Funded by the World Food Programme, the Resilience Initiative project aims to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods for over 54,000 smallholder farmers vulnerable to climate-related shocks in Ethiopia by 2024. 

The proposed activities will be delivered in line with the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative results framework, with the overall goal of contributing to improved food security, nutrition and livelihoods of smallholder farmers vulnerable to climate-related shocks by 2024.  

The programme activities will focus on four components, focused around risk:  

1. Risk Reduction: Improved natural resource management and disaster risk reduction through asset rehabilitation and creation. 
2. Risk Transfer: Assist farmers in coping with, and recovering more quickly from, extreme climate events.  
3. Risk Retention: Strengthen financial literacy, savings capacity of food insecure households.    
4. Prudent Risk Taking: Enhanced access for smallholder famers to  to microloans, credit and technical assistance to diversify and increase their incomes. 

This will include: 

• Access to index insurance products, loans and fuel-efficient stoves,  
• Rehabilitation/creation of natural and physical community assets,  
• Establishment of committees for community maintenance of natural/physical assets, 
• Use of improved agricultural techniques to better face climate shocks 
• Organisation of Village Economy and Savings Associations  
• Market linkages 

Participants: 54,000 households  

Self Help Africa is part of a consortium working to  develop the SCOPE Insight tool for the Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) and SACCO Unions.

The project will scale up and standardise the SCOPE Insight tool to make it more relevant and applicable for SACCOs, given their  unique role of SACCOs in building local financial capital. These insights will help to inform the specialised training and coaching plans to support the professionalisation of the SACCO sector. 

Self Help Africa’s role in this consortium is to pilot the new SCOPE Insight tool with existing SACCO partners. The tool is being developed in partnership with SCOPE Insight, Nuru International, ICCO (part of Cordaid) and Glimmer of Hope.  

Once the tool has been developed and staff trained in its use, SHA will pilot it as a monitoring tool with existing partner RuSACCOs.  

The aim of this project is to alleviate deep-rooted poverty, and to  build sustainable livelihoods and strengthen community resilience by improving food security and nutrition for rural households vulnerable to food insecurity in 14 rural kebeles in Oda Bultum Woreda. 

The following issues will be addressed through the project, funded by Glimmer of Hope: 

• Low crop and livestock production and productivity  
• Limited access to markets and financial services 
• Poor nutrition 
• Unequal gender relations.  

Farmers participating  in the project will have access to high-quality agricultural inputs.  They will also have access to credit through the RuSACCOs which will allow them to invest in these inputs or in livestock such cows, goats, and poultry.  

Farmers also receive training in crop production, processing, and storage as well as the care and welfare of their livestock to ensure maximum productivity and income generation. This is to ensure the farmers make the most from their investment and can repay their loan. The repayments to the RuSACCOs and multipurpose cooperatives can then be used to support other farmers, creating a ‘revolving’ system which can be sustained long after the project closes. 

 Participants: 18,887 smallholder farmer households; 95,721 people in the Oda Bultum Integrated Community Development target area.