LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results Established in 1945, Lutheran World Relief (LWR) has been serving impoverished communities for nearly 70 years. LWR s mission to end poverty, injustice and human suffering has remained constant throughout that time, as our global reach and technical expertise has expanded. LWR s established experience and strong relationships with communities in West Africa place us in a strong position in the region to respond quickly and effectively to climatedriven emergency situations. In collaboration with donors, local partners and communities, LWR bridges the delivery of humanitarian assistance with sustainable development approaches to respond to recurring drought and food crises in West Africa and lay the foundation for resilience. LWR s programming model emphasizes increased community resilience to frequent drought cycles and incorporates elements of natural resource management, improved access to credit and agricultural inputs, nutrition education, appropriate engagement with market and government actors, and behavior change. LWR has been working in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso since the 1970 s, supporting local farmers and farmers cooperatives in building more resilient agriculture production systems that can better withstand the increasing pressures of climate change. LWR S APPROACH TO RESILIENCE LWR believes strong local systems are central to unlocking the resources that ensure smallholder farmers effectively plan for their own resilience to climate shocks and stressors. LWR incorporates thorough, local, and contextuallybased analysis at the program design stage, and works with local partners to continually monitor, adapt and evaluate and learn about what s working. DEFINING RESILIENCE: AN LWR DIRECTIONAL GOAL SINCE 2009 BUILDING RESILIENT COMMUNITIES: People in communities experiencing poverty and marginalization will increase their ability to influence, respond, and adapt to changes in their environments, and recover from conflict and disaster more quickly. For LWR, resilience programming is not a technical solution nor a predetermined or prescriptive program model; resilience is an approach that is overlaid and integrated across our program work. LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results 1
INTEGRATING RESILIENCE, IN SUMMARY LWR s approach to building resilience can be summarized into three key phases and visualized as a conceptual framework. LWR has learned, however, that the process is not linear, but instead an iterative process in time that may take place at multiple levels. Is resilience a new concept? Not really for LWR. A well-done, fundamentally solid, participatory project design process will account for the resilience needs of a community, which is what LWR has been doing for decades. But the more recent emphasis on resilience in the light of increasingly severe climate shocks pushes us to sharpen our perspective when we work with partners during those processes, and to think even more intentionally about climate shock and coping scenarios, at the planning stage and throughout the project life cycle. The Hadin Kai farmers cooperative in the Tahoua region of Niger mobilizes its members to participate in land and water conservation activities, strengthening critical environmental capital for farmers. 1 ANALYZE PROBABLE SHOCKS AND CAPACITIES: Assess vulnerability and local context, then intentionally design for resilience results (strengthened absorptive, transformative, and/or adaptive capacity) CHARACTERISTICS: Comprehensive, participatory vulnerability assessment, including relevant key questions Clarification and prioritization of resilience to what? Analysis of current coping scenarios Targeting desired resilience results, or resilience capacities 1 strengthened absorptive, transformative and/or adaptive capacities within a rural agriculture community system Intentionally choosing project design elements and interventions aimed at resilience results Absorptive Capacity: the ability to cope with, and respond quickly, when exposed to shocks. LWR s experience finds absorptive capacity most frequently occurring at the individual, household, and community level, though sometimes extending to the larger system at a sub-regional, regional or national level. Transformative Capacity: the ability to move beyond chronic poverty and food insecurity through good governance and systems strengthening. Resilience results that are truly transformative tend to most often occur at the community or wider systems level, closely tied to community-based organizations such as a farmers cooperative, acting as an Engaged Social Change Agent. LWR s approach is to work through farmers cooperatives as a conduit for a systems approach, such as linking to governments and market systems, and thereby building transformative capacity while also influencing other capacities. Adaptive Capacity: the ability to respond proactively to changing environments to mitigate the impact of shocks. Like absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity most frequently occurs at the individual and household level, and sometimes at the community or systems level. But adaptive capacity reflects an attempt to pre-consider risks and plan in advance for them, whereas absorptive capacity is represented by a reactive handling of shocks. 1 Frankenberger, Tim et al, also drawn from previous sources: http://agrilinks.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/ftf%20learning_agenda_community_resilience_oct%202013.pdf LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results 2
Adamama Salifou, 50, is part of a group of women who are growing tree seedlings as part of LWR s Resilience Plus program with local partner Hadin Kai. The seedlings will be planted at the sites where cash-for-work participants have been working on trenching and terracing, and will further protect the soil from erosion. 2 ENGAGE SOCIAL CAPITAL: Mobilize social capital as a key means to strengthen all capitals: CHARACTERISTICS: Five Capitals Defined 2 Social Capital at the community level is essential Strong community networks, or Social Capital, must then mobilize together to become an active, action-oriented Engaged Social Change Agent in the community Social Capital as an Engaged Social Change Agent becomes a conduit a leader and facilitator for strengthening the other capitals Conditional Nature of the Five Capitals: The choice of project activities is purely conditional to, and based on, the results of the initial (and on-going) analytical process, strengthening the Five Capitals Integrated levels of intervention and change: Targeting communities, households and wider economic and ecological systems Social Capital: the stock of trust, mutual understanding, shared values, and socially held knowledge that facilitates the social coordination of economic activity. Human Capital: a stock of capabilities, which can yield a flow of services; these capabilities depend on knowledge, education, training and skills as well as useful behavioral habits, level of energy and physical and mental health. Environmental (Natural) Capital: stock existing naturally in a particular ecological system, which plays a part in an economically productive process, such as water, soil, air, forests, fisheries, etc. Physical Capital: non-natural, manufactured, or produced assets. Economic Capital: money, wealth, and other financial assets and financial value that allow for productive activities. Time/Maturity Continuum: The process of integrating resilience takes time and is an iterative process; likewise, as the nature of capacities and shocks change over time, resilience is not necessarily an end state but a status to continually assess and work towards. 2 http://catie.ac.cr/en/; LWR s agriculture program in Africa began conceptualizing its approach with an assets-based perspective, based on the 5 capitals, as a result of our collaboration with CATIE and the agriculture value chain impact assessment tool. The origins of the 5 capitals and asset-based approach date back to the late 1990 and 2000 s, via the sustainable livelihoods concept. Here are a few examples: Oxfam: http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/the-sustainable-livelihoods-handbook-an-asset-basedapproach-to-poverty-125989; FAO: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/lead/alive_toolkit/pages/pageb_livelihoods.html; Ian Scoones, IDS: http://www.ids.ac.uk/ publication/sustainable-rural-livelihoods-a-framework-for-analysis Mayunga, Joseph: Texas A&M: https://www.ehs.unu.edu/file/get/3761; 5 Capitals definitions used here are heavily adopted from Neva Goodwin, Tufts: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/15595/1/wp030007.pdf LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results 3
3 EVALUATE EMERGING SHOCKS AND CAPACITIES: Evaluate resilience results regularly, integrate lessons, and adjust designs. CHARACTERISTICS: Maximizing a well-designed, well-integrated M&E plan On-going monitoring and more frequent evaluative thinking Repetition of initial vulnerability assessments, coping scenarios and key questions Evaluation and learning as a way to adjust interventions throughout the project Looping back to project design Araga Danrani, 75, received improved millet seeds through LWR s Resilience Plus project in Niger. If not for this project, he said, I would have had to leave because of hunger. Mr. Danrani s local farmers cooperative was able to connect with improved seed banks, facilitate the seed distribution, and leverage the coop s social capital to promote the adoption of the seeds plus improved farming techniques. LWR S APPROACH TO RESILIENCE FOR THE SAHEL 1 ANALYZE PROBABLE 2 ENGAGE SOCIAL CAPITAL 3 SHOCKS AND CAPACITIES Assess Vulnerability and Local Context, then Intentionally Design for Resilience Results Mobilize Social Capital as a Key Means to Strengthen All Capitals EVALUATE EMERGING SHOCKS AND CAPACITIES Evaluate Resilience Results Regularly, Integrate Lessons and Adjust Designs ABSORPTIVE KEY QUESTIONS KEY QUESTIONS STRENGTHENED ABSORPTIVE TRANSFORMATIVE SOCIAL CAPITAL ENGAGED CHANGE AGENT STRENGTHENED TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTIVE STRENGTHENED ADAPTIVE TIME/MATURITY CONTINUUM SMALLHOLDER FARMING COMMUNITIES, HOUSEHOLDS & WIDER ECONOMIC SYSTEMS LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results 4
LWR S RESILIENCE PORTFOLIO 2004-2014 Although LWR has been working in the region since the 1970 s, our shift in programming approach around resilience can be traced back to a benchmark experience during the 2004-2006 drought in the Sahel. During this period, communities with which LWR had formerly worked (under a relief-to-development model) did not require the same level of relief as communities that had not previously worked with LWR. Because former project communities required less aid, LWR was able to dedicate resources to expanding its operational zone to places that had not received support in the past. It was at that time that LWR began to shift its development strategy as a lesson learned from its emergency response operations, to better incorporate resilience building strategies into its development projects. In the last 10 years, LWR has successfully refined its approach to both agricultural development and resiliencebased emergency response programming, with a more intensified focus on building the capacity of community organization partners who are best able to sustain the outcomes over time, and to support households to mitigate and adapt against further crisis. For example, cash-forwork approaches, which are managed by local farmers cooperatives, allow community members to earn immediate income to feed their families, while at the same time carrying out critical actions designed to restore assets and protect natural resources, such as land rehabilitation and smallscale water management construction. Similarly, communitymanaged seed distributions prevent households from depleting their savings to buy seed or being unable to plant crops, and improved varieties of seeds contribute to a longerterm objective of higher quality and volume of production. LWR S RESILIENCE SNAPSHOT 22 PROJECTS IN 3 COUNTRIES Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso Including 3 REGIONAL PROJECTS across all three countries, covering 10 DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL ZONES 6 DONOR PARTNERS: USAID/OFDA, FAO, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Margaret A Cargill Foundation, the ACT Alliance, and LWR s private donations. 14 LOCAL PARTNERS, the majority of which are farmers cooperatives or unions DOZENS OF COLLABORATION PARTNERS at the government, research, civil society and private sector level A total of $12,714,000 IN PROJECT FUNDS plus an additional $543,000 OF IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS A TOTAL BENEFICIARY POPULATION across all three countries of 827,506, consisting of 370,572 DIRECT and 456,934 INDIRECT BENEFICIARIES programs.lwr.org/resilience LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results 5
RESULTS FROM LWR S RESILIENCE PROGRAMMING Rakia Ibrahim (left), 55, participated in a cash for work program with LWR and local partner organization Union Nazari. The project, a component of an integrated resilience program responding to the severe drought in the region, incorporates soil and water conservation measures. Participants build stone terracing to minimize topsoil erosion, and dig shallow trenches that retain water. They will plant tree seedlings (grown by participants in another component of the project) behind each trench, which will further protect the soil as they grow. KEY FINDINGS FROM COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE FROM MORE THAN 20 LWR RESILIENCE PROGRAMS IMPLEMENTED SINCE 2004 INCLUDES: 1 Households respond to and replicate adaptive resilience behaviors based on what they see modeled by community groups. When LWR s point of intervention of strengthening the Engaged Social Capital of farmers cooperatives is successful, we regularly see complementary impact at the individual and household level for adaptive and absorptive capacities. 4 5 2 Evidence across projects also demonstrates that strong Social Capital, when mobilized and engaged, is most often a catalyst for the successful strengthening of the other capitals, due to community members trust in the organization and motivation to model and adopt behaviors the organization promotes. 6 3 Strong Social Capital with a clear intentionality around resilience also leverages wider local systems, such as partnerships and resources from the government, market and private sector, and academia and civil society. An Engaged Social Change Agent, such as farmers cooperative that has a strong leveraging and networking capacity, will eventually phase out LWR s support by establishing local safety nets. Communities begin to innovate independently of project activities, as social capital via farmers cooperatives becomes actively engaged around resilience needs. This innovative space is enabled by a flexible, iterative project design, monitoring system, and participatory vulnerability analysis. In many cases, projects are exceeding targets, and evaluations confirm that communities are doing more than we planned and doing it on their own. New phase assessments reveal that communities where LWR has worked previously in resilience programming, do not register with the same level of need in a crisis, compared with other communities where LWR or others have not been working. programs.lwr.org/resilience LWR AND RESILIENCE IN THE SAHEL: 2004-2014 Approach, Practice and Results 6