Action - Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative - Food diversification - Women of reproductive age (WRA)

Programme: Feed the Future: The U.S. Government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative

Programme description

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

  • Rice and Cassava seed/plant material production and dissemination
  • Technical assistance through public and private extension 
  • Start-up finance for processing equipment, storage facilities, and transport 
  • Contracting support and market linkages

2. Developing Income and Diet Diversification Value Chains

  • Vegetable horticulture
    • Development of private sector extension services 
    • Start-up finance of lead traders/lead farmers for transport, storage and other equipment 
    • Capacity building of women and men lead traders/farmers in production, contracting support, and market linkages
  • Goat husbandry
    • Training for public and private animal health care workers
    • Development of animal health care system 
    • Establishment of breeding programs 
    • Creation of business opportunities for privately-operated slaughterhouses
  • Advancing the Enabling Environment
    • Agriculture policy, advocacy, support and research
    • Development and coordination of public and private extension interventions 
    • Private sector market structure and development

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.

Programme type

Multi-national

References

Status: 
On-going

Start date:

January
2011

End date:

January
2015
Area: 
Rural
Peri-urban
Place: 
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.
Target group: 
Women of reproductive age (WRA)
Delivery: 
Commercial
Community-based
Implementation details : 

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.

Target population size : 
Over 50,250 farming households engaged in horticulture and goat husbandry in the six target counties, of which 32,160 are below the Liberian poverty level and unable to afford 2,400 kilocalories per person per day.
Coverage level (%): 
The bulk of diet diversification value chain household beneficiaries for horticulture will be located in the peri-urban areas of Montserrado and Margibi counties, while goat-rearing households are located mainly in Bong, Grand Bassa, Lofa and Nimba counti
Outcome indicator(s): 
  • Women’s dietary diversity (IR 6)
  • Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding of children under six months of age (IR 7)

 

M&E system: 

 The Feed the Future MYS and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) activities will have the following four overarching objectives:

  1. Assess program progress and address program constraints,
  2. Measure program impact,
  3. Support M&E activities of implementing partners, most specifically local implementing partners, and the GOL, and
  4. Build capacity of critical institutions.

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:

 

  •  Promoting the concept of USAID as a learning organization and thus of its Implementing Partners also;
  • Collaboratingwith GOL, particularly the MOA, to contribute to the CAADP learning process;
  • Sharingresults of monitoring with a wide-array of stakeholders via the Agriculture Donor Working Group and the Agriculture Coordinating Committee;
  • Includingmonitoring results in bi-annual Mission-wide portfolio reviews;
  • Disseminatingresults of studies carried-out by Implementing Partners (e.g., studies of women‘s role in the FTF value chains will be commissioned and results disseminated);
  • Conveningfeedback meetings with Implementing Partners to act on results of monitoring and identify programming changes that may result from monitoring; and
  • Ensuringthat lessons learned are articulated and widely disseminated
Baseline: 
Women’s dietary diversity (IR 6)Prevalence of excl

Revision log

DateUserLogState
Wed, 03/27/2013 - 16:15bloessnermEdited by AnnaLartey.published
Mon, 03/04/2013 - 15:06AnnaLarteyEdited by AnnaLartey.draft
Mon, 03/04/2013 - 15:05AnnaLarteyEdited by william_nkoom.published
Mon, 03/04/2013 - 14:35AnnaLarteyEdited by AnnaLartey.draft