During November and December Canadian Foodgrains Bank committed $4.7 million to 14 projects in 14 countries. The projects are briefly summarized below:
Bangladesh - $385,000 – Nazarene Compassionate Ministries is continuing to support Bangladesh Nazarene Mission with the second year of a five-year project to decrease malnutrition and improve food security for the lowest income households in 70 communities in Dinajpur and Thakurgaon districts (north) and Narail, Jessore and Satkhira districts (south). Over a period of five years, the project is aiming to increase the nutritional status, food diversity, and access to food for approximately 105,000 people. Project activities include training in health, nutrition, sanitation, and social awareness .
Ethiopia - $556,000 – Christian Reformed World Relief Committee is continuing to support Food for the Hungry Ethiopia with the second year of a three-year project. This project phase will provide food and care support for the physical and social development of 3,000 orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS. The focuses on four areas of support for children: food, education, health and psychosocial. This phase of the program will also include a focus on livelihood development for the care-giving families through small-scale income generating activities. Canadian Foodgrains Bank is supporting the food, health & income generating activities while Food for the Hungry U.S. is providing funding for the educational support. A total of 540 tonnes of wheat, 54 tonnes of lentils and 18 tonnes of oil will be supplied during this second year.
Guatemala - $65,000 – Presbyterian World Service & Development is supporting New Dawn Association for Health and Community Development with a one-month food distribution. The tropical depression in mid-October in the Guatemalan Highlands and departments of Sololá Escuintla and Suchitepequez in the Southern Coast caused landslides in the hills and floods in the lower basin areas. Homes have been swept away and considerable damage has been done to the infrastructure. The project is providing one month of food distributions for 855 families (4,275 individuals) in the affected areas . Fifty-one tonnes of maize, 7.7 tonnes of beans, 6.6 tonnes of incaparina (fortified cereal blend), 3.85 tonnes of oil, 2.2 tonnes of salt and 2.2 tonnes of sugar will be distributed.
Haiti - $351,000 – ADRA Canada (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) is supporting year two of an agriculture rehabilitation and development project for 600 beneficiaries in Petit Goave who were affected by the earthquake. Farming households are receiving seeds and training directed at improving soil quality, agriculture techniques and environment management to increase their crop yields. Seed banks are also being established. By the end of the project it is expected that farmers will have enough seed and have adopted new farming approaches that will provide them with more sustainable food security.
Indonesia - $289,000 – Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) Indonesia is working in the East Sumba region with a five-month drought response for 714 households in four villages. East Sumba has experienced back-to-back crop failures. The first crop failure in January 2011 was due to excessive rains. The second in May and June 2011 was due to drought conditions caused by the rainy season ending four months earlier than usual. The drought conditions were accompanied by an infestation of rats which exacerbated the crop failure. CRWRC Indonesia has targeted the villages Napu, Wunga, Mbatapuhu, and Kelamba. These villages are dependent on rain water for their crops, as there are virtually no irrigation systems. CRWRC’s planned response is to provide an emergency food package to all of the 714 families in the targeted villages for five months, as well as some agriculture inputs for the next planting season. The project will use 178 tonnes of rice, 29 tonnes of beans, 21 tonnes of oil, 7 tonnes of sugar, 2 tonnes of salt and 18 tonnes of maize seed. This project will be locally implemented by a Disaster Response Team from the Sumbanese Christian Church (GKS). CRWRC has partnered with the GKS for the last 12 years in Indonesia.
Kenya - $274,000 – Emergency Relief & Development Overseas is supporting PAOC Kenya with a five-month food assistance project in the areas of Namuroputh and Lokwatubwa in north western Turkana, near the borders of Uganda and southern Sudan. The people living in these areas are pastoralists and food insecure at the best of times. Soaring maize prices and the decline of the Kenya shilling is aggravating pastoralist food insecurity. Water is receding and what few grazing areas there are for livestock are drying up. Families are selling livestock at severely reduced prices and have reduced meals to one or less per day. Although the short rains in October and November were better, the current crisis is not over. This intervention will improve access to food for 6,066 individuals who are not currently receiving food assistance from the World Food Programme or other sources in the region. In addition to basic supplementary rations of maize, beans and oil, a ration of blended cereal is being distributed to help address the nutritional needs of children under 5 years of age, and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. All food will be distributed through a medical clinic. The project will use 267 tonnes of maize, 54.5 tonnes of split peas, 33 tonnes of corn soy blend and 13.5 tonnes of oil over the five months.
Malawi - $95,000 – Presbyterian World Service & Development is supporting the Blantyre Synod Health and Development Commission of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian with the second year of a three-year food security project. Rural households in the area around Lirangwe face chronic food insecurity as a result of many inter-related factors: a high dependence on rain fed agriculture, a high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, lack of access to improved farm inputs, environmental degradation, and poor access to quality education, among many others. The major goal of this three-year project is to improve household food security for vulnerable community members by diversifying and increasing sustainable staple crop production in nine villages. Conservation agriculture techniques will be introduced and promoted as a central focus of the project. A community based approach will be used, emphasizing locally available resources to help achieve sustainable results. The project will work with 500 food insecure households over the three years.
Mongolia - $171,000 – ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) Mongolia is supporting the second year of a four-year program to improve food security in one of the poorest and most remote urban capitals in the country, Bayan Ulgii Province. Food, housing, health care and transport are between 40-60 percent more expensive in Ulgii than elsewhere in Mongolia. Ulgii is one of the most populous urban centres in the country, has a low standard of living, and the second highest rate of unemployment. The project is helping 600 households improve their livelihoods by providing sustainable agriculture training and small business skill development; strengthening local agriculture by building better links between producers and consumers; and taking a food systems approach that incorporates collaborations between multiple stakeholders and then linking together all aspects of the food system.
Nepal - $249,000 – Mennonite Central Committee Canada is supporting Sansthagat Bikas Sanjal (SBS) and their four implementing partners with the second year of a three-year project that will address food insecurity by increasing production, consumption and access to markets in four districts of Nepal. Nepal is facing a dangerous combination of factors that is making its food security situation increasingly perilous: stagnation in food production, severe weather, 10 year civil war and ongoing political instability, and a food price and economic crisis. The objectives of this project are to increase food consumption of 1,490 vulnerable households (8,152 people) during the hungry season; to increase the annual yields and agricultural diversity of 1,490 households; to improve access to markets for 7,474 households; and to improve the capacity of the four implementing organizations.
Niger - $28,000 – Christian & Missionary Alliance will support Global Development Association with the third year of a three-year school feeding program in the village of Tagentassou in the Tillaberi region. Through this program they will increase the number of meals for 200 school children. They will also incorporate health and sanitation training for the students and parents to increase their health and hygiene awareness which should improve overall health and nutrition. The school feeding program will use 6.48 tonnes of rice, 2.97 tonnes of millet, 2.73 tonnes of vegetables, 2.16 tonnes of beans, 1.13 tonnes of sugar, 0.87 tonnes of oil and 0.18 tonnes of salt.
Pakistan - $530,000 (food component) – Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) is supporting the Interfaith League Against Poverty (ILAP) with Phase III of their response to the 2010 flooding in Nowshera District, Khyber Pakhthunkwa Province. The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was one of several provinces affected by intense flashfloods due to heavy rains in July 2010. This project phase provides half rations of food for 16,000 beneficiaries for six months and will distribute 480 tonnes of wheat flour, 240 tonnes of rice, 48 tonnes of lentils, 30 tonnes of oil, 18 tonnes of sugar, 4.75 tonnes of salt, and 2.4 tonnes of tea. In addition to this food support, 100 tonnes of wheat seed, basic hand tools, fertilizers, tractor rentals for rapid land preparation, and training of agriculture trainers are being provided.
Somalia - $860,000 – Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) is supporting World Concern with phase two of a food aid project in southern Somalia. The drought across southern Somalia, and food emergency in certain areas, have caused the migration of millions of people. World Concern will reach 16,800 drought-affected Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and host community families for a further 10 weeks in the communities of Dhobley and Diif. This free food distribution will be made to targeted recipients through a voucher system, utilizing supplies through local merchants. The project will distribute 350 tonnes of rice, 140 tonnes of wheat flour, 140 tonnes of beans, 42 tonnes of oil, 7 tonnes of salt and 21 tonnes of sugar.
South Sudan - $323,000 – Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) Sudan will improve vulnerable households’ food security in Yei River County in South Sudan by increasing the quality, yield and production of food supplies at the household level. A total of 1,940 farm families are expected to participate in the project over two years. Some participants are recent returnees to the area while others are long-term residents. In the first year, 820 families will work to increase their production of maize, sorghum and groundnuts while 160 families from a previous project (#2282) will focus on growing vegetables and marketing their surplus crops and vegetables in nearby markets. Training in basic crop growing techniques are an important component of the plan. These training sessions will then be followed up by one-on-one extension visits to provide further mentoring and accompaniment. Seeds will be provided free of charge, while basic hand tools will be cost-shared with participants. The intended outcome is households that are both self-sufficient in food and better able to withstand future shocks to their livelihoods.
Zambia - $522,000 – Canadian Lutheran World Relief is supporting Lutheran World Federation Zambia with the second year of Phase II of a food security project. In recent years, communities in the Chama District have been experiencing severe food shortages leading to hunger and malnutrition. The food shortages have been largely due to the occurrence of either droughts or floods that prevent people from harvesting enough food to meet nutritional requirements on a daily basis. The goal of this project is to contribute to sustainable food security for 2,500 vulnerable food insecure households in four wards of the Chama District. The project activities include building irrigation systems, training in sustainable livestock management, improving local food storage, and agriculture development and extension.