USAID GEEL Resilience Challenge Fund

Abstract

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment and Livelihoods (GEEL) Project launched market-driven resilience activities in Bay Region in 2019 with support from USAID’s Resilience Challenge Fund (RCF), working through the private sector, regulatory bodies, and other market actors to expand adoption of improved technologies and practices and increase access to finance and markets for smallholder farmers. The RCF Fiscal Year 2021 activities described in this report are intended primarily to inform USAID’s market systems resilience (MSR) approach for future activities in South Central Somalia. The activities build on ongoing GEEL activities in non-resilience regions of Somalia, Somaliland, and Puntland and were adapted to the vulnerable and conflict-affected context of Southwest State.
Through the RCF, GEEL worked to improve access to improved seeds, hermetic storage bags, private extension services, climate- and market-related information, and opportunities to access finance through village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) in Bay Region. GEEL worked to improve demand for grain and the availability of nutritious food by introducing milling technology and assessing the market for fortified grains. GEEL targeted vulnerable smallholder farmers, especially women and youth, to layer activities with humanitarian-funded safety nets at the household or community level to strengthen resilience. GEEL’s RCF activities are focused primarily on the grain market system, due to the importance of grain for vulnerable household sustenance and livelihoods. This report also addresses the livestock market system, due to the importance of livestock as the backbone of the region’s economy and an important source of food and income for vulnerable households.

USAID Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment & Livelihoods (GEEL) project