Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Ethiopia + 5 more

R4 Rural Resilience Initiative Quarterly Report, April - June 2019

Attachments

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The R4 Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) is a strategic partnership between Oxfam America (OA) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). R4 was initiated in 2011 to respond to the challenges faced by food insecure communities enduring increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters and other shocks. The program builds on the initial success of HARITA (Horn of Africa Risk Transfer for Adaptation), an integrated risk management framework developed by Oxfam America, the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), Ethiopian farmers and several other national and global partners. R4 refers to the four risk management strategies integrated in the project to strengthen farmers’ food and income security. The initiative combines improved natural resource management through asset creation or improved agricultural practices (risk reduction), microinsurance (risk transfer), increased investment, livelihoods diversification and microcredit (prudent risk taking), and savings (risk reserves).

The initiative is implemented in Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya and Zimbabwe reaching over 87,000 farmers, (benefitting around 545,000 people). In addition, nearly 6,000 non-R4 farmers have accessed insurance products developed by the R4 initiative, either delivered through non-WFP programmes or by paying their insurance premium fully in cash.

The second quarter of 2019 focused on the implementation of R4 activities in each of the six countries. In Senegal, implementation of the risk reduction and risk transfer component started in June, with 9,000 farmers participating in risk reduction activities. In Ethiopia, more than 25,000 farmers (42 percent women) enrolled for insurance in Amhara and Tigray regions. In Kenya, payout distribution took place in June with 5,612 farmers receiving an insurance compensation. Zimbabwe entered phase two of the project and 2,000 farmers participated in risk reduction activities during the quarter.

In Zambia, the CO conducted a survey to assess the 2017/18 payout distribution process and level of satisfaction among farmers. Results from the survey will be presented during the next Quarterly Report. In Malawi, the second quarter of 2019 marked the end of the implementation cycle for the 2018/19 season and the beginning of the 2019/20 season, where the country plans to cover 40,000 households with insurance.