Improving Resilience through Livelihood and Diet Diversification

1. Improving Resilience through Livelihood and Diet Diversification

2. What is Diversification? • Crop • Livelihoods • HH Diet Diversity • Financial • Implementer – diversification of program for mitigation of risk

3. What is Resilience? • Ability to: • Withstand • Cope • Recover

4. Focus on Livelihoods and Nutrition • Advantages of Crop or Livelihood Diversification • Importance of Intra-Household Diet Diversity • Diversification in Action • Diversified Program Design for Risk Mitigation

5. Advantages of Crop or Livelihood Diversification • Protects against total loss • Shocks in the market, diseases, natural disaster, etc • Provides multiple streams of income both long and short term • More steady income throughout the year • Provides diet diversity at household level • Education is a critical component

6. Challenges to Diversification • High risk investment • Vulnerable HH can be risk averse • Need short and long term activities to mitigate a risk (e.g. fruit trees take time to produce) • Support • Training • Inputs • Education on benefits of diversification

7. Importance of Household Dietary Diversification • Diet diversity • Micronutrients and Macronutrients • Reach growth potential • Less sick/Less days loss to illness • Higher average earned wages (e.g. Guatemala study Hoddinot et all., 2008) • Intra-household allocation of food

8. Importance of Household Dietary Diversification cont. • Recover faster/ or decline slower from a shock • Enter shock healthier, able to withstand deficits longer

9. Challenge of Diet Diversification • Access – due to increased costs decreasing diet diversity is often the first coping strategy (especially for women and small children due to intra household allocations) • Availability – decreases due to market disruptions, damage to storage, migration • Utilization – increased health risks associated with shocks which increase risk to malnutrition (e.g. diarrheal diseases increased from contaminated water)

10. Diversification in Action • Haiti Hope – 1 year OFDA earthquake response program • Refocused due to hurricane • Provided short cycle crops as a response to the bean crop being destroyed and not enough time left in growing season to replant beans

11. Diversification in Action cont . • Haiti MYAP • Encourage farmers to plant tubers during the hurricane season • Bangladesh MYAP • Working with research institute that is testing saline resistant rice • l

12. Diversified Program Design for Risk Mitigation • Planning during program design allows for flexibility and quick responses • Map out growing seasons compared to known factors such as lean season or hurricane season • Programming with short cycle, heat tolerant, drought resistant, saline crops will reduce risk during a shock

13. Diversified Program Design for Risk Mitigation • Programming crops for soil erosion (e.g. fruit trees, coffee, etc) • Agroforestry – prevention of deforestation • Need financial planning/saving options especially if only growing cash crops • Promotion of good nutrition and health

14. Diversified Program Design for Risk Mitigation • Storage and processing • Local or regional storage • Processing foods to be available for lean season or other shock

15. Diversified Program Design for Risk Mitigation • Short and long term nutrition interventions to mitigate risk • Social Safety Net • Pre-dosing • Pre-positioning of food stocks

16. Resilience needs a holistic approach

17. Since 1963 and in 145 countries, ACDI/VOCA has empowered people to succeed in the global economy.