whenever feasible.
Impact Evaluation
The FTF program will conduct impact evaluations to measure the change in development outcomes attributable to FTF interventions. Impact evaluations will be based on cause-effect models and will require a credible and rigorously-defined counterfactual control. Impact evaluations with treatment and control groups help provide the strongest evidence of a relationship between interventions and measured outcomes. One hypothesis to be explored includes identifying increased benefits from combined interventions, particularly income-augmenting and nutrition-related activities. In the nutrition portfolio, the differential effect of geographically co-locating health programs active in nutrition with agriculture programs working on the productivity and diversity side of the nutrition equation can be tested.
LINK TO GOVERNMENT MONITORING SYSTEMS
USAID/Zambia has provided extensive support to the Government of Zambia in monitoring the agricultural sector, and in analyzing government data through the Food Security Research Project (FSRP). This support will continue and can be drawn upon to monitor agricultural trends. In addition, FSRP has expertise in analyzing surveys such as the biannual Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) which tracks poverty levels, and the Supplemental Surveys, which provide quality agricultural data. This expertise can be leveraged for improved performance monitoring by the GRZ, as well as for FTF performance.
The CAADP framework focuses largely on performance in the agricultural sector. For national performance toward other MDGs, particularly those related to nutrition and gender impacts, the FTF team will work with additional partners to identify appropriate data sources and performance monitoring modalities. For example, the Nutrition Cooperating Partners sub-group may be instrumental in the creation of a data monitoring platform according to the SUN Movement principles. However, the Zambia FTF framework will focus its efforts largely on performance for the targeted FTF areas and the contribution of these changes to national levels.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 834,000 vulnerable Tanzanian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty","","","Increased productivity and income from selected value chains (gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product) (disaggregated by sex); Increased expenditures (proxy for income) of rural households, including female-headed households; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger (disaggregated by sex of household head); Per cent of children 6-23 months that receive a Minimum Acceptable Diet (disaggregated by sex); Number of vulnerable households benefiting from program activities through increased economic resilience (disaggregated by sex of household head); Women’s Dietary Diversity: Mean number of food groups consumed by women of reproductive age; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Number of people with a savings account or insurance policy as a result of USG assistance (disaggregated by sex).","Increased productivity and income from selected value chains (gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product) (disaggregated by sex); Increased expenditures (proxy for income) of rural households, including female-headed households; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger (disaggregated by sex of household head); Per cent of children 6-23 months that receive a Minimum Acceptable Diet (disaggregated by sex); Number of vulnerable households benefiting from program activities through increased economic resilience (disaggregated by sex of household head); Women’s Dietary Diversity: Mean number of food groups consumed by women of reproductive age; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Number of people with a savings account or insurance policy as a result of USG assistance (disaggregated by sex).","Vulnerable groups","","Breastfeeding – exclusive breastfeeding>>>Breastfeeding – exclusive breastfeeding>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/exclusive_breastfeeding","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11545","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","ZMB","Zambia"," Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Eastern Province, Zambia|Lusaka-Central Province, Zambia","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a foundation for lasting progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with governments, donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Zambia, Feed the future aims to help an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 173,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Zambia is making core investments in four key areas:
1. Oilseeds, legumes, maize and horticulture value chains
2. Enabling Environment
3. Economic Resilience
4. Nutrition
Target Regions
Feed the Future is focusing its efforts in two areas: the Eastern Province, with a value chain focus on oilseeds, legumes and maize; and selected peri-urban districts near Lusaka, connecting to Eastern Province, with a particular focus on horticulture.
Highlights
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process. Zambia’s CAADP Compact was signed in January 2011, and development of the Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan has begun. Through this Compact the Government of the Republic of Zambia is committed to the following:
Diversification of staple crop production. Diversification of selected staple value chains will:
Gender. The Zambia strategy strives to maximize the positive impact on female farmers and ensure equitable benefits for men and women by:
FTF Zambia is investing in capacity-building and training of health workers to improve nutrition services and nutrition education. The nutrition program will include a national mass media campaign around the Essential Nutrition Actions that will be linked to community-level behavioral and social change communications. Additionally, the program will build strong linkages to rural health services and nutrition interventions. The nutrition program is largely managed by USAID/Zambia’s Health and HIV Offices, but activities by the USAID Economic Growth Team and Centers for Disease Control will also contribute.
The Government of Zambia has recently refocused on the poor national nutrition levels by developing a National Nutrition Strategy and holding a National Nutrition Consultative Forum to discuss the strategy. Zambia has also been selected as an Early Riser under the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Initiative promoted by the U.S. and a wide range of other donors. The USG participates in a recently formed Nutrition Donor Convener Group, chaired by DFID and UNICEF, under the Health Sector Working Group. The USG can play an important role in raising concern over nutrition levels within the country, coordinating USG and other donor investments, and supporting government efforts to intensify efforts to address undernutrition.
Nutrition Programming
FTF Agriculture and Food-based Nutrition Programming. FTF agriculture investments will contribute to improved nutritional outcomes through several approaches. Improved incomes for poor households as a result of improved agricultural practices and better market access can translate into improved household food availability, although this is usually not sufficient for changes in child nutritional status. FTF agricultural investments will also improve the quantity and quality of staple foods in Eastern province, resulting in reduced prices for poor households, most of which purchase food for several months of the year. In addition, FTF food-based strategies will result in more nutritious foods through strategies such as bio-fortification and breeding, particularly through increasing dissemination and production of beta-carotene-rich ―orange‖ maize and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. Household-based approaches through the Economic Resilience programs, described in greater detail in Section 4.3 above, will focus on more equitable food distribution/income control and on communicating behavioral change messages on essential nutrition actions at the household level. These programs will also ensure that all nutrition-related activities are consistent with and support other nutrition programming, for example in nutrition training of agricultural workers and extension staff, or capacity-building of community workers other than community-based health workers. Other potential food based strategies include school feeding linkages with organizations such as the World Food Program, with the introduction of nutritious products such as soy-based products or orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.
FTF Nutrition-related Programming through the Health Sector. USG investments in the health sector are extensive and broad and make a major contribution to the status of Zambians’ health. Many of these programs have components that directly address nutrition through improving health outcomes, reducing incidence of diseases such as malaria, vaccine preventable diseases, intestinal worm infestation, etc., providing food to PLWA, and supporting orphans and vulnerable children, among others.
The USAID Health Office invests in four programs supporting systemic change in health services. These programs include support for:
The logistics program focuses on improvements in commodities and supply chains for a wide array of critical inputs such as antiretroviral drugs, family planning inputs, and bed nets. Social marketing is conducted for all important areas, including family planning, HIV prevention and inputs, and malaria. Broad spectrum media campaigns are conducted under the integrated behavior change communication investments. These campaigns are conducted at national, provincial and community levels to elicit change in a wide range of health-related behaviors.
The following national-level interventions will be considered:
Recommendations for rural areas include the following:
In addition to interventions that strengthen the health system and refocus efforts on nutrition behavior change, the FTF strategy proposes to link health, nutrition, economic resilience, and economic growth activities at the household-level, to the extent this is feasible and cost-effective. Two approaches will be adopted:
FTF Nutrition-related Investments through HIV/AIDS Programming. Another significant contributor to child malnutrition is the high rate of pediatric HIV/AIDS. Based on a 2010 technical update on WHO guidelines, for infants and young children known to be HIV-infected, mothers are strongly encouraged to breastfeed exclusively for the first 6 months and to continue breastfeeding, with adequate supplementary feeding, up to 2 years and beyond. Therefore all infants 6 months of age and older need additional, developmentally and nutritionally appropriate food sources, as breast milk is no longer sufficient. Hence, nutrition-related HIV/AIDS interventions are also under development by the USG in Zambia, and these investments will have an impact on the reduction of undernutrition in children below age 2.
High prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency in rural Zambia. Vitamin A deficiency is a long-standing public health problem in Zambia due to inadequate dietary intake. The Ministry of Health distributes vitamin A supplements during the twice-yearly child health weeks and sugar is fortified with Vitamin A. Nonetheless, according to the 2007 Zambia Demographic and Health Survey vitamin A deficiency (VAD) continues to affect 54 percent of Zambian children under 5 and women of reproductive age. These high levels of VAD may be attributed to the high prevalence of asymptomatic infections in the Zambian population. Increasing the intake of Vitamin A through a wider range of sources, combined with health interventions, including those to prevent and treat infectious disease, will decrease defiency in many vulnerable groups. Biofortified crops have a high potential to increase Vitamin A content in diets, particularly of rural households that produce their own food and have limited consumption of fortified products.
Potential agriculture activities include:
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USAID/Zambia will monitor and evaluate programs and activities throughout the strategy period to ensure that those investments are achieving objectives and maximizing returns to investments. Though many of the investments will be managed and monitored primarily by USAID, some investments will originate from other USG agencies and by government, donors, or the private sector. The Zambia CAADP Country Investment Plan will provide a framework for the development of a more comprehensive national effort in agriculture and poverty reduction that will be supported through the USG FTF effort. CAADP monitoring is addressed below. The M&E framework for the USG FTF strategy outlined in this section will be inclusive and involve all government agencies investing in FTF areas, particularly in the FTF priority geographic area, Eastern province.
The geographic focus, co-location of investments, and the timing of the initiation of new investments provide the opportunity to establish a solid impact assessment framework as well. USAID/Zambia’s approach to monitoring and evaluation will be comprised of three components: 1) project-level reporting; 2) performance management/monitoring and evaluation; and, 3) external impact assessment to capture the aggregate impact of all investments and the relative contribution of different interventions to the extent feasible.
The FTF strategy will be implemented primarily through two of the USAID/Zambia CDCS Development Objectives (DO) and will meet the requirements of CDCS Development Objectives:
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The FTF Performance Monitoring Plan will include indicators measuring progress towards achieving results at all levels. For each indicator, the data source and methodology, baseline, targets, and a calendar of performance management tasks, including a schedule for data collection, will be included. The selection of indicators to include in the PMP will be driven by ongoing and planned activities, the availability of baseline, and provisions made to ensure availability of data for the reference reporting period.
To monitor performance, the Mission will establish baselines and collect data for standard and customized indicators to track whether desired results are occurring and whether performance is on target. All programs receiving FTF resources will be expected to develop monitoring and evaluation strategies that are consistent with the USG Zambia’s FTF framework.
Initial stakeholder workshops will be held for the purposes of:
Given that FTF has the intention to work with a broader range of partners, including local organizations, it is expected that some partners will have more limited reporting capacity. These organizations will need greater assistance, and it may be necessary to delegate the responsibility for some monitoring and reporting to external entities.
For higher level objectives, tracking performance will be beyond the manageable interest of individual projects. In particular, changes in incomes, nutritional status, and some community-level variables among others will be more appropriately measured across the program areas. The FTF Team is developing a consortium of stakeholders to assess existing data sources, and intends to identify an external entity to coordinate baseline and periodic data collection for specific indicators.
An FTF M&E plan will be finalized by the end of Fiscal Year 2011, outlining all indicators and the reporting responsibilities by all USAID/Zambia’s partners. Key FTF required indicators to be tracked and reported are listed in Annex B. Additional project-specific and other relevant indicators not included in the FTF required indicators will be added. It is important to note that all appropriate indicators will be sex-disaggregated.
EVALUATION
In line with the new evaluation policy, the FTF program intends to conduct a number of performance evaluations and impact evaluations. Evaluations of two programs closing in 2011, PROFIT and C-FAARM, will be useful for the FTF learning agenda. The USG FTF has a unique opportunity with a defined geographic focus and the initiation of new activities to establish an impact assessment framework to assess high level impact, as well as to identify the relative contribution of different intervention, such as value chain upgrading versus household level management skills. USAID/Zambia will work with partners and other agencies to develop an impact assessment methodology that is consistent with and contributes to the project performance monitoring framework, but will also test several development hypotheses.
An initial baseline survey will be conducted in Eastern province to establish current levels of key variables including incomes, nutritional status, household production and asset patterns, and agriculture technology levels. This baseline will draw from the latest survey methodologies, particularly recent work on gender and asset control24. An appropriate sampling framework will be established to assess impact, most likely on a biannual basis. A randomized approach will be considered for a sub-sample to maintain the integrity of the impact assessment; however, flexibility will be needed to consider mid-term correction in order to ensure the greatest impact over the period of the strategy.
In the context of the development challenges and opportunities identified in Zambia and outlined in Section 1.1, several development hypotheses are of interest for the impact assessment. In particular, the relative contribution will be assessed of community-level versus household-level interventions to reducing poverty and undernutrition, as well as the additional value of the co-location of interventions. Another hypothesis of interest to be tested is: By increasing productivity, improving household food security and linking smallholders to markets for agriculture commodities, FTF interventions will reduce the incentives for exploiting the natural resource base.
Performance Evaluation
The FTF program will schedule performance evaluations to focus on descriptive and normative questions including: project or program achievements (either at an intermediate point in execution or at the conclusion of an implementation period); program implementation; program perception and value; and other questions pertinent to program design, management and operational decision-making. These performance evaluations will incorporate before-after comparisons whenever feasible.
Impact Evaluation
The FTF program will conduct impact evaluations to measure the change in development outcomes attributable to FTF interventions. Impact evaluations will be based on cause-effect models and will require a credible and rigorously-defined counterfactual control. Impact evaluations with treatment and control groups help provide the strongest evidence of a relationship between interventions and measured outcomes. One hypothesis to be explored includes identifying increased benefits from combined interventions, particularly income-augmenting and nutrition-related activities. In the nutrition portfolio, the differential effect of geographically co-locating health programs active in nutrition with agriculture programs working on the productivity and diversity side of the nutrition equation can be tested.
LINK TO GOVERNMENT MONITORING SYSTEMS
USAID/Zambia has provided extensive support to the Government of Zambia in monitoring the agricultural sector, and in analyzing government data through the Food Security Research Project (FSRP). This support will continue and can be drawn upon to monitor agricultural trends. In addition, FSRP has expertise in analyzing surveys such as the biannual Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) which tracks poverty levels, and the Supplemental Surveys, which provide quality agricultural data. This expertise can be leveraged for improved performance monitoring by the GRZ, as well as for FTF performance.
The CAADP framework focuses largely on performance in the agricultural sector. For national performance toward other MDGs, particularly those related to nutrition and gender impacts, the FTF team will work with additional partners to identify appropriate data sources and performance monitoring modalities. For example, the Nutrition Cooperating Partners sub-group may be instrumental in the creation of a data monitoring platform according to the SUN Movement principles. However, the Zambia FTF framework will focus its efforts largely on performance for the targeted FTF areas and the contribution of these changes to national levels.
","Feed the future aims to help an estimated 263,000 vulnerable Zambian women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 173,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent s","","","Number of people trained in child health and nutrition through USG-supported programs; Anemia among women of reproductive age (%); Number of health facilities with established capacity to manage acute undernutrition; Prevalence of anemia among children 6-59 months; Number of children under five years of age who received Vitamin A from USG-supported programs; Number of children under five reached by USG-supported nutrition programs.","Number of people trained in child health and nutrition through USG-supported programs; Anemia among women of reproductive age (%); Number of health facilities with established capacity to manage acute undernutrition; Prevalence of anemia among children 6-59 months; Number of children under five years of age who received Vitamin A from USG-supported programs; Number of children under five reached by USG-supported nutrition programs.","Vulnerable groups","","Breastfeeding – exclusive breastfeeding>>>Breastfeeding – exclusive breastfeeding>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/exclusive_breastfeeding","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11597","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","KEN","Kenya","High rainfall region 1|Semi-Arid region 2","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Kenya, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Kenya is making core investments in three key areas:
Target Regions
Feed the Future is targeting high-rainfall areas with dense populations, high poverty and malnourishment, as well as semi-arid areas. Both areas have great potential for raising agricultural productivity. These target areas also encompass the highest concentrations of malnourished children, female-headed households, and rural poor.
Highlights
Science and Technology. U.S. support to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute focuses on research on crops for the semi-arid zone, including improved seeds, pest control, and food safety for maize, sorghum, millet, sweet potato, cowpea, and pigeon pea. Feed the Future also works with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services to increase quality and availability of drought-tolerant crops and varieties.
Engaging Women and Youth. Feed the Future supports activities that empower women and improve the nutritional status of women and children. Women manage an estimated 44 percent of Kenya’s smallholder households and are active at every point in the food chain. Their contribution to commodities, grown mainly in home gardens, is quite significant, providing essential nutrients and often the only food available during the lean seasons or when the main harvest fails. Feed the Future will also engage youth in farming, processing and trading to relieve high levels of youth unemployment. More than 67 percent of the under- and unemployed in Kenya are young women and men of 15 to 30 years of age.
Value Chains. Feed the Future is focusing its efforts on improving several key agricultural value chains: horticulture, dairy and maize for the High Rainfall (HR) areas; and drought-tolerant crops (sorghum/millet and root crop systems), drought-tolerant maize, horticulture, and pulses for Semi-Arid (SA) areas. Attention is focused on every “link” in the value chain—from inputs like fertilizer and seeds, to credit, to production methods, storage, transport, processing, farmers’ cooperatives, and markets in Kenya, East Africa and overseas.
","MAIZE AND DROUGHT-TOLERANT STAPLE CROP VALUE CHAIN
Kenya’s maize sub sector is approaching a critical time when input supply characteristics, land reform, availability of supporting factors of production, and market price dynamics will define the competitiveness of the industry in the mid- to long term. This environment presents an opportune moment for the USG’s current and future investments. At the same time, there has been a dearth of investment in alternative staple crops and, as a result, there is a lack of data. In collaboration with the private sector, FTF will support value chain assessments that deepen and fill gaps in existing knowledge – especially related to these crops in SA2 – to inform the FTFS’ further implementation and private sector investments.
As noted, yields of staple crops in Kenya are low relative to regional averages. Addressing productivity issues in maize and drought-tolerant staples will be a key focus. Promoting improved transfer of technologies will require investment in agricultural research to develop improved technologies. This will be especially important for the neglected drought-tolerant crops. Equally important is the dissemination of knowledge of these technologies, accompanying management practices, the extension services to transfer knowledge on how best to use technologies, and the commercialization and dissemination of technologies to farmers who need them. Consequently interventions will leverage private sector partners in concert with public sector extension services (although limited in certain counties of the two focus areas) to disseminate and commercialize improved technologies through ―smart‖ extension methods, e.g., ICT.
Achieving productivity growth also will require program investments to promote improved access to high-quality inputs that are affordable and provide the knowledge (extension services) on how to use them optimally, including improving input use efficiency through proper soil and water management techniques. Seed and fertilizer companies and agro-dealers will play key roles in setting up demonstration plots and holding ―farmer field days‖ so that farmers can learn about different varieties and practices. Efforts will be made by the Mission to incorporate gender awareness and nutrition- and food preparation-related messaging during those ―field days.‖ The seed and fertilizer companies have also begun to package inputs into smaller quantities, thereby more affordable to poor farmers. The current KMDP is working through its sub-grantees, like Farm Input Promotions (FIPS) – which uses samples of inputs (i.e., seeds, fertilizers, etc.) donated by private companies – for demonstration on farmers’ fields, provides extension information, and sells inputs in small affordable packages, an approach that has been effective in increasing access to inputs and extension services to women.
Market access will be essential to increasing smallholder incomes. The Mission will facilitate a more structured market for staple food crops by: 1) increasing smallholder farmers’ understanding of end-market requirements; 2) facilitating access to training to meet end-market requirements; and 3) improving farmers’ market intelligence and capacity to make informed decisions. Public and private sector investments in storage and centralized market infrastructure will improve the benefits smallholders gain from market engagement and lead to increases in rural household incomes.
Regarding sorghum, market outlets seek varieties with high milling and brewing qualities, and subsistence farmers require high-yielding varieties with specific taste, color and cooking characteristics. The segmentation of these varieties and products to meet the specific market demands has not been done and, as a result, farmers’ marketing strategies are ―hit or miss.‖ Hence, the program will segment the market niches and match the niches to sorghum varieties and products. This approach will highlight the opportunities for farmer organizations to deliver to the segmented market outlets through the segmented sorghum varieties and products.
Fostering investments by the private sector as well as access to rural finance will be essential to the sustainability and scalability of productivity improvements. Kenya has a vibrant private sector hungry for profitable opportunities. To both meet the development challenges and make a profit, USAID/K will use its new Innovation Engine (see below) to buy down the risks for private sector investments in innovative areas. To improve access to rural finance, the Mission’s program, along with USAID/EA's FTFS program-related activities, will:
By tapping into the networks of EAGC, the activities will help build regional linkages for traders. In addition, access to rural finance will be further improved through USAID's recently commenced Financial Inclusion for Rural Microenterprises (FIRM) project which – in collaboration with the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) – will improve productivity and growth of agricultural value chains through expanded financial services to underserved groups, geographic locations and new product areas. FIRM will facilitate opportunities for agribusiness development and overall market efficiencies through a package of financial services to vulnerable groups, including young and female smallholder farmers in rural and agricultural sectors.
Value chain development in HR1 and SA2 will require the aggregation of farmers in order to facilitate access to markets, services, financing and technology transfer. Previously, the KMDP contributed to the development of farmer associations, including women associations, in the Western Province and Rift Valley and will continue to do so in the targeted FTFS counties of those provinces. Consequently, the FTFS program will strengthen farmer groups, associations and cooperatives where they can effectively benefit their members.
A key outcome of KMDP from 2002-2010 was to foster a more responsive policy environment for the maize sub-sector. Despite KMDP's involvement in a relatively successful decade of reform, the maize sector and, to a large extent, other staple crops are still characterized by highly guarded value chain positions and often distorted policy. Consequently, the FTFS program will be a strong advocate of a market-driven approach at the national level, providing a key voice to discussions regarding GOK agricultural policies and simultaneously strengthening value chain players to advocate for better policies. The planned continuation of USAID support to the Tegemeo Institute, for example, will play a key role in advocacy based upon empirical evidence to further bolster the GOK policy dialogue.
Finally, promoting NRM and adaptation to climate change will be needed to support the sustainability of impacts under FTF. This will involve the inclusion of sustainable intensification practices (―climate smart‖ practices) in staple crop production including: 1) soil management techniques, such as conservation agriculture and integrated soil fertility management; 2) the inclusion of fertilizer and fodder trees into annual crop production systems (―evergreen agriculture‖); 3) water efficiency measures, such as rainwater capture and storage; and 4) integrated pest management. The ―climate smart‖ practices will be used in combination with drought-tolerant varieties of seeds and inputs to increase productivity, fertilizer use efficiency and climate resilience. While access to and sustainable management of natural resources will be a central theme regardless of income group or geographic area, it is particularly key to addressing the vulnerability of the poorest and most food insecure.
","The Mission is currently reviewing options for reinforcing its existing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework by establishing a comprehensive knowledge management system that builds links to ongoing initiatives aimed at strengthening U.S. Government, national and regional agriculture sector-wide M&E and knowledge management.
USAID/K will link to the GOK-led and CAADP-mandated ―National Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation System‖ which will serve as a mutually agreed framework for performance monitoring towards the goal of increasing food security. The Mission also will link its knowledge management system to the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), an information and knowledge management initiative, to promote and support effective and sustainable agricultural and rural development strategies across Africa. Through ReSAKSS, the Mission will collaborate with the USAID/EA and other Missions in Africa in tracking intra-regional trade data. The Mission will also use ReSAKSS to provide meta-analyses contributing to synthesized studies suitable for shared learning by numerous stakeholders.
The Mission will utilize the following tools in establishing and maintaining its M&E efforts: The Mission’s FTFS Results Framework which is the conceptual and analytical structure that establishes the goals and objectives of the FTF Initiative in Kenya; A performance monitoring/management plan (PMP) comprised of standard and custom FTF performance indicators to track progress toward desired results. Data systems will be developed and refined based on findings of a Mission-wide data quality assessment (DQA) carried out in March/April 2011; Tegemeo Institute poverty analyses in conjunction with Africa Bureau/Sustainable Development Office (AFR/SD); The Mission will undertake local capacity-building investments to improve the quality and frequency of data collection and use; Biannual independent indicator surveys by Tegemeo Institute to gauge progress made towards achieving results and a feedback loop to improve performance; Mid-term and impact evaluations will be carried out to determine the measureable effects of the FTFS investments; and The Mission will engage in regular knowledge-sharing activities with FTFS development partners and implementers to foster learning and use of M&E findings.
","Estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality.",".","","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Vulnerable groups","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","Financial resources","Business service provider interventions▪Grow market linkages (domestic and regional)▪Facilitate market development including structured trade and transparent transactions▪Link to input suppliers to expand services▪Provide value chain financing","Supplies","Input supplier interventions▪Expand inventory, crop and dairy services, & reach▪Link to business service providers▪Pilot aggregation (e.g., for WFP P4P program)▪Capacity building for business and financial mgmt.▪New business models","Infrastructure","Processor/buyer interventionsProposed Future USG Engagement▪Capacity building in business and finance▪Development of innovative business models▪Development of premium product schemes▪Link to input suppliers, business service providers, and producer organizations","Stakeholder","Producer organization interventions▪Continue capacity building in business, finance, contracts, grades/standards, productivity▪Link to input suppliers, business service providers, processors","","","","","","","","","","","","","","To capture lesons learnt
Combined Evaluation
Impact study
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Kenya, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Kenya is making core investments in three key areas:
Target Regions
Feed the Future is targeting high-rainfall areas with dense populations, high poverty and malnourishment, as well as semi-arid areas. Both areas have great potential for raising agricultural productivity. These target areas also encompass the highest concentrations of malnourished children, female-headed households, and rural poor.
Highlights
Science and Technology. U.S. support to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute focuses on research on crops for the semi-arid zone, including improved seeds, pest control, and food safety for maize, sorghum, millet, sweet potato, cowpea, and pigeon pea. Feed the Future also works with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services to increase quality and availability of drought-tolerant crops and varieties.
Engaging Women and Youth. Feed the Future supports activities that empower women and improve the nutritional status of women and children. Women manage an estimated 44 percent of Kenya’s smallholder households and are active at every point in the food chain. Their contribution to commodities, grown mainly in home gardens, is quite significant, providing essential nutrients and often the only food available during the lean seasons or when the main harvest fails. Feed the Future will also engage youth in farming, processing and trading to relieve high levels of youth unemployment. More than 67 percent of the under- and unemployed in Kenya are young women and men of 15 to 30 years of age.
Value Chains. Feed the Future is focusing its efforts on improving several key agricultural value chains: horticulture, dairy and maize for the High Rainfall (HR) areas; and drought-tolerant crops (sorghum/millet and root crop systems), drought-tolerant maize, horticulture, and pulses for Semi-Arid (SA) areas. Attention is focused on every “link” in the value chain—from inputs like fertilizer and seeds, to credit, to production methods, storage, transport, processing, farmers’ cooperatives, and markets in Kenya, East Africa and overseas.
"," DAIRY VALUE CHAIN
The FTFS will build on the Kenya Dairy Sector Competitiveness Program (KDSCP), currently running through April 2013, which aims to improve Kenya’s dairy industry competitiveness, and increase the economic benefits to stakeholders in the entire dairy value chain. However, the KDSCP is only operating in the Central, Rift Valley and a small section of Western Provinces due to high density of dairy cattle and favorable agro-ecological conditions necessary for dairy production.
To improve productivity, KDSCP works with male and female dairy farmers to facilitate their transition from loosely organized groups into sustainable business associations able to either access or provide expanded and diversified services to their members. The KDSCP’s BDS approach facilitates service provision to all actors along the value chain, using a wide range of change agents to train farmers on productivity-enhancing technologies to increase production per cow and reduce costs of production. Fodder preservation is the key to smoothing milk flows over the entire year, and new fodder varieties developed by Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) can improve nutrition and decrease feed costs while increasing milk production. An emerging technology developed by International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) to control crops pests has spillover benefits for dairy. Planting of desmodium and napier grass at specific locations in crop fields controls cereal pests; these crops are also excellent fodder for dairy. Interestingly, it appears that women are more likely than men and youth to adopt many of these feed technologies.
Renewed efforts will be required to bring down the cost of high quality semen, so that smallholders can afford to use AI and improve the genetic potential of their animals. Efficiency of AI can be increased by improving farmers’ ability to recognize correct breeding times and improved skills of inseminators.
Milk cooling centers – a key change agent – provide an excellent platform for producers to access goods and services. The centers enable producers to bulk and chill milk as well as consolidate their needs for services and goods, thereby making it more efficient for the private sector to engage with smallholders. Processors are also key change agents whereby, through a ―check off system,‖ farmers are supplied with feed and AI and vet services, and pay for those services by having the processor deduct costs from each producer’s milk sales. Many banks that lend to dairy farmers require that they have contracts with these processors in order to guarantee their loans.
KDSCP currently focuses much of its activities on dairy quality standards, and assisting farmers, traders and processors to adopt practices that will improve the quality of milk. It works through private and public sector service providers to train smallholder dairy farmers on milk testing techniques, disease prevention and testing with modern technologies. Business Development Service (BDS) providers also facilitate farmer associations to negotiate long-term supply contracts with processors, and to receive premiums for chilled milk. More work is required, however, towards establishing premiums for other important attributes, such as butterfat content. Market information is now more widely accessible to producers through working groups that act to better coordinate the local dairy sector.
It will be important to increase the capacity of cooling centers to implement quality control frameworks, such as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), and provide assistance to acquire International Standards Organization (ISO) or equivalent quality certification. Achieving these levels of quality will be essential for Kenyan milk to enter COMESA and other international markets. Support to the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) and the East and Southern African Dairy Association – important partners in moving Kenya towards meeting regional standards for dairy products – will also help expand Kenya’s reach into COMESA markets.
With increased organization of producers into business associations, producers will be able to increase their investments in herds through upgrading breed quality and investing in feed and animal health technologies. Service providers will have expanded demand for their goods and services (e.g., silage making equipment and forage choppers) and some, such as processors, will have an incentive to invest in expanded facilities. Some examples of investment include Nestlé’s investment in upgrading a milk powder plant at the Kenya Creameries Cooperative (KCC), while the Brookside Dairy has set up a new powder plant. Farmer-owned chilling plants have invested in trucks to transport milk to processors, and two Kenyan insurance agencies are offering insurance products to farmers.
As banks become more knowledgeable about the risks and opportunities in the dairy sector, they are increasingly lending to the sector. Several banks have come forward to finance dairy investments by using guarantee mechanisms to decrease their risk. Access to rural finance will be further improved through USAID’s FIRM Project which, in collaboration with DFID, has established a Value Chain Finance Center to promote financial access through the rural areas for firms all along the value chain.
The FIRM Project (currently running through CY 2013) has conducted a dairy value chain finance analysis that identified profitability at key parts of the value chain. Banks will increase lending in those areas of the value chain that have the most banking potential, thereby increasing investment in the sector. It will be important to identify the less bankable parts of the value chain, such as the dairy feed sector, and concentrate support to improve bankability in those parts to further develop the dairy industry.
The dairy sector also has great potential to contribute to improved NRM practices, so current and future implementers will incorporate best management practices for improved grazing, pasture management, and ―cut and carry‖ techniques to enhance productivity and ecosystem function. This will include encouraging farmers to grow fodder varieties that are complementary to annual crop production, e.g., varieties that are nitrogen fixing or important for biological control of crop pests. Such practices can have co-benefits to staple crop production since inter-cropping certain fodder varieties with annual crops (―evergreen agriculture‖) can increase crop productivity. Manure and run-off from dairy can become environmental and health hazards, but properly managed manure can contribute greatly to improved soil fertility and soil quality, including the retention of water and important soil nutrients. Use of manure is a critical component of integrated soil fertility management and thus, for dairy farmers who also cultivate crops, this is another important co-benefit. Additionally, the generation of biogas will become increasingly important as a source of energy for households as electricity and kerosene become more expensive. Consequently, the nexus between dairy farming and agriculture and ―clean energy‖ will be another area of opportunity to be addressed during the course of the Strategy’s implementation.
These interventions will be particularly important as one aspect of adapting to climate change, and producers will need training in these technologies and practices.
More dairy products available at lower costs encourage increased consumption of this nutrition rich product among lower-income groups. KDSCP works in the informal milk chain where women, the youth and very-poor dominate. Gender sensitive programming and improving quality standards naturally fits with increasing nutritional opportunities in the informal milk chain because mothers often are responsible for child rearing. Not only availing more dairy products and improving milk quality, but increasing messaging about the nutritional benefits of dairy products will encourage consumption of this nutritionally packed food product. Also, improving the informal milk chain will enhance economic benefits for women who dominate informal milk trade and rural youth engaged in off-farm milk transport services.
New support to and capacity building of various GOK and stakeholder organizations will be important to identify issues constraining Kenya’s dairy sector competitiveness. The ongoing KDSCP, however, is building capacity of the Dairy Task Force, with a focus on policy advocacy. The rejuvenated Task Force is currently leading the implementation of policy changes and action plans that are critical to the dairy sector. Assessments of key issues have provided the necessary analyses to inform stakeholders and GOK decision makers. The Task Force is increasing the interaction among value chain actors, the GOK and development partners, and has seen increased efficiencies in the sector, both for donor projects as well as private sector investments. The Dairy Master Plan – which was initially shelved due to inadequate collaboration – is now back on track.
","The Mission is currently reviewing options for reinforcing its existing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework by establishing a comprehensive knowledge management system that builds links to ongoing initiatives aimed at strengthening U.S. Government, national and regional agriculture sector-wide M&E and knowledge management.
USAID/K will link to the GOK-led and CAADP-mandated ―National Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation System‖ which will serve as a mutually agreed framework for performance monitoring towards the goal of increasing food security. The Mission also will link its knowledge management system to the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), an information and knowledge management initiative, to promote and support effective and sustainable agricultural and rural development strategies across Africa. Through ReSAKSS, the Mission will collaborate with the USAID/EA and other Missions in Africa in tracking intra-regional trade data. The Mission will also use ReSAKSS to provide meta-analyses contributing to synthesized studies suitable for shared learning by numerous stakeholders.
The Mission will utilize the following tools in establishing and maintaining its M&E efforts: The Mission’s FTFS Results Framework which is the conceptual and analytical structure that establishes the goals and objectives of the FTF Initiative in Kenya; A performance monitoring/management plan (PMP) comprised of standard and custom FTF performance indicators to track progress toward desired results. Data systems will be developed and refined based on findings of a Mission-wide data quality assessment (DQA) carried out in March/April 2011; Tegemeo Institute poverty analyses in conjunction with Africa Bureau/Sustainable Development Office (AFR/SD); The Mission will undertake local capacity-building investments to improve the quality and frequency of data collection and use; Biannual independent indicator surveys by Tegemeo Institute to gauge progress made towards achieving results and a feedback loop to improve performance; Mid-term and impact evaluations will be carried out to determine the measureable effects of the FTFS investments; and The Mission will engage in regular knowledge-sharing activities with FTFS development partners and implementers to foster learning and use of M&E findings.
","Estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality.",".","","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Socio-economic status","","","Supplies","","Financial resources","","Infrastructure","","Stakeholder","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","To capture lessons learned
Combined Evaluation
Impact study
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Kenya, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Kenya is making core investments in three key areas:
Target Regions
Feed the Future is targeting high-rainfall areas with dense populations, high poverty and malnourishment, as well as semi-arid areas. Both areas have great potential for raising agricultural productivity. These target areas also encompass the highest concentrations of malnourished children, female-headed households, and rural poor.
Highlights
Science and Technology. U.S. support to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute focuses on research on crops for the semi-arid zone, including improved seeds, pest control, and food safety for maize, sorghum, millet, sweet potato, cowpea, and pigeon pea. Feed the Future also works with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services to increase quality and availability of drought-tolerant crops and varieties.
Engaging Women and Youth. Feed the Future supports activities that empower women and improve the nutritional status of women and children. Women manage an estimated 44 percent of Kenya’s smallholder households and are active at every point in the food chain. Their contribution to commodities, grown mainly in home gardens, is quite significant, providing essential nutrients and often the only food available during the lean seasons or when the main harvest fails. Feed the Future will also engage youth in farming, processing and trading to relieve high levels of youth unemployment. More than 67 percent of the under- and unemployed in Kenya are young women and men of 15 to 30 years of age.
Value Chains. Feed the Future is focusing its efforts on improving several key agricultural value chains: horticulture, dairy and maize for the High Rainfall (HR) areas; and drought-tolerant crops (sorghum/millet and root crop systems), drought-tolerant maize, horticulture, and pulses for Semi-Arid (SA) areas. Attention is focused on every “link” in the value chain—from inputs like fertilizer and seeds, to credit, to production methods, storage, transport, processing, farmers’ cooperatives, and markets in Kenya, East Africa and overseas.
","HORTICULTURE VALUE CHAIN
Horticulture has a distinct link to decreasing under-nutrition. Promoting production and marketing of high-nutrition horticultural crops and increasing messaging about the nutritional benefits associated with highly nutritious horticultural products will encourage increased consumption of these foods. For example, kitchen and community gardens provide excellent sources of nutrition for those who have limited access to land and/or resources. These gardens are also often managed by women. Decision-making over products from ―kitchen gardens‖ is often relegated to women for household consumption. Also, women earn direct income from marketing of surpluses from kitchen gardens.
KHCP is currently working in seven zones, including the HR1 and SA2 regions. Consequently, during the course of the FTFS implementation but in a deliberate timed fashion, the KHCP will evolve its program of activities to focus on the HR1 and SA2 regions.
Currently, KHCP expects to have the following impacts by February 2015, but these will be revised in accordance with the smooth transition to the new focus areas:
The Mission is currently reviewing options for reinforcing its existing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework by establishing a comprehensive knowledge management system that builds links to ongoing initiatives aimed at strengthening U.S. Government, national and regional agriculture sector-wide M&E and knowledge management.
USAID/K will link to the GOK-led and CAADP-mandated ―National Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation System‖ which will serve as a mutually agreed framework for performance monitoring towards the goal of increasing food security. The Mission also will link its knowledge management system to the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), an information and knowledge management initiative, to promote and support effective and sustainable agricultural and rural development strategies across Africa. Through ReSAKSS, the Mission will collaborate with the USAID/EA and other Missions in Africa in tracking intra-regional trade data. The Mission will also use ReSAKSS to provide meta-analyses contributing to synthesized studies suitable for shared learning by numerous stakeholders.
The Mission will utilize the following tools in establishing and maintaining its M&E efforts: The Mission’s FTFS Results Framework which is the conceptual and analytical structure that establishes the goals and objectives of the FTF Initiative in Kenya; A performance monitoring/management plan (PMP) comprised of standard and custom FTF performance indicators to track progress toward desired results. Data systems will be developed and refined based on findings of a Mission-wide data quality assessment (DQA) carried out in March/April 2011; Tegemeo Institute poverty analyses in conjunction with Africa Bureau/Sustainable Development Office (AFR/SD); The Mission will undertake local capacity-building investments to improve the quality and frequency of data collection and use; Biannual independent indicator surveys by Tegemeo Institute to gauge progress made towards achieving results and a feedback loop to improve performance; Mid-term and impact evaluations will be carried out to determine the measureable effects of the FTFS investments; and The Mission will engage in regular knowledge-sharing activities with FTFS development partners and implementers to foster learning and use of M&E findings.
","Estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. ",".","","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Sex","","","Supplies","","Financial resources","","Stakeholder","","Infrastructure","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","To capture lessons learnt
Combined Evaluation
Impact study
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Kenya, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Kenya is making core investments in three key areas:
Target Regions
Feed the Future is targeting high-rainfall areas with dense populations, high poverty and malnourishment, as well as semi-arid areas. Both areas have great potential for raising agricultural productivity. These target areas also encompass the highest concentrations of malnourished children, female-headed households, and rural poor.
Highlights
Science and Technology. U.S. support to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute focuses on research on crops for the semi-arid zone, including improved seeds, pest control, and food safety for maize, sorghum, millet, sweet potato, cowpea, and pigeon pea. Feed the Future also works with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services to increase quality and availability of drought-tolerant crops and varieties.
Engaging Women and Youth. Feed the Future supports activities that empower women and improve the nutritional status of women and children. Women manage an estimated 44 percent of Kenya’s smallholder households and are active at every point in the food chain. Their contribution to commodities, grown mainly in home gardens, is quite significant, providing essential nutrients and often the only food available during the lean seasons or when the main harvest fails. Feed the Future will also engage youth in farming, processing and trading to relieve high levels of youth unemployment. More than 67 percent of the under- and unemployed in Kenya are young women and men of 15 to 30 years of age.
Value Chains. Feed the Future is focusing its efforts on improving several key agricultural value chains: horticulture, dairy and maize for the High Rainfall (HR) areas; and drought-tolerant crops (sorghum/millet and root crop systems), drought-tolerant maize, horticulture, and pulses for Semi-Arid (SA) areas. Attention is focused on every “link” in the value chain—from inputs like fertilizer and seeds, to credit, to production methods, storage, transport, processing, farmers’ cooperatives, and markets in Kenya, East Africa and overseas.
","Women will form a core target group in the s FTFS because of their critical role in food production and nutrition in Kenya. It is estimated that nearly half or 44 percent of Kenya’s smallholder households are managed by women. This is largely attributed to rapid rural to urban migration by men in search of employment. Women are active at every point in the food chain and are often responsible for protecting the safety and wholesomeness of food in their households. Their contribution to food commodities such as pulses, potatoes, legumes, sorghum, fruits and vegetables is quite significant. Grown mainly in home gardens, they provide essential nutrients and are often the only food available during the lean seasons or when the main harvest fails.
In the dairy sector, women and the ultra-poor predominate in the informal milk chain. A gender value chain assessment completed by USAID in High Rainfall Zone 1 found that while the ―morning‖ milk is sold to processors, the ―evening‖ milk is often left for family consumption under the control of women in the majority of male-headed households. Most surpluses after consumption are sold in the informal chain, generating income directly for women in these households.
By FY10, female-headed households comprised 49 percent of households that benefited from USAID/K assistance. Strategies that contributed to increased women’s participation included decentralized extension approaches that are tailored to suit women’s time schedules, promotion of ―gender-balanced‖ crops and leadership training for women, and use of embedded business development service (BDS). The horticulture program recorded the highest number of women beneficiaries by supporting nutritious crops – including leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes, beans and butternut squash – where women predominate in production and marketing, and where they have greater control over revenues. Horticulture marketing contracts between women’s groups and buyers were established, allowing women to receive their payments directly.
The Kenyan FTFS will support activities that economically empower women and improve the nutritional status of women and children. Building on USAID/K’s past successes in gender and value chains, the FTFS will: Increase women’s gains by expanding support to nutritious horticultural and staple food crops; Promote private sector response by which small improvements to the informal milk chain, where women and the poor and ultra-poor predominate, could lead to healthier and more affordable options; Through the FTF Innovation Engine, seek innovations that promote local-level processing of fortified foods, such as through ―posho mills,‖ that are easily accessible and affordable to rural women; Catalyze social innovation approaches that reduce gender inequalities in agricultural production and benefits from production – such as innovations in agricultural labor saving technologies and practices to reduce women’s labor burden, linking women to extension and markets and promoting farming as a family business; Undertake gender-value chain assessments for each of the targeted sub-sectors in FTF geographical areas to guide implementation; and Scale-up training on integration of gender in value chains to all FTFS partners.
","The Mission is currently reviewing options for reinforcing its existing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework by establishing a comprehensive knowledge management system that builds links to ongoing initiatives aimed at strengthening U.S. Government, national and regional agriculture sector-wide M&E and knowledge management.
USAID/K will link to the GOK-led and CAADP-mandated ―National Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation System‖ which will serve as a mutually agreed framework for performance monitoring towards the goal of increasing food security. The Mission also will link its knowledge management system to the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), an information and knowledge management initiative, to promote and support effective and sustainable agricultural and rural development strategies across Africa. Through ReSAKSS, the Mission will collaborate with the USAID/EA and other Missions in Africa in tracking intra-regional trade data. The Mission will also use ReSAKSS to provide meta-analyses contributing to synthesized studies suitable for shared learning by numerous stakeholders.
The Mission will utilize the following tools in establishing and maintaining its M&E efforts: The Mission’s FTFS Results Framework which is the conceptual and analytical structure that establishes the goals and objectives of the FTF Initiative in Kenya; A performance monitoring/management plan (PMP) comprised of standard and custom FTF performance indicators to track progress toward desired results. Data systems will be developed and refined based on findings of a Mission-wide data quality assessment (DQA) carried out in March/April 2011; Tegemeo Institute poverty analyses in conjunction with Africa Bureau/Sustainable Development Office (AFR/SD); The Mission will undertake local capacity-building investments to improve the quality and frequency of data collection and use; Biannual independent indicator surveys by Tegemeo Institute to gauge progress made towards achieving results and a feedback loop to improve performance; Mid-term and impact evaluations will be carried out to determine the measureable effects of the FTFS investments; and The Mission will engage in regular knowledge-sharing activities with FTFS development partners and implementers to foster learning and use of M&E findings.
","Estimated 502,000 vulnerable Kenyan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 230,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality.",".","","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Number of new technologies or management practices made available for transfer as a result of USG assistance; Number of rural households benefiting directly from USG interventions; Number of producers organizations, water users associations, trade and business associations, and community-based organizations (CBOs) receiving USG assistance; Percentage of children < 5 years who are underweight","Sex","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","To capture lessons learnt
Combined Evaluation
Impact study
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Malawi, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
","The USG will make investments in nutrition across three critical sectors; agriculture, health, and social protection, with nutrition as the lynchpin between these sectors. As such, the USG will implement a comprehensive approach that maximizes all three sectors and strengthens and links the nutrition components of each. These investments will be underpinned by a core set of nutrition indicators that are common across all programs, and will be supported by policy investments that mirror the comprehensive nature of nutrition programming by working with the Office of the President’s Cabinet (OPC) and the Ministries of Agriculture and Food Security, Health, and Gender.
Building on lessons and experiences from current programs implementing preventive nutrition activities (e.g., the WALA and BASICS projects), USG resources will scale up prevention of undernutrition and resiliency of communities, while maintaining critical investments in treatment and nutrition service delivery. The rationale for this shift is due to the overall high prevalence of chronic undernutrition (47 percent) and the low prevalence of acute undernutrition (4 percent), the latter of which has been achieved by sustained commitment to scaling up CMAM. As a result, the USG will aim to drive a decrease in stunting as the highest level objective in FTF. The USG plans to focus on cost-effective preventive nutrition interventions targeting the 1,000 days window of development (pregnancy through two years), including maternal nutrition; early and exclusive breastfeeding through six months; use of appropriate, diverse foods beginning at six months of age; targeted micronutrient supplementation; and improved hygiene and sanitation. Activities will be integrated into health, HIV, and agriculture platforms, taking full advantage of the resources that these programs have. These investments leverage funding from health (Global Health and Child Survival), agriculture (Development Assistance), and Title II to advance nutrition objectives. The Care Group model encompasses a combined FTF and GHI approach to reduce poverty, hunger, and undernutrition by joining two complementary lines of investment at an operational level:
The objectives of the Care Groups complement value chain development activities by building capacity of:
Community-Level Organizations and Integration with Government of Malawi Systems for Health and Agricultural Extension
The Care Group in the context of this model is notable in that it supports a sustainable and simultaneous approach to agriculture, nutrition, and microfinance. Cross-fertilization of nutrition and agricultural messaging and skill building, as well as the opportunity to create cross-sector targets and results frameworks allows for a uniquely comprehensive approach.
Volunteers are trained and facilitated to conduct community outreach and follow-up in both agricultural- and health-focused nutrition interventions, thus supporting an operational link between nutrition and agriculture programming. Each volunteer takes on responsibility for conducting outreach and follow-up to some 10-12 nearby households. Care Group volunteers also have access to agricultural inputs to start and maintain community gardens, as well as engage in income-diversification through activities such as establishing voluntary savings and loan activities. Access to these inputs provides motivation and support for implementing targeted nutrition-focused interventions focused on behavior change, including:
Linking the agriculture and value chain components of the project with health and nutrition promotion at the community level is especially advantageous in that it provides opportunities to address two key crosscutting areas:
Prevention Linked with Health Service Delivery
The USG’s approach to service delivery covers community level action, improvement of quality at all levels of facilities, and strengthening the central and district level systems of management. This provides a common platform for multi-thematic messages and programs, ensuring that there are ―no missed opportunities‖. It also ensures a focused yet comprehensive basic package accessible to the Malawian population that stretches across the continuum of care from community to facility and from facility to community. At the community level, the Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) and health volunteers will continue to focus on interpersonal counseling, limited preventive and curative care through village clinics and drug boxes, and to create demand for services at the health facilities across family planning, maternal and neonatal health, child health, nutrition, malaria and HIV areas. At the facility level, the USG will support improved quality of care for existing interventions that target integrated and comprehensive primary health care provision and performance based incentives. At the national, zonal and district levels, USG programs will continue to strengthen the financial, management and leadership capabilities of the Ministry of Health staff. Also, programs will work closely with the technical staff to provide technical assistance and work toward meaningful policy changes. At all levels, USG resources will focus on integration of social and behavior change communication efforts through community and facility level entry points.
An important element of the multi-year FTF Strategy is monitoring and evaluation, which is an iterative learning process that will put into place the principle of a sustained and accountable delivery approach. Program activities must be monitored through periodic field visits by Mission staff and ongoing monitoring and learning by implementing partners. Mission staff has a key role to play in monitoring and learning from partners both through oversight and input to design of project level M&E plans and systems and also through follow-up on quarterly reports and other communication with partners.
The integration of agricultural, nutrition, and health elements into a joint strategic plan provides a unique opportunity to innovate, document, and demonstrate best practices associated with a concurrent multi-sector investment model. Also, the Malawi FTF Strategy will foster linkages among existing programs, which will harmonize key agriculture and nutrition and indicators across relevant areas of focus.
Building on this collaboration, both the Health and Sustainable Economic Growth (SEG) teams at USAID/Malawi will work together to integrate M&E systems and processes in order to track synergies and multiplier effects between the two sectors not captured through the agriculture/nutrition overlap. There is currently significant USG investment on the part of USAID through PEPFAR and GHI in health systems strengthening, family planning, and malaria and tuberculosis reduction among others in the geographic areas targeted through FTF. We believe it is critical to capture at the highest level the combined impact of FTF and GHI/PEPFAR in order to reduce duplication, increase the applicability of data across interventions and most importantly, learn across programs in order to improve and increase efficiency and impact of all USAID investments in Malawi. This integration of M&E function may take the form of harmonized M&E plans at the implementer level combined with joint monitoring visits by SEG and Health team members.
Reliable and well-defined monitoring, reporting and evaluation methods, roles and communication channels result in improved project and program management, promote ongoing learning and testing of development hypotheses and ensure accountability. A fully functioning M&E team and system further help to illustrate the Mission’s value added to overall development not only to key stakeholders in the USG, but also to the GoM and other development partners.
USAID/Malawi is currently refining Mission processes in line with the requirements and recommendations of the newly announced USAID Evaluation Policy. To that end, and in preparation for the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), SEG will identify further impact evaluation questions and set aside funds for impact evaluation in 2011. This will serve as solid preparation for FTF-focused evaluation activities in subsequent years.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","Central and southern regions","","Prevalence of stunted children under five years of age; Prevalence of wasted children under five years of age; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger","Prevalence of stunted children under five years of age; Prevalence of wasted children under five years of age; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger","Vulnerable groups","","Breastfeeding – exclusive breastfeeding>>>Breastfeeding – exclusive breastfeeding>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/exclusive_breastfeeding","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11605","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","MWI","Malawi","Dedza|Mchinji|Lilongwe|Ntcheu|Mangochi|Balaka|Machinga","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Malawi, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
","Although the main focus will be on preventing childhood undernutrition, USAID/Malawi will continue to support CMAM, building on past investments. Since 2005, USAID has supported the integration of CMAM in existing health care services. Partners are working at both the policy and community levels to ensure this integration. As of December 2009, 24 out of 28 districts are implementing CMAM in over 240 health facilities. The USG will support one additional year of the MoH’s CMAM Advisory Service to finalize the transition of complete CMAM scale-up to the GoM. An evaluation in 2012 will help inform the USG on the areas needing further investment.
Through two GDAs with Project Peanut Butter, a local producer of ready-to use therapeutic food (RUTF), USAID/Malawi’s support has resulted in an annual production capacity of over 1,200 MT of RUTF, which, when combined with production from a second local producer of RUTF, more than meets the total requirements of RUTF for Malawi, with capacity to export to neighboring countries. The USG will take advantage of this existing capacity to explore the development and promotion of ready to use supplementary and complementary foods.
","An important element of the multi-year FTF Strategy is monitoring and evaluation, which is an iterative learning process that will put into place the principle of a sustained and accountable delivery approach. Program activities must be monitored through periodic field visits by Mission staff and ongoing monitoring and learning by implementing partners. Mission staff has a key role to play in monitoring and learning from partners both through oversight and input to design of project level M&E plans and systems and also through follow-up on quarterly reports and other communication with partners.
The integration of agricultural, nutrition, and health elements into a joint strategic plan provides a unique opportunity to innovate, document, and demonstrate best practices associated with a concurrent multi-sector investment model. Also, the Malawi FTF Strategy will foster linkages among existing programs, which will harmonize key agriculture and nutrition and indicators across relevant areas of focus.
Building on this collaboration, both the Health and Sustainable Economic Growth (SEG) teams at USAID/Malawi will work together to integrate M&E systems and processes in order to track synergies and multiplier effects between the two sectors not captured through the agriculture/nutrition overlap. There is currently significant USG investment on the part of USAID through PEPFAR and GHI in health systems strengthening, family planning, and malaria and tuberculosis reduction among others in the geographic areas targeted through FTF. We believe it is critical to capture at the highest level the combined impact of FTF and GHI/PEPFAR in order to reduce duplication, increase the applicability of data across interventions and most importantly, learn across programs in order to improve and increase efficiency and impact of all USAID investments in Malawi. This integration of M&E function may take the form of harmonized M&E plans at the implementer level combined with joint monitoring visits by SEG and Health team members.
Reliable and well-defined monitoring, reporting and evaluation methods, roles and communication channels result in improved project and program management, promote ongoing learning and testing of development hypotheses and ensure accountability. A fully functioning M&E team and system further help to illustrate the Mission’s value added to overall development not only to key stakeholders in the USG, but also to the GoM and other development partners.
USAID/Malawi is currently refining Mission processes in line with the requirements and recommendations of the newly announced USAID Evaluation Policy. To that end, and in preparation for the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), SEG will identify further impact evaluation questions and set aside funds for impact evaluation in 2011. This will serve as solid preparation for FTF-focused evaluation activities in subsequent years.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","Central and southern regions","","Prevalence of stunted children under five years of age; Prevalence of wasted children under five years of age; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger","Prevalence of stunted children under five years of age; Prevalence of wasted children under five years of age; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger","Vulnerable groups","","eLENA titles related to prevention or treatment of moderate acute malnutrition in children>>>Supplementary feeding in community settings for promoting child growth>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/child_growth|Food supplementation in children with moderate acute malnutrition>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/food_children_mam","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11605","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","MWI","Malawi","Dedza|Mchinji|Lilongwe|Ntcheu|Mangochi|Balaka|Machinga","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Malawi, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
","The USG will support GoM's efforts towards fortification of prioritized centrally processed foods, namely: sugar, oil, wheat and maize flour, and complementary baby foods. Data from the National Micronutrient Survey shows that the consumption of these foods has increased over the last ten years. USAID health funding will continue to support the universal salt iodization program in order to sustain the gains made with previous investments. Although not sufficient to forestall stunting in children under five, one necessary input is a high quality, low-cost complementary food. The legume and dairy value chains present a unique opportunity for the development of such a product. Malawi will take advantage and work with existing food processors (e.g., Rab processors, Project Peanut Butter and Valid Nutrition) to develop a suitable product.
Prevention and control of micronutrient malnutrition will require a concerted effort by all USAID/Malawi’s health programs, namely, malaria, family planning, maternal, neonatal and child health, HIV/AIDS and nutrition. Possible USG support to SUN for specific activities with deliverables in FY11 include the following:
An important element of the multi-year FTF Strategy is monitoring and evaluation, which is an iterative learning process that will put into place the principle of a sustained and accountable delivery approach. Program activities must be monitored through periodic field visits by Mission staff and ongoing monitoring and learning by implementing partners. Mission staff has a key role to play in monitoring and learning from partners both through oversight and input to design of project level M&E plans and systems and also through follow-up on quarterly reports and other communication with partners.
The integration of agricultural, nutrition, and health elements into a joint strategic plan provides a unique opportunity to innovate, document, and demonstrate best practices associated with a concurrent multi-sector investment model. Also, the Malawi FTF Strategy will foster linkages among existing programs, which will harmonize key agriculture and nutrition and indicators across relevant areas of focus.
Building on this collaboration, both the Health and Sustainable Economic Growth (SEG) teams at USAID/Malawi will work together to integrate M&E systems and processes in order to track synergies and multiplier effects between the two sectors not captured through the agriculture/nutrition overlap. There is currently significant USG investment on the part of USAID through PEPFAR and GHI in health systems strengthening, family planning, and malaria and tuberculosis reduction among others in the geographic areas targeted through FTF. We believe it is critical to capture at the highest level the combined impact of FTF and GHI/PEPFAR in order to reduce duplication, increase the applicability of data across interventions and most importantly, learn across programs in order to improve and increase efficiency and impact of all USAID investments in Malawi. This integration of M&E function may take the form of harmonized M&E plans at the implementer level combined with joint monitoring visits by SEG and Health team members.
Reliable and well-defined monitoring, reporting and evaluation methods, roles and communication channels result in improved project and program management, promote ongoing learning and testing of development hypotheses and ensure accountability. A fully functioning M&E team and system further help to illustrate the Mission’s value added to overall development not only to key stakeholders in the USG, but also to the GoM and other development partners.
USAID/Malawi is currently refining Mission processes in line with the requirements and recommendations of the newly announced USAID Evaluation Policy. To that end, and in preparation for the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), SEG will identify further impact evaluation questions and set aside funds for impact evaluation in 2011. This will serve as solid preparation for FTF-focused evaluation activities in subsequent years.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","Central and southern regions","","Prevalence of stunted children under five years of age; Prevalence of wasted children under five years of age; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger","Prevalence of stunted children under five years of age; Prevalence of wasted children under five years of age; Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger","Vulnerable groups","","Complementary feeding>>>Complementary feeding>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/complementary_feeding","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11605","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","MWI","Malawi","Dedza|Mchinji|Lilongwe|Ntcheu|Mangochi|Balaka|Machinga","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Malawi, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
","USG investments in legume and dairy value chains are designed to boost competitiveness and promote diversification into higher-return value chains that will also spawn non-farm employment opportunities. While these investments in economic growth will be necessary to reduce poverty and hunger, they will be insufficient by themselves. Beyond growth, poverty reduction will require targeted interventions that address the needs of smallholder farmers (the rural poor) as well as more vulnerable populations. A significant smallholder need is to produce more from a very limited resource base. Conservation farming practices offer promise in this regard, by increasing yields, soil fertility and soil moisture content per unit area. Importantly CF offers a window of opportunity to increase yield from a fixed unit area, freeing up land for diversification of both other cereals and legumes. Improving market and input access and the affordability of business development and financial services tailored to the needs of smallholders is critical in order to ―pull‖ rural households into income-raising activities.
Integrating Nutrition with Value Chains (INVC)
INVC is designed to combine the livelihood benefits of an agricultural value chain approach with the nutrition benefits of increased dietary diversification. This centerpiece of Malawi’s FTF strategy will invest in the competitiveness of food staple value chains in which large numbers of smallholders, over 56 percent of whom are below the poverty line, participate, and link increased household production of nutritious crops to household consumption and improved nutritional status. INVC will link value chain development and increased household income to improved nutrition through diet diversification, and improvements in food storage, preparation, and consumption practices at the household level.
INVC’s value chain approach will focus on legumes (groundnuts and soy) and dairy, and is designed to facilitate change in both the individual value chains and the broader market and household-farming systems, looking for synergies across value chains such as common constraints and/or actors. A strong emphasis will be placed on improving the demand side of the value chain, by working to improve market linkages between input and output dealers through improved and more reliable services, including financial, business development, agronomic and livestock-related services. While most of INVC’s efforts will further develop and strengthen Malawi’s existing input and output markets serving the legumes and dairy value chains, the program will also include strengthening the capacity of processors and agribusinesses to meet export market demands, as well as building the capacity of smallholder suppliers to meet buyer demands. At the same time, INVC will work to mitigate the risks for rural households to diversify their income and food sources beyond maize through an option of conducting a vulnerability assessment for its target population and to access nutritional education that will help them translate a more diverse basket of food into improved nutrition. INVC will place a particular emphasis on women’s economic empowerment across all of its activities, including additional support and guidance to women owned businesses and women producers.
INVC will spur investment and innovation in the legume and dairy value chains through an Innovation and Investment Facility meant to provide INVC a tool to identify and support specific opportunities that can further strengthen the selected value chains and market systems within which they operate. An important use of the facility will be to buy down risk for a firm, farmer, or other value chain actor in order to encourage early adoption of new technologies, such as CF by smallholders, and spur sector-wide innovation. Facility partners may include private firms, GoM agencies, research institutes, NGOs or other local organizations, as well as other donors best placed to identify new solutions to key value chain and systemic43 constraints. This Innovation and Investment Facility will be a key instrument for developing the capacity of the private sector and will also have targets and incentives for the participation of women-owned enterprises or individuals.
A core principle of INVC will also be to build the capacity of the key value chain actors to address the competitiveness of their value chain through their own projects and interventions. As such, INVC will place a strong emphasis on building local capacity to contribute to and invest in agricultural transformation. While Malawi has numerous small businesses, local NGOs and private sector and civil society organizations, few, if any, have both the technical and administrative capacity to implement USAID projects without support. As such, INVC’s approach to capacity building will be to invest resources in local partners while leveraging their local knowledge and capacity to generate results. The project will have a target for graduating local partners to independent status that would allow them to receive USAID funds directly. As partners reach this independent status, they would take on current functions of INVC.
","An important element of the multi-year FTF Strategy is monitoring and evaluation, which is an iterative learning process that will put into place the principle of a sustained and accountable delivery approach. Program activities must be monitored through periodic field visits by Mission staff and ongoing monitoring and learning by implementing partners. Mission staff has a key role to play in monitoring and learning from partners both through oversight and input to design of project level M&E plans and systems and also through follow-up on quarterly reports and other communication with partners.
The integration of agricultural, nutrition, and health elements into a joint strategic plan provides a unique opportunity to innovate, document, and demonstrate best practices associated with a concurrent multi-sector investment model. Also, the Malawi FTF Strategy will foster linkages among existing programs, which will harmonize key agriculture and nutrition and indicators across relevant areas of focus.
Building on this collaboration, both the Health and Sustainable Economic Growth (SEG) teams at USAID/Malawi will work together to integrate M&E systems and processes in order to track synergies and multiplier effects between the two sectors not captured through the agriculture/nutrition overlap. There is currently significant USG investment on the part of USAID through PEPFAR and GHI in health systems strengthening, family planning, and malaria and tuberculosis reduction among others in the geographic areas targeted through FTF. We believe it is critical to capture at the highest level the combined impact of FTF and GHI/PEPFAR in order to reduce duplication, increase the applicability of data across interventions and most importantly, learn across programs in order to improve and increase efficiency and impact of all USAID investments in Malawi. This integration of M&E function may take the form of harmonized M&E plans at the implementer level combined with joint monitoring visits by SEG and Health team members.
Reliable and well-defined monitoring, reporting and evaluation methods, roles and communication channels result in improved project and program management, promote ongoing learning and testing of development hypotheses and ensure accountability. A fully functioning M&E team and system further help to illustrate the Mission’s value added to overall development not only to key stakeholders in the USG, but also to the GoM and other development partners.
USAID/Malawi is currently refining Mission processes in line with the requirements and recommendations of the newly announced USAID Evaluation Policy. To that end, and in preparation for the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), SEG will identify further impact evaluation questions and set aside funds for impact evaluation in 2011. This will serve as solid preparation for FTF-focused evaluation activities in subsequent years.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","Central and southern regions","","Percent change in agricultural GDP (monitor national trend); Per Capita expenditures of rural households (proxy for income) of USG targeted beneficiaries; Gender index; Gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product; Value of incremental sales (collected at farm- level) attributed to FTF; Percent change in diversity of agricultural commodities produced by households; Number of newly created jobs attributed to FTF Value of new private sector investment in the agriculture sector or food chain leveraged by FTF","Percent change in agricultural GDP (monitor national trend); Per Capita expenditures of rural households (proxy for income) of USG targeted beneficiaries; Gender index; Gross margin per unit of land or animal of selected product; Value of incremental sales (collected at farm- level) attributed to FTF; Percent change in diversity of agricultural commodities produced by households; Number of newly created jobs attributed to FTF Value of new private sector investment in the agriculture sector or food chain leveraged by FTF","Vulnerable groups","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","Supplies","A significant constraint to the development of competitive groundnut and soybean value chains is the inadequate production of breeder seed. Ten years ago, USAID/Malawi established a $250,000 revolving fund to support ICRISAT in contracting out groundnut breeder seed production, but the FISP addition of legume seed packs the significant gross margins of legumes has driven demand far beyond local seed production capacity. Given the importance of reliable input supplies to Malawi’s FTF strategy, USAID and Irish Aid will partner to expand local capacity for production of quality, certified legume seed. USAID will invest in expanding the existing revolving fund and link in the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture to enable the expansion of their efforts in soy breeder seed production. Irish AID will expand its assistance to small and medium sized enterprises to develop their capacity of to multiply groundnut seed – currently only one company (Seed Co.) is involved in soybean seed production using privately developed germplasm.","Infrastructure","Malawi also lacks an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certified laboratory for testing and certifying groundnuts and soybeans, which limits access by exporters to broader export markets. Currently, companies that export groundnuts send samples to South Africa for testing, which is costly and limits export capacity. With Irish Aid support, ICRISAT and NASFAM are developing a low cost, rapid testing technology; however, achieving ISO certification will be costly. The EU and UNDP will also begin work next year on a project designed to support the processing and exports side of legume value chains, a major component of which will focus on bringing the Malawi Bureau of Standards up to ISO certification. USG resources will support GoM efforts to establish a national sanitary/phyto-sanitary (SPS) strategy and achieve COMESA SPS compliance, as well as to build the capacity of Bunda College and the MoAFS research stations to conduction aflatoxin mitigation research.","Financial resources","Access to finance remains a major constraint to smallholders investing in productivity enhancing technologies due to weak financial sector infrastructure, inadequate financial services options, and GoM regulatory capacity. USAID will jointly develop a Financial Sector Technical Assistance Project with the World Bank and DfID.","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11605","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","MWI","Malawi","Dedza|Mchinji|Lilongwe|Ntcheu|Mangochi|Balaka|Machinga","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","12-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is establishing a lasting foundation for progress against global hunger. With a focus on smallholder farmers, particularly women, Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur economic growth that increases incomes and reduces hunger, poverty, and undernutrition. Feed the Future efforts are driven by country-led priorities and rooted in partnership with donor organizations, the private sector, and civil society to enable long-term success. Feed the Future aims to assist millions of vulnerable women, children, and family members to escape hunger and poverty, while also reaching significant numbers of children with highly effective nutrition interventions to prevent stunting and child mortality.
Over the next five years in Malawi, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
","In view of the capacity challenges that exist, USAID will strengthen the capacity of the GoM to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate nutrition programs. With substantial funding increases anticipated through the FTF, USAID/Malawi will ensure that GoM institutions have adequate capacity to implement the various programs that will be designed under the initiative. This activity is in line with Strategic Objective Three of the NNPSP, which clearly outlines the capacity gaps and needs for the nutrition sector in Malawi. The USG will strengthen capacity of its partners, both government and non- governmental, as well as the private sector. USG support will be at three levels: community, institutional and tertiary. Irish Aid, the World Bank, CIDA, and the EU are all key donors in capacity building.
Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS)
Since 2008, USAID/Malawi has supported a SAKSS unit implemented through the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) at the MoAFS. The objectives of this activity are threefold: 1) generate demand-driven diagnostic and strategic research to fill key knowledge gaps, 2) establish an information and knowledge support system, in cooperation with the Southern Africa Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System that has been set up to help promote peer and progress review of the CAADP, and 3) strengthen the capacity of national institutions, such as the MoAFS, in policy and strategy research. The Malawi Mission plans to extend the work of the SAKSS unit as part of capacity building support under FTF.
Malawi Agriculture Policy Strengthening (MAPS)
Strong civil society and private sector networks are critical to implementing the ASWAp in a way that responds to the evolving needs of its stakeholders. In recent decades, weak capacity and declining GoM interest in inclusive policy making is leading Malawi’s CAADP process towards a Government-owned rather than Country-owned process. Grounded in the CAADP principles of increasing stakeholder participation in the policy making process,44 the Malawi Agriculture Policy Strengthening (MAPS) program is designed to increase the participation of private sector and civil society stakeholders in agriculture policy dialogue.
MAPS will increase the profile, capacity and engagement of civil society and private sector stakeholders in agriculture policy development and implementation through a combination of capacity building interventions and establishing linkages between producers and consumers, including state and non-state actors, of high quality policy research. Though not exclusively, MAPS will focus on key stakeholders along the proposed FTF value chains.
MAPS capacity building activities will focus on improving organizational ability to meet its goals and objectives by strengthening administrative and financial management, organizational structure and strategic planning. The second focus of the project will strengthen policy analysis and advocacy capacity through building linkages between Malawian farmers and private sector associations and regional networks and research institutions, such as local and regional universities among civil society groups. MAPS will similarly link GoM counterparts to those research institutions to improve their ability to become informed consumers of stakeholder policy advocacy. These two components will account for the varying levels of development and readiness of organizations and associations in Malawi to take on advocacy activities. MAPS will also focus on elevating the voices of women in policy dialogue by targeting women-led civil-society/public service organizations for organizational capacity building and providing additional women-focused leadership training and gender equity sensitization to facilitate women taking on leadership roles within larger organizations.
","An important element of the multi-year FTF Strategy is monitoring and evaluation, which is an iterative learning process that will put into place the principle of a sustained and accountable delivery approach. Program activities must be monitored through periodic field visits by Mission staff and ongoing monitoring and learning by implementing partners. Mission staff has a key role to play in monitoring and learning from partners both through oversight and input to design of project level M&E plans and systems and also through follow-up on quarterly reports and other communication with partners.
The integration of agricultural, nutrition, and health elements into a joint strategic plan provides a unique opportunity to innovate, document, and demonstrate best practices associated with a concurrent multi-sector investment model. Also, the Malawi FTF Strategy will foster linkages among existing programs, which will harmonize key agriculture and nutrition and indicators across relevant areas of focus.
Building on this collaboration, both the Health and Sustainable Economic Growth (SEG) teams at USAID/Malawi will work together to integrate M&E systems and processes in order to track synergies and multiplier effects between the two sectors not captured through the agriculture/nutrition overlap. There is currently significant USG investment on the part of USAID through PEPFAR and GHI in health systems strengthening, family planning, and malaria and tuberculosis reduction among others in the geographic areas targeted through FTF. We believe it is critical to capture at the highest level the combined impact of FTF and GHI/PEPFAR in order to reduce duplication, increase the applicability of data across interventions and most importantly, learn across programs in order to improve and increase efficiency and impact of all USAID investments in Malawi. This integration of M&E function may take the form of harmonized M&E plans at the implementer level combined with joint monitoring visits by SEG and Health team members.
Reliable and well-defined monitoring, reporting and evaluation methods, roles and communication channels result in improved project and program management, promote ongoing learning and testing of development hypotheses and ensure accountability. A fully functioning M&E team and system further help to illustrate the Mission’s value added to overall development not only to key stakeholders in the USG, but also to the GoM and other development partners.
USAID/Malawi is currently refining Mission processes in line with the requirements and recommendations of the newly announced USAID Evaluation Policy. To that end, and in preparation for the Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), SEG will identify further impact evaluation questions and set aside funds for impact evaluation in 2011. This will serve as solid preparation for FTF-focused evaluation activities in subsequent years.
","Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 281,000 vulnerable Malawian women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 293,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","Central and southern regions","","Number of institutions/organizations undergoing capacity /competency assessments as a result of USG assistance; Number of institutions/organizations mature/viable in the competency areas strengthened as a result of USG assistance Frequency of GoM consultation with civil society/private sector on relevant policies; Comparison of programmatic objectives Pre and post FtF funding distribution; Number of new funding mechanisms","Number of institutions/organizations undergoing capacity /competency assessments as a result of USG assistance; Number of institutions/organizations mature/viable in the competency areas strengthened as a result of USG assistance Frequency of GoM consultation with civil society/private sector on relevant policies; Comparison of programmatic objectives Pre and post FtF funding distribution; Number of new funding mechanisms","Vulnerable groups","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11629","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Northern Uganda |central “Maize Belt|Southwest Uganda","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","12-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is a $3.5 billion commitment to support country-driven approaches to address the root causes of poverty, hunger and undernutrition. A whole-of-government initiative led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Feed the Future leverages the strengths of multilateral institutions, civil society and the private sector. Globally we aim to assist 18 million vulnerable women, hildren, and family members – mostly smallholder farmers – escape hunger and poverty. Together, we will increase agricultural productivity, decrease poverty, drive economic growth, and reduce undernutrition to improve millions of lives.
Over the next five years in Uganda, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children and family members—mostly mallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Uganda is making core investments in three key areas:
1. Nutrition
2. Agriculture. The maize, coffee and bean belt are in Southwest and Central Uganda. The choice to focus on these value chains represents considerations regarding Ugandan government priorities, division of donor labor, and the highest impact interventions for the expected scale of Feed the Future resources.
3. Connecting Nutrition to Agriculture
USAID will build on previous strategic investments in nutrition and take them to scale in the areas and populations of greatest need to support the GOU and private sector to reduce chronic undernutrition in the country with a primary focus on prevention. Through these interventions an estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—will receive targeted assistance to escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. The core investments in nutrition will focus on community and facility based prevention and treatment, targeted nutrition service delivery, the enabling environment for nutrition and capacity building.
Community and Facility-Base Prevention and Treatment
By emphasizing prevention, FTF programs will help to reduce not only chronic undernutrition, but should also reduce the number of severely/acutely malnourished children as well, resulting in fewer children outside HIV and emergency situations needing treatment for severe acute malnutrition. For the treatment of acute malnutrition, Uganda has adopted a national protocol for the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM). Through a ommunity and facility based approach to treating under nutrition, therapeutic and/or supplementary food is provided to severe or moderately malnourished children, with medical support, nutrition education, and at-home follow up through community based volunteers. FTF and PEPFAR’s partnership on the production, distribution, and management of RUTF support the larger national IMAM protocols.
Capacity Building
Capacity building at the national and district level is critical. Nutrition has only recently become a priority in the health sector, and without strong nutrition champions and policies centrally, nutrition priorities will not be realized. USAID will continue to train health workers in new IMAM guidelines for use in health facilities and will expand technical assistance and capacity building at the national level beyond the health sector to include Agriculture and other ministries who can contribute to a national action plan on nutrition.
","Some key outputs of nutrition activities are: nutrition officers placed in a majority of districts; active Food and Nutrition Councils organized in districts; mandatory fortification of major manufactured foods; therapeutic food reconstituted from locally available foods developed and distributed to district and regional hospitals; and community behavior changes to prevent undernutrition.
","PERFORMANCE MONITORING
Through an interactive approach across Mission teams and in collaboration with other donors and the GOU, the USG FTF effort will go beyond the status quo of performance monitoring. At the basic level, data will be collected by implementing partners and reported to USAID/Uganda through quarterly reports while quality will be assessed via Data Quality Assessment visits to the field.
IMPACT EVALUATION
To build an evidence base to adjust ongoing projects and inform future programs, we will design rigorous impact evaluations for select FTF programs. We have already identified such an opportunity with our Community Connector program, which fully integrates agriculture and nutrition activities at the household level. Discussions have been held with partners within the MIT Poverty Action Lab consortium on the use of Randomized Control Trial (RCT) experiments. We will use the results of these impact evaluations to test the hypotheses of our FTF strategy and make mid-stream adjustments to programs if necessary, or scale up programs that are working well. Using the earning component of FTF programs like Community Connector is in line with the Mission’s continuing CLA component. We will also partner with other donors to disseminate and promote lessons learned. USAID/Uganda, through unbiased and independent impact evaluations, will identify interventions that work; we will be an active contributor to the greater discourse in testable development hypotheses and our programs will benefit from our increased understanding
CAPACITY BUILDING/SUPPORT TO DATA COLLECTION
A key component of our Feed the Future program will be capacity building of the Government of Uganda in the collection, analysis, and use of agriculture and nutrition data for planning, monitoring, and evaluation. We will work with all relevant government agencies and ministries including the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Health. We will work in partnership with the National Planning authority as they attempt to convene the multisectoral Food and Nutrition Council as a cohesive and functional unit. We will seek to build local academic institutions’ capacity in nutrition through improved pre-service and in-service training, and enhanced research capacity. In addition to training in data collection and assistance in improving data systems, we will build analytical capacity in the Ministry of Agriculture by establishing a Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) node.
NUTRITION COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH AND SUPPORT PROGRAM (CRSP)
We will use the Nutrition CRSP to assist us with specific research questions that tell us about the impact of our nutrition-related FTF programs. We have already had preliminary discussions with a Nutrition CRSP team. The Nutrition CRSP is intended to investigate effective ways of translating research results into widespread development practice. The CRSP anticipates the development of a well-balanced research strategy that is both innovative and problem solving, responds to the food and nutrition scientific needs, and to the capacity development requirements of Uganda. USAID/Uganda, through the CRSP, will be better positioned to build more effective strategies and programs, while establishing a research capacity within the Mission and the country as a whole. As programs continue to be developed and procured in the coming months, the CRSP will assist in collecting the relevant local and international knowledge base needed to better implement, evaluate, and learn from our programs. Within individual programs, the CRSP will be an active participant in identifying and rigorously measure testable hypotheses related to food security.
","estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—will receive targeted assistance to escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","This component will reach children in 47 districts in the Southwest and North of Uganda","","","Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger;Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Number of health facilities with established capacity to manage acute under nutrition; Prevalence of anemia among children 6-59 months; Prevalence of Poverty: Percent of people living on less than $1.25/day; Expenditures of rural households;Prevalence of stunted children under five; Change in average score on Household Hunger index; Percent of children 6-23 months who received a Minimum Acceptable Diet.","Vulnerable groups","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11629","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Northern Uganda |central “Maize Belt|Southwest Uganda","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is a $3.5 billion commitment to support country-driven approaches to address the root causes of poverty, hunger and undernutrition. A whole-of-government initiative led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Feed the Future leverages the strengths of multilateral institutions, civil society and the private sector. Globally we aim to assist 18 million vulnerable women, hildren, and family members – mostly smallholder farmers – escape hunger and poverty. Together, we will increase agricultural productivity, decrease poverty, drive economic growth, and reduce undernutrition to improve millions of lives.
Over the next five years in Uganda, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children and family members—mostly mallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Uganda is making core investments in three key areas:
1. Nutrition
2. Agriculture. The maize, coffee and bean belt are in Southwest and Central Uganda. The choice to focus on these value chains represents considerations regarding Ugandan government priorities, division of donor labor, and the highest impact interventions for the expected scale of Feed the Future resources.
3. Connecting Nutrition to Agriculture
USAID will build on previous strategic investments in nutrition and take them to scale in the areas and populations of greatest need to support the GOU and private sector to reduce chronic undernutrition in the country with a primary focus on prevention. Through these interventions an estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—will receive targeted assistance to escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. The core investments in nutrition will focus on community and facility based prevention and treatment, targeted nutrition service delivery, the enabling environment for nutrition and capacity building.
Targeted Nutrition Service Delivery – Fortification and Supplementation
Targeted nutrition service delivery is focused primarily on approaches to reduce specific micronutrient
deficiencies in Uganda. FTF will continue to support vitamin A supplementation and de-worming for
children and iron folic acid supplementation and de-worming for pregnant women at the facility level,
through district-level health programs in target geographical areas. In addition, food fortification
activities will be supported to improve the necessary vitamin and mineral content of staple foods that
will reach a larger target audience, primarily in urban and peri-urban areas where fortified foods are
more accessible. This will build on previous work supported by the USG that has resulted in cooking
oil fortification with vitamin A that now covers more than 85 percent of the country’s market and the
fortification of maize and wheat flour with vitamin A, iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamin B12 and. New food fortification vehicles will be added that include sugar fortification with vitamin A.
The agriculture team is also looking at improved seed varieties to increase micronutrient content such as the orange-fleshed sweet potato, which has increased levels of beta-carotene (Vitamin A). The introduction of fortification of foods will be combined with educational activities that promote dietary diversity through the community and facility based programs.
As previously mentioned, a key component to treatment of undernutrition in Uganda is the production of therapeutic and complementary foods. USG’s Feed the Future will expand on previous investments in local ready-to-use therapeutic food production to increase availability and distribution in health facilities across the country to treat acute undernutrition.
Enabling Environment
Our program will work to leverage other sectors (e.g., agriculture, water, public/private, etc) to create demand for fortified foods, adopt good nutrition behaviors, and activities like exclusive breastfeeding and integrated nutrition/WASH/food hygiene. Advocacy efforts will continue to emphasize the importance of nutrition among key stakeholders. Uganda is one of the countries that is taking on the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative spear headed globally by the Irish Government, U.S. Government and the UN. SUN focuses on integration of relevant sectors with a view to addressing the window of opportunity within the 1,000 days (from minus 9 months to 24 months). We will work to harmonize FTF and SUN activities to maximize efficiency and national coverage in close consultation with MOH, MAAIF and other stakeholders. Through the existing micronutrient fortification program that has successfully enriched common staples such as oil and flour, FTF will continue to advocate for mandatory fortification of manufactured foods.
","Some key outputs of nutrition activities are: nutrition officers placed in a majority of districts; active Food and Nutrition Councils organized in districts; mandatory fortification of major manufactured foods; therapeutic food reconstituted from locally available foods developed and distributed to district and regional hospitals; and community behavior changes to prevent undernutrition.
","PERFORMANCE MONITORING
Through an interactive approach across Mission teams and in collaboration with other donors and the GOU, the USG FTF effort will go beyond the status quo of performance monitoring. At the basic level, data will be collected by implementing partners and reported to USAID/Uganda through quarterly reports while quality will be assessed via Data Quality Assessment visits to the field.
IMPACT EVALUATION
To build an evidence base to adjust ongoing projects and inform future programs, we will design rigorous impact evaluations for select FTF programs. We have already identified such an opportunity with our Community Connector program, which fully integrates agriculture and nutrition activities at the household level. Discussions have been held with partners within the MIT Poverty Action Lab consortium on the use of Randomized Control Trial (RCT) experiments. We will use the results of these impact evaluations to test the hypotheses of our FTF strategy and make mid-stream adjustments to programs if necessary, or scale up programs that are working well. Using the earning component of FTF programs like Community Connector is in line with the Mission’s continuing CLA component. We will also partner with other donors to disseminate and promote lessons learned. USAID/Uganda, through unbiased and independent impact evaluations, will identify interventions that work; we will be an active contributor to the greater discourse in testable development hypotheses and our programs will benefit from our increased understanding
CAPACITY BUILDING/SUPPORT TO DATA COLLECTION
A key component of our Feed the Future program will be capacity building of the Government of Uganda in the collection, analysis, and use of agriculture and nutrition data for planning, monitoring, and evaluation. We will work with all relevant government agencies and ministries including the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Health. We will work in partnership with the National Planning authority as they attempt to convene the multisectoral Food and Nutrition Council as a cohesive and functional unit. We will seek to build local academic institutions’ capacity in nutrition through improved pre-service and in-service training, and enhanced research capacity. In addition to training in data collection and assistance in improving data systems, we will build analytical capacity in the Ministry of Agriculture by establishing a Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) node.
NUTRITION COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH AND SUPPORT PROGRAM (CRSP)
We will use the Nutrition CRSP to assist us with specific research questions that tell us about the impact of our nutrition-related FTF programs. We have already had preliminary discussions with a Nutrition CRSP team. The Nutrition CRSP is intended to investigate effective ways of translating research results into widespread development practice. The CRSP anticipates the development of a well-balanced research strategy that is both innovative and problem solving, responds to the food and nutrition scientific needs, and to the capacity development requirements of Uganda. USAID/Uganda, through the CRSP, will be better positioned to build more effective strategies and programs, while establishing a research capacity within the Mission and the country as a whole. As programs continue to be developed and procured in the coming months, the CRSP will assist in collecting the relevant local and international knowledge base needed to better implement, evaluate, and learn from our programs. Within individual programs, the CRSP will be an active participant in identifying and rigorously measure testable hypotheses related to food security.
","estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—will receive targeted assistance to escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition","This component will reach children in 47 districts in the Southwest and North of Uganda.","","","Prevalence of households with moderate or severe hunger;Prevalence of children 6-23 months receiving a minimum acceptable diet; Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under 6 months; Number of health facilities with established capacity to manage acute under nutrition; Prevalence of anemia among children 6-59 months; Prevalence of Poverty: Percent of people living on less than $1.25/day; Expenditures of rural households;Prevalence of stunted children under five; Change in average score on Household Hunger index; Percent of children 6-23 months who received a Minimum Acceptable Diet.","Vulnerable groups","","Multiple micronutrient powders for home fortification of foods consumed by pregnant women>>>Multiple micronutrient powders for home fortification of foods consumed by pregnant women>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/micronutrients_pregnancy","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11629","Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative","English","Multi-national","","UGA","Uganda","Northern Uganda |central “Maize Belt|Southwest Uganda","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2011","01-2015","Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is a $3.5 billion commitment to support country-driven approaches to address the root causes of poverty, hunger and undernutrition. A whole-of-government initiative led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Feed the Future leverages the strengths of multilateral institutions, civil society and the private sector. Globally we aim to assist 18 million vulnerable women, hildren, and family members – mostly smallholder farmers – escape hunger and poverty. Together, we will increase agricultural productivity, decrease poverty, drive economic growth, and reduce undernutrition to improve millions of lives.
Over the next five years in Uganda, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children and family members—mostly mallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. More than 450,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.
To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Uganda is making core investments in three key areas:
1. Nutrition
2. Agriculture. The maize, coffee and bean belt are in Southwest and Central Uganda. The choice to focus on these value chains represents considerations regarding Ugandan government priorities, division of donor labor, and the highest impact interventions for the expected scale of Feed the Future resources.
3. Connecting Nutrition to Agriculture
Priority Value Chains
Our investments will focus on value chains with the greatest market potential, the highest number of farmers, and the greatest income potential for farmers. Impact on nutrition and role of gender were also critical considerations in our value chain focus, as was the potential for sector-wide impact and maximum return on investment. Many of the value chain components have integrated nutrition and agriculture dimensions. The starting point for this strategy is the Government of Uganda’s Agriculture Sector Development Strategy and Investment Plan (DSIP) where ten priority value chains were selected. In looking at each commodity, maize and coffee stood out as key drivers for conomic growth in terms of number of farmers, market demand, and income potential. Most of the Ugandan staple diet is built around other staples like beans, cassava, and banana – leaving maize to function more as a cash crop that responds to regional food security and trade demands, rather than as a household staple. Fish, dairy and livestock were also considered. However all three present a number of challenges that would require substantially higher levels of investment to address and would deliver a much lower rate of return for dollar invested.
Value-chain Investments
Policy - The USG FTF strategy will support a five-year policy reform initiative in agriculture, trade, health and gender equity. Some examples of policy priorities include the passage of Uganda’s Biotechnology and Bio-safely bill, effective implementation of the Agricultural Chemicals Control Act (1989, amended in 2006) which establishes a licensing regime for insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers, and controls and regulates the manufacture, storage, distribution, trade, import, and export of agricultural chemicals, effective implementation of the Agriculture Seeds and Plant Act (1994) which regulates seed companies operating or importing plant material into Uganda, and passage of the Food and Nutrition Bill and related Health, Nutrition and Sanitation policies for a proposed National Food and Drug Authority. Review of Uganda’s marriage and family act lays out the ownership and control of assets for women. It is critical to address key gender components of legislation.
Capacity Building - Support to strengthen key public and private sector institutions at the national and district levels is essential to the overall success of our Feed the Future activities. This five-year set of activities will focus on building capacity within the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, and Ministries of Health and Agriculture to collect and analyze data, and to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their programs. There will also be a short, medium, and long-term training and education component to develop the next generation of Uganda decision makers.
Agriculture Research – Feed the Future will support continued research in three areas:Biotechnology to protect food security crops from serious disease threat – specifically cassava (Cassava MOSAIC) and banana (Banana Wilt (BXW) and Black Sigatoka Disease); breeding to increase stress tolerance and disease resistance for Feed the Future focus crops (maize, coffee and beans); and partnership with Harvest Plus to scale-up the production and mainstream marketing of bio-fortified/nutritionally enhanced crop varieties - specifically Orange-fleshed Sweet Potato and high zinc/iron beans.
Increased Quality and Production – USG will contribute to a $50 million partnership with DANIDA, the EU, Belgium, and Sweden to address farm-level constraints to quality and production in maize, beans and coffee. The program will also focus on increasing farmer access to financial services and supporting trade-related sanitary and phytosanitary standards and quality management systems. Agro-Input Supply - A five-year program to increase the quality, availability, and use of inputs. This program will build the capacity of the Uganda National Agriculture Input Dealers Association (UNADA) and private sector retailers.
Farm-level Aggregation and Market Linkages - This program will work to build the capacity of farmer organizations to enter into agreements with major buyers, access finance, purchase inputs, bulk, clean, and process their commodities. The program will work in conjunction with the Abi-Trust Partnership (DANIDA) and emphasize linkages to the WFP's Purchase for Progress efforts and the Uganda Commodity Exchange.
Market-Information System - This program will work with local partners to utilize the latest in information and communications technology to address market information gaps for smallholder farmers.
","Some key outputs include:
PERFORMANCE MONITORING
Through an interactive approach across Mission teams and in collaboration with other donors and the GOU, the USG FTF effort will go beyond the status quo of performance monitoring. At the basic level, data will be collected by implementing partners and reported to USAID/Uganda through quarterly reports while quality will be assessed via Data Quality Assessment visits to the field.
IMPACT EVALUATION
To build an evidence base to adjust ongoing projects and inform future programs, we will design rigorous impact evaluations for select FTF programs. We have already identified such an opportunity with our Community Connector program, which fully integrates agriculture and nutrition activities at the household level. Discussions have been held with partners within the MIT Poverty Action Lab consortium on the use of Randomized Control Trial (RCT) experiments. We will use the results of these impact evaluations to test the hypotheses of our FTF strategy and make mid-stream adjustments to programs if necessary, or scale up programs that are working well. Using the earning component of FTF programs like Community Connector is in line with the Mission’s continuing CLA component. We will also partner with other donors to disseminate and promote lessons learned. USAID/Uganda, through unbiased and independent impact evaluations, will identify interventions that work; we will be an active contributor to the greater discourse in testable development hypotheses and our programs will benefit from our increased understanding
CAPACITY BUILDING/SUPPORT TO DATA COLLECTION
A key component of our Feed the Future program will be capacity building of the Government of Uganda in the collection, analysis, and use of agriculture and nutrition data for planning, monitoring, and evaluation. We will work with all relevant government agencies and ministries including the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Health. We will work in partnership with the National Planning authority as they attempt to convene the multisectoral Food and Nutrition Council as a cohesive and functional unit. We will seek to build local academic institutions’ capacity in nutrition through improved pre-service and in-service training, and enhanced research capacity. In addition to training in data collection and assistance in improving data systems, we will build analytical capacity in the Ministry of Agriculture by establishing a Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) node.
NUTRITION COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH AND SUPPORT PROGRAM (CRSP)
We will use the Nutrition CRSP to assist us with specific research questions that tell us about the impact of our nutrition-related FTF programs. We have already had preliminary discussions with a Nutrition CRSP team. The Nutrition CRSP is intended to investigate effective ways of translating research results into widespread development practice. The CRSP anticipates the development of a well-balanced research strategy that is both innovative and problem solving, responds to the food and nutrition scientific needs, and to the capacity development requirements of Uganda. USAID/Uganda, through the CRSP, will be better positioned to build more effective strategies and programs, while establishing a research capacity within the Mission and the country as a whole. As programs continue to be developed and procured in the coming months, the CRSP will assist in collecting the relevant local and international knowledge base needed to better implement, evaluate, and learn from our programs. Within individual programs, the CRSP will be an active participant in identifying and rigorously measure testable hypotheses related to food security.
","estimated 709,000 vulnerable Ugandan women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. ","This component will reach farmers in 62 districts in the maize, coffee, and beans belt in Southwest and Central Uganda.","","Uganda National Household Survey, 2009/2010; Demographic Health Survey, 2006; The 2008 Uganda Food Consumption Survey; 2007 Uganda Service Provision Survey; The Uganda National Household Survey 2008/2009","Percent growth in agricultural GDP of maize and coffee; Percent change in value of intra-regional exports of targeted agricultural commodities as a result of USG assistance; Post-harvest losses as a percentage of overall harvest, for selected commodities; Value of new private sector investment in the agriculture sector or food chain leveraged by FTF.implementationCapacity of relevant national statistical office to collect high-quality agricultural data","Socio-economic status","","Biofortification of staple crops>>>Biofortification of staple crops>>http://www.who.int/elena/titles/biofortification","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","English" "11637","Purchase for Progress (P4P) Pilot Initiative ","English","Multi-national","","AFG|BFA|COD|SLV|ETH|GHA|GTM|HND|KEN|LAO|LBR|MWI|MLI|MOZ|NIC|RWA|SLE|SSD|UGA|TZA|ZMB","Afghanistan|Burkina Faso|Democratic Republic of the Congo|El Salvador|Ethiopia|Ghana|Guatemala|Honduras|Kenya|Lao People's Democratic Republic|Liberia|Malawi|Mali|Mozambique|Nicaragua|Rwanda|Sierra Leone|South Sudan|Uganda|United Republic of Tanzania|Zambia","","Rural|Peri-urban","on-going","01-2008","01-2013","As the world’s largest humanitarian agency, WFP is a major staple food buyer. In 2012, WFP bought US$1.1 billion worth of food – more than 75 percent of this in developing countries WFP buys locally in developing countries when its criteria of price, quality and quantity can be met. P4P is a logical continuation of this local procurement with the intent to achieve a higher developmental gain with WFP’s procurement footprint by buying increasingly in a smallholder-friendly way.
Through P4P, WFP’s demand provides smallholder farmers in 20 pilot countries with a greater incentive to invest in their production, as they have the possibility to sell to a reliable buyer and receive a fair price for their crops. It is envisioned that in the wake of WFP purchasing in a more smallholder-friendly way, other buyers of staple commodities including Governments and the private sector will also increasingly be able to buy from smallholders.
P4P at the same time invests in capacity building at country level in areas such as post-harvest handling or storage, which will yield sustainable results in boosting national food security over the long term. The five year pilot P4P (2009 - 2013)[1] rests on three pillars:
WFP usually buys food through large competitive tenders. Through P4P, WFP is testing new procurement approaches more suited to smallholder farmers and:
Country approaches to P4P are tailored to suit the opportunities and constraints within each country. Generally, however, each programme has applied one or more of the general approaches:
Approach #1: Farmers’ organisations and capacity building partnerships:
Approach #2: Support to emerging structured trading systems
Approach #3: Small and medium traders
Approach #4: Developing local food processing capacity
.
","M&E system specifies data collection and analysis methods designed to track a number of indicators of programme performance.
The M&E system collects data from a number of sources including:
The M&E system also incorporates peer review to identify and validate best practices. At the country level, these include stakeholder meetings, workshops, and annual reviews. At the regional level, WFP is using writeshops and regional workshops to consolidate and validate learning. At the global/programme level, a Technical Review Panel meets annually to review and help interpret results and to guide implementation. Peer review meetings, annual reviews, internal (to WFP) stakeholder groups, and external evaluations also serve to validate results.
Managing the learning process for a programme with the scope and scale of P4P has been challenging and the design and evolution of the M&E system reflect these challenges. In particular:
Economic Research Consortium (AERC) to manage collection and analysis of the quantitative data.
Since P4P's launch in September 2008,
Stories From the Field: Ethiopi
Women farmers face many obstacles that they need to overcome to become successful business women. But the example of Mashuu, from Chefo Umbera, southern Ethiopia, shows that with the right support, female farmers can become independent market players.
When she left school, Mashuu noticed her peers marrying early, sometimes to men who took more than one wife. Mashuu saw her future differently, and together with two sisters and a sister-in-law, formed a women’s group, hoping to empower women through family planning education and HIV/AIDS awareness. They started with four members – today, there are 165.
“As the group started to grow, I realized we needed to become strong and independent economically,” said Mashuu. And that was how Jalela Primary Cooperative was born. Women bring their cereal harvests to Jalela, and the cooperative then sells it to Mira, their local cooperative union. The union sells the aggregated commodities to buyers such as WFP.
The 2011 drought-induced crop failure led to high market prices and a shortage of marketable produce in Ethiopia. This caused most cooperatives to default on their contracts with WFP. But Jalela still sold 30 metric tons of maize to WFP. The net profit of about US$170 was in part kept for the cooperative and in part distributed to the co-op members. Mashuu still has high hopes for the future despite the difficulties with the 2011 drought. She has plans to build a grain mill, start dairy production, and even bring electricity to the Jalela co-op. “We are going to change our lives,” she concludes.
The Experience in Guatemala
In Guatemala, P4P focuses on sales beyond WFP for two reasons: to promote long-term sustainability and to provide alternative outlets for farmers’ surplus production. Since WFP in Guatemala distributes only a few thousand metric tons (mt) of food every year, the quantities it can purchase from smallholder farmers’ organizations is relatively small, as illustrated in the table below.
P4P assisted Farmers’ Organizations (FOs) are located in northern and eastern regions of Guatemala as well as on the Pacific Coastal plain. A market study examined potential alternative buyers for both bulked and processed grain, including regional and national buyers such as the food industry, private traders, exporters, NGOs and the Government of Guatemala. According to information collected between 2008 through 2012, approximately a third of the P4P supported FOs have sold maize or beans to buyers beyond WFP. Of the total of 6,800 mt sold, 70% was maize (4,800 mt) and the rest beans (2,000 mt).
A maize processor in Guatemala that produces tortilla flour purchased 59% of the total tonnage. The second biggest buyer was Wal-Mart, which purchased 918 mt of beans. Sales to other national supermarkets, large traders and exporters represent 11% of the total (750 mt). Some 739 mt of maize and beans were sold on local markets (local grocery stores, municipal markets and traders). Small amounts were also purchased by NGOs, FAO and other P4P supported FOs.
With support from FAO, some FOs have developed the capacity to produce seed as well as grain. This represents 1.3% of the tonnage sold, but 4.2% of the income generated through collective sales beyond WFP. Such a successful focus on higherincome options has motivated the FOs to explore other markets such as retail packaging of beans, production of red beans specific to the El Salvador market, and fresh corn on the cob.
The P4P team works with the FOs to encourage sales beyond WFP. Commercialization committees are formed in the FOs and a roster of identified potential buyers in the market is shared with all. Training on effective negotiation t e c h n i q u e s a n d t h e development of business plans also begins this year.
Potential buyers are invited to the field to see the production of the grains, post-harvest management and quality control. This also allows them to become familiar with the maturity of the organization, increasing the confidence of buyers in the capacity of the FOs to establish commercial relations. This is complemented by demonstrating tools such as the “Blue Box”1, which is both a training tool and a field laboratory, which separates produce that does not meet specifications. Through partnering with P4P, FOs gained the trust of the commercial sector and confidence in their own abilities to reach a broad range of markets.
Farmers organizations’ experience steady progression in Mozambique
In Mozambique, farmers’ organizations (FOs) were created by both national government and nongovernmental organizations to facilitate technical assistance in agricultural production and marketing. This was especially important in the recovery period that followed the 1992 General Peace Agreement.
Most FOs gradually evolved from the village level to linking with other FOs at a district level. The district level is often represented by an ‘umbrella’ association of FOs, the tier with which P4P in Mozambique works directly. There are currently 10 such “umbrella” FOs in Mozambique participating in P4P. As of 2012, WFP has bought almost 10,000 metric tons (mt) of maize, beans and pulses from these FOs, valued at $5.8 million.
Apart from selling to WFP, P4P is helping FOs to identify sustainable and fair markets for sales beyond WFP. Prior to participating in the P4P initiative, many farmers had limited or no experience in selling collectively to markets. In 2009, sales beyond WFP were only 644 mt, tripling by 2012 to 1,800 mt. The table below summarizes crops sold by all 10 FOs under P4P in Mozambique and the income generated from sales per year.
P4P’s support to smallholder farmers in accessing markets for crops such as maize, beans and pulses has had a positive impact. When P4P began in 2009, soybean was the mostsold commodity by P4P supported FOs (2,480 mt). Maize was second at 926 mt, sesame third with 699 mt, followed by pigeon peas at 538 mt of sales. The possible profit margin for growing and selling maize is beginning to compete with the profits available in the soy and sesame trade, although commercial maize value remains low compared to other commodities. Buyers that are purchasing commodities from these FOs are:
The volume of products marketed in relation to the number of buyers demonstrates that the market in Mozambique is neither structured nor stable. There are often a high number of buyers intervening at the same time in more than one crop. Quality issues are often secondary for many buyers, as product availability is often considered more important.
While marketing platforms still have a long way to go in Mozambique, participating in P4P has helped with sales to markets beyond WFP. The relative consistency of having WFP as a buyer and the training provided by P4P and partners has helped many FOs meet the demands needed for selling to other buyers of quality.
Malawi – How a farmers’ organization is progressing
Kafulu Smallholder Farmers Organization (FO) was established in 2003. At the time of its establishment, Kafulu had two clear objectives: to achieve food security in the area and to find markets for their surplus. Currently the FO has 1,400 members (of which 500 are women) and with assistance from the National Agricultural Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (NASFAM), they have been able to build a warehouse. Kafulu had experience of selling maize collectively before P4P started in Malawi, however, since joining P4P they have been given the opportunity to learn the skills needed to achieve better deals with buyers.
A Challenging Beginning
Though Kafulu has progressed in their ability to connect to markets, the process has not been without difficulty. When the FO decided to participate in P4P it obtained credit in the 2008/2009 season, allowing them to expand their inputs loan scheme. In the 2009/2010 season, the organization again had access to credit, but faced severe problems in repayment. Loans were given to individuals and not directly to the FO and as a result, some individuals were unable to meet repayment obligations causing tensions among members. In addition, Kafulu signed a contract with WFP for the sale of 526 metric tons (mt) of maize, but was not able to deliver anything at all due to quality problems. The FO then had to sell the maize to other buyers who were not looking for high quality and they received a lower price.
In spite of these difficulties, Kafulu persevered. They managed to retain most of the membership despite the credit repayment issue, and tried to sell to WFP once again. In the 2010/2011 season, Kafulu delivered 100 mt of maize to WFP, this time with no quality issues.
Towards Graduation
By then, Kafulu farmers saw a clear way ahead: “We want to sell to people like WFP, because they are able to get a lot of money at one time and they offer fair prices for quality produce”,
stated one of the members of the Executive Committee. Although Kafulu farmers did not know then, they were completing the first step towards graduation - they had learnt how to condition their crop for higher quality standards and they had managed to aggregate at least twice. This placed them in a better position to compete with other FOs.
In the 2011/2012 season, Kafulu managed to aggregate 460 mt of maize, which they deposited into the warehouse receipt system (WRS) at the beginning of the season. From this deposit, they managed to get 70 percent of the receipt value as credit, which allowed them to wait until later in the season to sell when better prices were available.
Market Experience Today
In February 2013, Kafulu was awarded a contract for almost 230 mt of maize from WFP. They competed directly with medium and big traders in the Malawi market. By that time, they had already sold half of their maize to other buyers, at prevailing prices of around 90 MWK/kg (USD 0.27), making a good profit and enabling them to repay the credit and fees for the warehouse.
Kafulu FO still has problems with its membership stemming from past individual loan defaults and it is now dealing with the challenges of managing a WRS on its own. However, the FO has more knowledge of markets and is now prepared to engage competitively in them.
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