Best Practices in Identifying and Working with women-headed and other vulnerable families

As resources for development projects continue to shrink, deciding how to best use your limited
funds has become essential. One way to do this is to develop a criterion that determines who is going to benefit from your project. This exercise - called ‘targeting’ in development jargon – can help you ensure that the benefits of a development project are captured by those families that need them the most.

While the nature of your project defines who to target, us working in development tend to focus our efforts on the “very poor”. One again, we wouldn’t say that in a proposal, instead referring to these families as ‘vulnerable’, ‘food-insecure household (HHs)’, ‘resource-constrained’, ‘neglected HH’ etc. Regardless of how you call them, these are people – often farmers – that don’t have enough capacity or money to cover their basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, etc.).  Knowing their desires and aspirations, and involving them – in a meaningful way - in the design of your activities is key to quality programming and accountability.

There is little disagreement in development circles about the need to target those ‘most vulnerable’ families. More challenging is developing a criterion and the metrics to identify people in this group and measure the progress of your efforts in improving their lives. In other words, knowing which families could participate in your new activity about better barley planting techniques.

One of the benefits of being in based in the field – as opposed to DC, Geneva, or NY – is that you see firsthand how effective targeting can determine the fate of your program. In the past two years, I have accumulated a list of tips and suggestions on how to select and work with those families needing the most support.

Caveat: this is not an exhaustive list and I cannot take credit for most of the points below. In fact, many are core tenets of Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) techniques and similar approaches to program quality. Instead, this is an effort to share my own experience in putting those techniques and approaches into practices. 

• Triangulate information: When identifying vulnerable HHs, don’t rely solely on the information from the local community association or group. Walk around the village and ask individuals which are the most vulnerable families in the community (a Snowball technique helps do that). These are often located in marginalized areas of the village. 

• Use survey data: Ask local government agencies, other NGOs, or even your colleagues who may have worked in that community before, to give you the list of the most vulnerable HHs. Use it when analyzing your own findings. 

• Tailor project activities: Once identified, think about the project activities that are relevant to the situation of those vulnerable families and work with them when setting up demonstrations. Remember that these families often lack surplus labor/resources to spare, so be creative in the way you engage them. 

• Ensure group participation: The poorest of the poor are often neglected from social activities. In project groups (NRM, WASH, livestock groups etc.), ensure that vulnerable HHs are well-represented and participate actively in these platforms by promoting their involvement.

• Prioritize women-headed HH: Women-headed HHs are most likely to be food-insecure as they lack assets and labor to produce and trade enough products. Prioritize these HHs in your activities when relevant.  

• Identify and support early adopters: Find individuals from vulnerable HHs that understand the messages/practices well, and work with them to help the project disseminate the messages/practices to other HHs. 

• Work with both male and female: When working with women from these HHs, also try to incorporate men in the project activities. Ensuring that both men and women understand the key messages/practices increase the chances of behavior change. 

• “Seeing is believing”: Rely on ‘exposure visits’ and similar activities to persuade vulnerable HHs about the benefits of the messages/practices being promoted.

• Rely on pictorial information and practical exercises: The literacy levels of vulnerable HHs are often very low. Thus, when conducting training, use pictures, posters, didactic materials and hands-on exercises to promote messages/practices. 

• Always be on the look for new vulnerable families: Remember that ‘vulnerability’ is not static – there may be HHs in a community that becomes very vulnerable after a tragic event (sickness or death of family members, harvest fail, disease outbreak, etc.). Always be on the lookout for new vulnerable HHs needing critical support. 

Did is miss anything? Let me know. 

McGovern Remarks on Food Security

Below are some powerful remarks from Congressman Jim McGovern (a key player in the establishment USDA Food for Education program) who talk the floor to talk about the importance of mataining our commitments to international food security and agricultural development. Also, check out the recent NYTimes editorial on the food crisis, making a similar argument for investments in international ag.

M. Speaker.  At the end of January, the United Nations reported that the cost of basic food commodities – basic grains, vegetable oils, sugar – were at their highest levels since the UN created this index in 1990.

Two weeks ago, World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced that the Bank’s Food Price Index shows food prices are now 29% higher than they were a year ago.

Zoellick warned the G-20 to “put food first” when they next meet.   The World Bank estimates that these recent food price spikes have pushed about 44 million people into extreme poverty.  That’s under a dollar and twenty-five cents a day.

This is a global security crisis.

The lack of food security contributes to political instability – food was a primary reason people first took to the streets in Tunisia.  Food and poverty were right at the top of the list in the squares of Egypt, right next to the call for political freedom.

In 2007 to 2008, the last global food crisis, there were major food riots in nearly 40 countries.

In May 2008, my fellow Co-Chair of the House Hunger Caucus Congresswoman Emerson and I were briefed by the GAO about the lack of coordination and continuity in U.S. food and development programs.  We started calling for a comprehensive approach to address global hunger and food insecurity.

Under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Raj Shah, the U.S. government responded to that call – and over a two-year period of time initiated a comprehensive, government-wide approach to reduce global hunger and increase nutrition and food security.  Not because it feels good.  Not even because it’s the right and moral thing to do.  But because it’s in our national security and economic interests to make countries food secure, more productive, healthier and more stable.

This strategy is known as the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative.   It includes our bilateral programs and efforts with other governments and multilateral institutions.  To be successful, everyone has to pitch in.

Feed the Future is the signature program of the U.S. strategy.  It works with small farmers and governments to increase agricultural production and strengthen local and regional markets in order to reduce hunger and grow economies.

Other key elements include the McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program that brings kids to school and keeps them there by making sure they get at least one nutritious meal each day at school.  This program has proven to be especially effective at convincing families to send their daughters to school.

And finally, there is our Food for Peace Program, which provides food to millions of women, children and men caught in life-threatening situations brought on by natural disasters, war and internal conflict.  This program provides U.S.-grown commodities and locally purchased foods that literally keep people trying to survive the world’s most dangerous situations alive.

M. Speaker, I have never heard anyone say that they would like to see more hunger in the world – that they would like to see children too weak from hunger to be able to learn, or young girls forced to work long hours because they are no longer being fed at school.

But that’s what the budget cuts that passed the House one week ago would do.  The House cut $800 million out of the food aid budget and over 40 percent from Development Assistance, which is where Feed the Future is funded.

If these short-sighted and callous cuts are allowed to stand, we would literally be taking the food out of the mouths of over 2 million children.  We would be depriving over 18 million people the food that keeps them alive – in Haiti, Darfur, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Kenya and elsewhere.

We would be turning our backs on countries where we made commitments to help boost the production of their own small farmers so that they could finally free themselves of having to depend on U.S. and international food aid to feed their own people.

Enough, M. Speaker!  Enough!  This isn’t a question of charity.  It’s an issue of national security – of what happens when desperate people can’t find or afford food, and the anger that comes from people who see no future for their children except poverty and death.

I ask President Obama to stand up for his programs and fight for them.

I ask the White House to hold a Summit on hunger, nutrition and food security – both here in the U.S. and globally.

I ask the media to wake up and grasp the consequences of these short-sighted cuts.

I call upon my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to fund these programs so that they can be successful.  It really is a matter of life and death.

Funding Feed the Future Initiative:

www.feedthefuture.gov.

Funding for the Feed the Future Initiative has been cut by the folks in the hill.  The following excerpt comes from an excellent summary put together by U.S Global Leadership Coalition:

"Both House and Senate bills cut the $1.65 billion request for Feed the Future, but in different ways and in different amounts.  The Senate provides $1.3 billion, with $250 million channeled through a World Bank managed multi-country fund for which the Administration had proposed $408 million.  The House measure reduces this further to $1.15 billion, providing a direct appropriation to the multilateral fund of $150 million, with authority to transfer another $100 million from bilateral resources, at the President’s discretion".

After its formal announcement at the G-20 summit in which the Obama administration proposed 1.4 billion for Agricultural Development, funding for the initiative had been uncertain, specially under the current political climate.  Although FTF counted with bipartisan support, it seems that the program couldn't be isolated from other major cuts taking place across the federal board.

However, the important message continues laud and clear: this administration remains committed to international agriculture and food security programs. It's really up to other G-8 countries to fulfill their promises to provide $20 billion over the next three years towards agricultural development in impoverished countries. Most of that money is nowhere to be seen.