Nutrition Action Zimbabwe (NAZ) is in partnership with Action Against Hunger (ACF) and Africa Ahead (AA) in implementing the Community System Strengthening for Reducing Vulnerability, Restoring Economic Sustainability, and Improving Recovery from Covid-19 in Zimbabwe project, funded by USAID (BHA). The project has a total budget of $ 2,625,000.00 and is running for 15 months, having commenced on 15 July 2021 and ending on 15 October 2022. The project is being implemented in 3 districts i.e., Kariba rural (Mashonaland West Province), Gokwe North and Gokwe South (Midlands Province), targeting 8,900 households i.e., 130,000 individuals with WASH, Health, Food Security and Livelihoods activities.
The overall goal of the project is to respond to immediate humanitarian needs in Mashonaland West and Midlands Provinces as well as to contribute to the long-term, national strategy of empowering communities and strengthening their resilience to hazards in the future. This will be accomplished by building capacity of local and district-level existing systems and creating reliable internal networks and support systems. This goal aligns with the mission of the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance to save lives, alleviate human suffering, and reduce the impact of disasters by helping people in need become more self-reliant.
The specific objectives of the project are:
- Strengthen household purchasing power through access to income and markets.
- Mitigate against continued household level food insecurity through agricultural production support.
- Increase household safe access to water, hygiene, and sanitation services.
Africa Ahead is leading the WASH and Health component and NAZ is leading the Food Security & Livelihoods components, with both partners mainstreaming gender and protection as cross-cutting issues. The partners are implementing integrated recovery-oriented emergency assistance targeting HHs affected by multiple crises including drought and the COVID-19 outbreak in Midlands and Mashonaland West. the intervention will respond to immediate humanitarian needs and complement existing programs in the area while contributing towards long-term national goals, such as increasing agricultural outputs in the region, reducing opportunities for protection concerns, and improving existing leadership structures. The purpose of the activity is to address immediate humanitarian needs while strengthening existing community systems, and increase access to safe water, knowledge of practices to improve access to agricultural production, and resilience to economic, climatic, and health hazards within 15 months.
Under the Food Security and Livelihoods sector, Nutrition Action Zimbabwe is implementing Agriculture and Economic Recovery and Market Systems activities targeting a total of 4,700 households i.e., 23,500 individuals. Under agriculture the project targets to reach 3,000HHs (15,000 individuals) with training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), community gardens, indigenous chicken production and fish farming. For Economic Recovery and Market Systems the project targets to reach 1,700HHs (8,500 individuals) with temporary employment (cash and vouchers for work) and financial services (Village Savings and Lending). The project prioritizes targeting of women in all its interventions as they have been identified as being more vulnerable, thus, they are expected to make up at least 60% of project direct beneficiaries.