"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" "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"