Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAAfrica)
Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
World Food Programme
FUNDING AGREEMENT BETWEEN GOVERNMENT OF BRAZIL, FAO AND WFP
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PAAfrica - Purchase from Africans for Africa:
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY................................................................................................................................ 1
SPECIFIC CHALLENGES TO BE ADDRESSED.................................................................... 3
PROGRAMME FRAMEWORK................................................................................................ 4
Programme objective.................................................................................................................. 4
Specific objectives...................................................................................................................... 4
Programme outputs .................................................................................................................... 4
Sustainability of the programme................................................................................................. 5
Support/technical partnerships.................................................................................................... 5
Monitoring and evaluation.......................................................................................................... 5
Communication and dissemination strategy ............................................................................... 6
SUMMARY
1
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAAfrica)
According to the Rural Poverty Report (International Fund for Agricultural
Development, 2011), the majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas −
approximately 70 percent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion people.
Rural poverty is particularly high in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly one-third
of the world’s extremely poor rural people live and where the numbers living in
poverty rose from 268 million to 306 million over the past decade. The region
presents by far the highest rates of rural poverty in the world. Increasingly
volatile food prices, the uncertainties and effects of climate change and natural
resource constraints have exacerbated and undermined efforts to reduce rural
poverty. Of the 925 million undernourished people in the world, 239 million live
in sub-Saharan countries1. Despite this, there has been a slight decline in
extreme poverty in rural parts of the region (from 65 to 62 percent) over the past
decade.
It is within this context and as a result of the commitment assumed by the
Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil during the Brazil−Africa
Dialogue on Food Security, Fighting Hunger and Rural Development (Brasilia,
May 2010) and Brazil’s experience of the Food Acquisition Programme (PAA),
that Brazil will support − through the General Coordination of International
Actions Against Hunger − five projects to promote public policies for
agricultural recovery, processing of agricultural products and direct purchase
from smallholders to provide to people faced with food and nutrition insecurity.
Five sub-Saharan African countries have been selected as programme partners,
representing the different regions of Africa: the Federal Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia, the Republic of Malawi, the Republic of Mozambique, the Republic of
the Niger and the Republic of Senegal.
The project methodology includes two different and complementary
implementation approaches. The first involves a diagnostic evaluation of the
productive and institutional capability of United Nations (UN) agencies, the
countries and smallholders’ associations, which will be strengthened in Ethiopia,
Malawi, Mozambique, the Niger and Senegal over three months. The main
objective of this is to support the UN agencies and the relevant governments in
strengthening their knowledge of local food purchase strategies.
The second phase includes the design of a strategy (four months) to strengthen
or implement a local food purchase programme for food assistance. This will be
based on short-term learning projects (small-scale interventions) that will last
one productive year. The monitoring and evaluation of these short-term projects
will be based on exchange of experiences among Brazil, African countries, UN
agencies and the PAAfrica. The implementation of these short-term projects will
be progressive: in phase one, they will be implemented in Ethiopia,
1
The State of Food Insecurity in the World, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food
Programme, 2010.
2
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAAfrica)
Mozambique and Senegal. In the first phase, the Niger and Malawi will be
involved in monitoring and evaluation. The small-scale projects will be
implemented in the Niger and Malawi following a second phase of fundraising.
SPECIFIC CHALLENGES TO BE ADDRESSED
The project partners need access to organized information and opportunities to
share their experiences of local food purchase. Knowledge of operational tools
(i.e. administrative and financial mechanisms) must be strengthened among the
involved governments, FAO and WFP for local food purchase interventions in
order to improve emergency operations and strengthen the resilience of local
populations.
Efforts must be made to strengthen the capacity of governments to formulate
action and partnership strategies in order to enhance local food purchase
programmes for emergency food assistance, food aid and agricultural recovery.
This will also help to improve the synergy between FAO and WFP in their
interventions and collaboration in their activities.
Emergency interventions can be best described in terms of a sequence of events,
or disaster cycle, with eight distinct phases that each require different actions:
prevention; preparedness; relief, when immediate humanitarian assistance is
needed; rehabilitation, when the first attempts are made to rebuild rural
livelihood systems; reconstruction, when destroyed infrastructure is replaced;
and sustainable recovery, when conditions return to normal. Local food
purchases linked to food assistance programmes (such as school feeding and
strategic food stocks) can reinforce strategies for all these phases and contribute
to improving the resilience of food and agriculture systems.
The recovery of local food markets is a vital aspect of livelihood rehabilitation
and food security. The restoration of local food markets is fundamental to the
transition from relief to recovery. Stronger local food markets (through local
food purchase programmes) combined with long-term policies can improve
emergency responses and help prevent future food crises as long-term local food
purchase programmes can be implemented through a twin-track approach
(emergency-structural).
The food purchase programme provides a new perspective on agricultural
promotion and food access interventions. The traditional emphasis on
technology transfer, aid and assistance initiatives is replaced with an effort to
secure the required social and institutional conditions to ensure that populations
at risk of food insecurity have access to quality food, generated through the
participation of smallholders in the market. This can be accomplished by
building on and strengthening existing institutions, production systems and local
community and social networks.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAAfrica)
The synergy between FAO and WFP activities (production and purchase) and
the expertise of both agencies in agricultural recovery and local food purchase
projects in Africa represent a strategic opportunity. The WFP P4P – a five-year
local food purchase programme – provides a good opportunity to exchange
lessons and experiences, particularly in the African countries in which the P4P
pilot is already being implemented. Ongoing work with farmers’ associations
and cooperatives under the P4P can be extended. This also represents a strategic
opportunity to exchange, with the United Nations (UN) and other African
governments, Brazil’s experience in implementing the PAA Programme – a
nine-year policy for local food purchase.
PROGRAMME FRAMEWORK
The long-term goal of the intervention is to promote HRAF by reducing the
social and nutritional vulnerability of poor, small-scale farmers and school
pupils in five African countries.
PROGRAMME OBJECTIVE
The objective of the programme is to contribute to the food security and income
generation of small-scale farmers by implementing local food (cereal and
legume) purchase initiatives that complement the work already being done by
WFP through P4P. WFP will be responsible for procuring surplus produce from
FAO-supported small-scale farmers’ organizations and its distribution to the
most vulnerable households.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
The specific objectives of the programme are to:
increase the agricultural production of small-scale farmers;
improve smallholder farmers’ and extension workers’ skills and
knowledge of food production and marketing;
link small-scale farmers’ associations (agriculture recovery projects) with
P4P;
improve and diversify diets through food aid and food assistance
programmes (school feeding, whenever possible); and
strengthen the knowledge of operational tools (administrative and
financial) among the involved governments, FAO and WFP in order to
implement local food purchase projects.
PROGRAMME OUTPUTS
The following section describes the main planned outputs of the programme.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAAfrica)
Output 1: Governments and international agencies have strengthened capacity
to formulate action and partnership strategies in order to enhance local food
purchase programmes for food emergency assistance, food aid and agricultural
recovery.
Output 2: Strengthen the productive capabilities of small-scale farmers’
associations selected to sell to the P4P.
Output 3: To improve or implement local food purchase programmes through
direct contracts with smallholder associations for dietary diversification in
school feeding programmes.
SUSTAINABILITY OF THE PROGRAMME
The programme activities will assist groups of farmers to become more involved
in producing and marketing food (cereals and legumes). Once established, the
farmers’ groups should be able to continue to produce with diminishing levels of
support. In addition, the project will build the capacity of government staff to
support and strengthen farmer-led production initiatives.
The programme will also strengthen links between FAO, WFP and international
agencies and financial institutions, governments, local stakeholders (farmers’
associations, cooperatives and social councils) to promote national ownership,
mobilization and sensitization at all levels to support local food purchases from
smallholders for food assistance as a development strategy.
SUPPORT/TECHNICAL PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships will be established with the Brazilian Ministry of Social
Development and Hunger Alleviation, a body with recognized experience in the
implementation of local food purchase programmes for food assistance, for
advice on the methodological design of project activities.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
The progress of project implementation will be verified through reports.
Meetings at the regional, district and community levels will be prepared to
review the progress of the project, share lessons and jointly plan forthcoming
project activities. Focal points in regional and district agriculture offices will be
appointed in each country by the Ministries of Agriculture.
Monitoring will be undertaken through workshops aimed at planning and
evaluating the activities, including budget execution schedules. The workshops
will be based on the Project Document and schedule of activities. Monitoring
results will be presented and discussed at a seminar focused on project
evaluation and strategic next steps.
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Food Programme
Promoting local food purchases for food assistance on the African continent
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAAfrica)
COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION STRATEGY
Two international seminars will be held to evaluate, monitor, set out next steps
and foster knowledge exchange with the participation of experts from the
Government of Brazil, the partner African countries, international organizations
and civil society.
Communication will be maintained through bulletins drawn from the
information provided by Project Managers and reports drafted by partner
countries. The bulletins will report on project activities, lessons and challenges.
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