PROGRAMMING 15
of this process, Concern conducts extensive analyses of the key challenges and limitations communities face in achieving food and nutrition security and in protecting themselves from future risk. Because vulnerable groups rarely experience shocks and stresses as individual, isolated events, Concern adopts an integrated, holistic approach to resilience programming that focuses on five key pathways to enhancing existing community absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities: multisectoral initiatives to improve nutrition, strengthening of livelihoods and natural resource management, social protection, DRR and climate change adaptation approaches, and improved early response to early warning. Concern also recognizes the importance of an enabling environment in which “govern- ment policy and donor practice are aligned” (Concern Worldwide 2013) so as to support long-term development programming that builds resilience among vulnerable populations and can respond quickly to shocks. Concern’s approach to building resilience to food and
nutrition insecurity in the Sahel involves a longer-term perspective in order to address both chronic and acute malnutrition through multisector programming that combines agriculture, nutrition, education, social protec- tion, and health. Concern’s efforts to build resilience to food and nutrition crises in Niger strengthen community absorptive capacity by reducing risks associated with child malnutrition and increasing community capacity to deal with and recover quickly from such risks. Nutrition inter- ventions are maintained for at least three years (that is, the 1,000-day prenatal and early-childhood window of oppor- tunity). Interventions also address maternal undernutri- tion (including micronutrient deficiencies); breastfeeding behavior; access to clean water, improved sanitation, and hygiene; access to preventive child and maternal health services (for example, vaccinations; prenatal services; and treatment of malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, and AIDS); and education for women. In partnership with the World Bank and UNICEF,
Concern Worldwide uses cash transfers to promote hu- man capital for building absorptive and adaptive capacity by making transfers conditional upon exclusive breast- feeding for children under six months, hand washing, addressing diarrhea and dehydration, sleeping under mos- quito nets, using preventive health services, and increased
spacing between births. A 2011 survey of cash transfer programs conducted by the National Institute of Statistics of Niger suggested that nearly three-fourths of households surveyed used the money to build their absorptive and adaptive capacities: build savings, invest in productive capital, and improve food and nutrition security (Niang, Mistycki, and Fall 2012). To promote community adaptive capacity in its Niger
program, Concern promotes a diversified agroecological farming system that incorporates food production, farmer- managed natural regeneration of trees, and the raising of livestock. When these strategies were combined with water-harvesting techniques and soil conservation strate- gies, according to preliminary findings, not only did crop yields and household income increase, but water levels were elevated and degraded soils restored. Together, these adaptive strategies seem to enhance resilience to food shocks by improving farmers’ capacity to absorb and adapt to shocks in the future. Concern’s resilience programming in Niger aims to boost transformative capacity by helping to strengthen the government’s healthcare system in provid- ing child and maternal health services and by addressing cultural and gender constraints that limit child feeding and caring behaviors as well as women’s control over household resources and workload. Overall, Concern’s core programming to build com-
munity resilience in the Sahel and Horn of Africa focuses on integrating humanitarian and development activities in order to prevent and treat—as well as address the root causes of—acute malnutrition. It does so through a multi- sectoral approach including nutrition-sensitive agriculture, diversifying livelihoods and assets, child and maternal nutrition behaviors, healthcare access, water and sanitation, and governance capacities. Part of Concern’s approach to resilience programming in Kenya includes a comprehensive community-based early warning system that uses thresh- olds for certain indicators (such as rainfall) to trigger an emergency response (von Grebmer et al. 2013).
Welthungerhilfe Tough not designed as a resilience program per se, Welt-
hungerhilfe’s project in Haiti is a good example of how integrated programming that combines addressing the underlying root causes of food and nutrition insecurity
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