Improving Resilience through Livelihood and Diet Diversification

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

What is Resilience? Ability to: Withstand Cope Recover

Focus on Livelihoods and Nutrition 1.Advantages of Crop or Livelihood Diversification 2.Importance of Intra-Household Diet Diversity 3.Diversification in Action 4.Diversified Program Design for Risk Mitigation

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resilience needs a holistic approach

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