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BUREAU FOR DEVELOPMENT, DEMOCRACY, AND INNOVATION
LOCAL, FAITH, AND TRANSFORMATIVE PARTNERSHIPS HUB
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Locally Led Development Initiatives |
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MARCH 2022
 LOCAL WORKS PHOTO CONTEST WINNER: FLAVIO BORGES, USAID/TIMOR-LESTE "LOCAL WORKS TEAM INTERVIEWING YOUTH ON THE STREET IN THE LIQUICA MUNICIPALITY."
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THE GAMBIA: WOMEN GROWING GREAT THINGS |
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 PHOTO CREDIT: PEACE CORPS. “WE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD AND INCOME THAT IMPROVED OUR LIVLIHOOD TO SUPPORT OUR FAMILIES, PARTICULARLY EDUCATION, OF OUR CHILDREN WITHOUT STRUGGLING LIKE WE USED TO IN PAST YEARS.” -SITA HUMA COMMUNITY MEMBER
Sita Huma is a traditional cattle rearing and rice farming community located in the Jarra Central District in the Lower River Region of The Gambia. In the 2015 National Household Survey, the region was ranked as one of the two poorest regions. While the community normally has a bumper harvest of paddy rice, many households lack the nutritious fresh vegetables, fish, and meat needed to supplement vitamins and protein because they are too expensive.
To address the community’s food security needs and provide supplemental income to families, a Peace Corps The Gambia Volunteer worked with the community members via a Small Project Assistance grant, using just over $3,500 of USAID funds, to develop women farmers’ skills and knowledge on productive and sustainable garden practices. They also worked to improve nutrition in the village, and increase income generation opportunities through establishing a dedicated and protected garden space. The goal was to build a viable garden-based business unit in the community to strengthen a market-oriented local economy. The grant was finished in March 2020 and the garden transitioned to the community sustainability plan relying solely on local resources.
The Peace Corps The Gambia Post, using SPA program support funds, recently followed up on the project at the end of 2021 and discovered robust community ownership and utilization with empowered women at the helm. Community counterparts reported that from a single onion crop, women produced over 250 bags. Through a partnership with the Regional Women Marketing Federation in the Lower River Region, women each sold a bag of onions. Additionally, over 75 kgs of hot peppers were harvested and sold. One woman said, “If you have something like this and you encounter some hardship, you can just harvest from the garden and use it to help the family.” She recounted that as a result of selling her hot peppers from the garden, she “didn’t have any financial challenge last year.” Another woman shared, “I respect the garden because of the benefit I get from it. I have kids that are attending primary school…and I get their uniforms and their school fees from proceeds from the garden, bags and lunch all come from there.”
To ensure the sustainability of this success, the community opened a bank account specifically for the garden to ensure they are financially prepared in case there are future issues with the fence. They also created a garden fence committee that meets to discuss plans, fees, and concerns and is able to direct the rest of the community. Partnering with the women and using SPA funds to increase their productive resources and provide empowering knowledge and training has sparked a transformation of the community. As one woman concluded, “You will not find any woman here who looks malnourished. This garden has changed our lives very very much.” Watch this video to hear about the success of the grant project from the community directly.
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RWANDA: TRADING PLACES-- ENHANCING THE VALUE OF DOMESTIC WORK BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN |
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 PHOTO CREDIT: LAND O'LAKES VENTURE37. ONE OF THE COUPLES THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE TRADING PLACES EXERCISE
In Rwanda, Land O'Lakes Venture37 (Venture37) is working with agricultural cooperatives to address gender barriers and power dynamics that negatively affect women’s participation in cooperatives, both as members and leaders, and within their households. To empower both men and women through USAID's Cooperative Development Program (CDP), Venture37 hosted a Trading Places exercise as a transformative approach to training by encouraging husbands to experience firsthand the heavy domestic workload of their wives. For two days, 12 participants from three cooperatives swapped roles and recorded their progress using an Accountability Tracking Tool.
After participating in the exercise, couples were briefed and then asked, as a group, to conduct a baseline assessment of each household. They compared their tracking tools against the baseline and spoke to their individual experiences while trading places. Men shared a deeper recognition of their wives’ daily routine, while women had the time to rest and enjoy more free time during the day. Husbands also spent more time with their children and provided a positive influence on sharing responsibilities within the home.
One male participant, who is a member of a maize cooperative in Rwamagana District, shared: "I realized that women have a lot of work, usually when we come back from farming, men go to rest while the women keep being busy. Women are really heroes! I have really found that we don’t value their work enough.”
“Not only should we keep doing this work, but we shouldn’t even hide it. We should do all this in the open, and spark the curiosity of others, and tell them to try it, and just wait and see the benefits. Because we know how good it is for the home, and we know it’s the right thing to do," said another male participant, who is a member of a maize cooperative in Bugesera District.
Venture37 plans to continue gender mainstreaming activities with local cooperatives to normalize such behaviors, break down gender barriers, reinvent gender norms, and create more egalitarian environments at home and within cooperatives.
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 USAID/Paraguay has long been a champion of locally led development, supporting a range of activities that heavily emphasize direct local partnerships— an approach that isn’t limited to their Local Works program. One such example is their Inclusive Value Chains project, which seeks to increase inclusive and sustainable economic growth for vulnerable rural populations through value chains and market access, with a special focus on women. The program fosters leadership roles for women in managing their farms and in the sale of their products, increasing their families’ income.
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USAID POLICY UPDATES
- The Interaction community provided feedback on USAID’s new Local Capacity Development Policy. Read their blog post here.
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TOOLS, RESOURCES, AND CASE STUDIES
- A Paraguayan NGO set out to provide capacity development to committees of low-income women entrepreneurs. Though the NGO planned a package of support based on their own understanding of the committee's needs, the requirements of the CBLD-9 indicator triggered a reconsideration of their initial assumptions. The result? A demand-driven approach to capacity development that responded to the supported organizations' expressed priorities. Read the case study.
- Transitioning from an international to a local entity? Or know of an organization that is? The Stopping As Success (SAS+) consortium, funded by the USAID/LFT Hub, is offering accompaniment support for organizations and USAID Missions planning for or conducting an activity or program transition from an international to a local entity. SAS+ offers both long-term or discreet support, at no financial cost to organizations. If you are interested in working with the SAS+ team, learn more about how to partner with us.
- A blog on “Mobilizing Equitable Finance by Addressing Systemic Gender Bias” was posted on USAID MarketLinks as part of USAID’s Mobilizing Finance for Development webinar series.
- Through USAID CATALYZE and its Engines of Growth program, women-owned small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Western Balkans are connecting with business advisory services providers (BASPs) to help them identify appropriate financial products, connect with financing sources, and learn management and communication skills to help them prepare loan application documents. The program is creating a pool of high-quality and competitive BASPs that can assist women-owned SMEs to actively source and quickly close investment transactions, building a more competitive financial services environment. Read more about how the USAID-funded global blended finance program is improving women’s access to, and uptake of, external financing to enable business growth here.
- The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation conducted a study in 2020 to reassess their approach to Women’s Economic Empowerment. As a result, the Foundation has drafted a new WEE strategy that will promote the adoption, funding, and implementation of improved macro-level economic policy centered on the priorities and aspirations of African women, with a particular emphasis in East and West Africa. Read more about the approach in this blog post.
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PARTNERSHIPS
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RECORDINGS
- ICYMI: Banyan Global just posted a link to the recording and slide deck from their Women’s Economic Empowerment and Private Sector Engagement event in December.
- The World Bank launched the Women, Business and the Law 2022 report on March 1, 2022. It was live streamed here.
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VIDEOS
- In Paraguay, USAID is strengthening more than 100 farmer organizations to improve their performance. Watch this video.
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JOB OPPORTUNITIES
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Locally Led Development Initiatives are part of the Local, Faith, and Transformative Partnerships (LFT) Hub.
The LFT Hub focuses on strengthening USAID’s ability to partner with non-traditional and diverse actors including local, faith-based, and community organizations; schools and hospitals; minority-serving institutions; foundations; diaspora communities; cooperatives; and volunteer organizations. Learn more about how LFT is harnessing the power of partnerships through the following:
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