Photo by Nancy Russell

As United States First Lady Michelle Obama has highlighted, entire generations' health and well-being are at stake in the face of the global food security crisis. The USAID Ethiopia Urban Gardens Program for HIV-Affected Women and Children (USAID UGP), attempts to tackle this pressing problem through an approach that seamlessly integrates cutting edge health, food security, agriculture and economic empowerment programming. UGP combines self and community empowerment, a commitment to long-term grass-roots level responses, and smart, innovative partnerships with the Ethiopian government to give HIV-affected women and children access to healthy food, new economic opportunities, stronger support networks and a secure policy environment that allows necessary urban agriculture policy to become reality throughout the country.

In Ethiopia, food insecurity plays into the cyclical impact of the HIV/AIDs crisis - those most in need of quality food and good nutrition have the least access to it. Lack of access to food is especially acute in cities, where the diversity of food options are limited, food is expensive due to high transport costs and inefficient agriculture markets, and there is an overall lack of proper land for food production. Since 2008, the USAID Urban Gardens Program in Ethiopia has worked to improve these critical issues with orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), and caregivers affected by HIV/AIDS. To address the significant food security challenges and related issues among HIV-affected communities, the program works with local communities and the Ethiopian government to encourage permanent shifts in behavior and policy.

USAID UGP's core activities operate at the community-level where the program forms partnerships with local schools, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to establish small communal urban gardens. Utilizing innovative approaches around economic dialogues and peer education, USAID UGP builds networks of support between communal gardeners and between gardeners and neighbors to ensure permanency of technical skills transfer; support at the grass-roots level; and reduction of reliance and dependency on outside support, knowledge and services.

In addition to agriculture support, discussion groups also link gardeners and their families with available health and financial services. Vital to any urban agriculture program, the program has also identified and developed a network of environmentally-focused community NGO partners that work specifically on alleviating environmental constraints that impact a person's ability to grow food in urban areas. Finally, the program is slowly moving beyond simple horticulture into other livelihoods areas such as livestock raising (mostly poultry), savings and financial services, cash-crop horticulture and small-scale market development / access.

Combined with policy efforts and the development of long-term innovative national level and community partnerships, the USAID Urban Gardens Program is providing Ethiopia a sustainable, long-term model for addressing many root causes of food insecurity among Ethiopia's urban poor.

Click here to learn more about this program.

Supporting a new approach to investing in agriculture in Africa

By David Tardif-Douglin of DAI 

The USAID Africa Leadership Training and Capacity Building Program (AFRICA LEAD) program is designed to support the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) through individual and institutional capacity building.

USAID Africa LEAD

CAADP and the US government is committed to aligning its agriculture programming to this African-led approach to achieving more effective agriculture programs. CAADP seeks to replace the adhoc, poorly prioritized and under-resourced plans that have been characteristic of much of Africa with comprehensive, prioritized, evidence-based plans , subjected to extensive review by stakeholders and technical experts. In the past agriculture plans of many countries have too often looked like unstructured wish lists with little indication of priority, criticality and little evidence that data supported the value of the program. A key element of the CAADP process is to select the set of programs that is most likely to achieve the 6% annual growth rate in agriculture GDP in each country that has signed a CAADP Compact. Having all stakeholders, including non state actors (NSA) participating in development plans, program elaboration, implementation and monitoring and evaluation is another is another key aspect to this African-led approach.

AFRICA LEAD supports CAADP primarily by building institutional and individual capacity and expanding the number of agriculture leaders who are familiar with the principles, approach and goals of CAADP. It is providing leadership training sanctioned by the NEPAD Agency (also known at NPCA, the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency) to increase the number of people who can productively participate in CAADP Country Team deliberations on programming, implementation and measurement of program impact. The program is also identifing training programs that will help strengthen key technical skills associated with the main program areas that are to be included in CIPs - land and water management; market access; food supply, food security and hunger; and agricultural research. To date the program has trained nearly 200 participants in 40-hour training programs in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia , Rwanda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia. Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal and Mali.

Click here to learn more about this program.

Here are some of the issues FRAMEweb members are talking about:

Community-Based Enterprise - In Zambia, is 45% of animal fees and 15% of hunting concession fees sufficient incentive to sustain widespread participation in CBNRM?

Photo: Chris Mahoney, USAID/Zambia

In all countries where CK2C has facilitated CBNRM stocktaking assessments, the issue of sustainable, community-based enterprises (CBEs) has been raised as a challenge. Are the percentages mentioned above sufficient to fund a sustainable CBE? Has anyone conducted a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of community-based wildlife management? If the percentages are not sufficient, what should be done to rectify the situation? Should CBNRM stakeholders advocate for a higher share of benefits or should they concentrate on developing complementary CBEs or revenue streams? Click here to share your thoughts.


Participatory Mapping - Who has used participatory GIS for monitoring and evaluation of natural resource management?

The Global Water Initiative has been exploring applications of participatory orthophoto mapping (participatory mapping using a high resolution satellite photo as the base map) for planning of integrated water resource management interventions. We are beginning to use the technique as a means to collect data required for monitoring and evaluation. We originally created this website (http://www.mapeoamano.org/) as a technical resource for Global Water Initiative staff, but we have since revised the focus to (hopefully) facilitate dialog with a broader audience. Has anyone used participatory GIS (especially participatory orthophoto mapping) for monitoring and evaluation? I'm very interested in getting in touch, sharing ideas, and learning from others with experience in this area. Click here to respond to the question and add to the discussion.


CBNRM - How can we best harmonize or consolidate sector-based policy?

Many of the CBNRM stocktaking exercises have identified disjointed, sector-based policy as an impediment to improving and scaling up CBNRM. For example, in Malawi, wildlife management, forestry and fisheries policy all allow for different versions of CBNRM at the local level. The result is that one may find distinct and uncoordinated forest, wildlife and fishery management committees within the same village. Are there policy advocacy tools or roadmaps that can be applied and lead to CBNRM policy harmonization or consolidation in a reasonable amount of time? Click here to join the discussion.

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Expand your knowledge on wildlife conservation and management with these diverse resources.
 

Keith Moore/SANREM

Reconstructing Agricultural Production for Food Security in Haiti

This presentation by the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP) focuses on the ongoing project in Haiti, its participatory approach to empower Haitian citizens, and the research focus on conservation agriculture production systems (CAPS).

Learn more about the Haitian SANREM program here.


Global Fish Alliance (GFISH) Tackles Food Security

Courtesy of GFISH

For many impoverished countries, fish is the primary source of animal protein; however, as populations grow and demand for fish expands in the global market, many fish stocks are fished using irresponsible, unsustainable methods. In light of the link between fisheries and food security, G-FISH compiled fact sheets outlining the current state of fisheries in specific African countries that can be accessed at http://globalfishalliance.org/activities.html (scroll down and click Download Resources under FISH FOR FOOD SECURITY for individual fact sheets). Stay tuned, AED and GFISH will be working on fisheries and food security in Africa in the next year.

To see the fact sheet on the importance of capture fisheries for food security in Africa, click here.


Food Security and Wildlife Conservation in Africa: Addressing Hunger and Farming Issues to

Courtesy of Simon Milledge/TRAFFIC

Conserve Wildlife 

This set of presentations was taken from a meeting focused on the linkages between food security and biodiversity conservation; successful efforts to prevent poaching by addressing the hunger situation and farming practices of local communities; and the identification of areas for possible field level collaboration between the conservation community, agricultural and food security sectors and other stake holders in Africa.

Presentations include:

• The Linkages between Ecoagriculture and Food Security by Sara Scherr, Forest Trends/EcoAgriculture Partners
• Snares Versus Hoes: Why Food Security is Fundamental to Wildlife Conservation by Dale Lewis, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)- Zambia
• Food Security Challenges and the Bushmeat Crisis by Liz Bennett, WCS/ Bushmeat Crisis Task Force
• Current Initiatives to End Hunger and Improve Agricultural Extension in Africa by Charles Riemenschneider, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Click here to access the full set of presentations, including notes from the meeting.

Agriculture.imva.info

A Primer on Climate Change Adaptation

This Primer seeks to highlight the challenges facing the drylands in Sub-Saharan Africa with the projected impacts of climate change; including on ecosystems, water availability, and agriculture, and discusses the various practical adaptation measures including policies which will build the resilience of communities to climate change. These discussions will also look at the various related concepts of climate change, including climate variability, risks, adaptation etc; and also highlight case studies of viable adaptation measures adopted by dryland communities.
 
The Primer was developed by the Africa Drought Risk and Development Network (ADDN) for their 3rd African Drought Adaptation Forum. Please check out the ADDN community on FRAMEweb.

Click here to access the primer.

             Featured Member


FRAMEgram features a member in the newsletter who has been exceptionally active! This section will also give you a chance to learn more about other FRAMEweb members.

This Edition's Featured Member is...

 Gabriel Tucker* - 

I am a forester with interests in both US and European continuous-cover or uneven-aged forest management and also agroforestry, particularly in West Africa.  Recently, from 2004 to 2009, I managed agroforestry and natural resource management projects, as an Associate Peace Corps Director in Benin and Togo.

 

Near the end of my service in Togo, I helped organize a food security conference which brought together colleagues from throughout coastal West Africa.  It was very useful for sharing better management practices aimed at making agriculture more productive and sustainable as well as methods for enhancing many food-based small enterprises.  See links to the conference proceedings in both English and French.

 

I like Frame because it helps me to better stay up-to-date on development topics that are important to me and also to share information with other colleagues.

 

* To see Gabriel's profile, login at the prompt when you click his name.