Groundswell International selected as a Global Resilience Challenge winner
Groundswell International to receive up to $1m to tackle food and nutrition insecurity caused by climate-driven environmental shocks and chronic stresses in the Sahel region of Africa
Washington, DC – Groundswell International was recently selected by The Global Resilience Partnership as one of eight global teams that will receive funding to implement transformative resilience solutions to problems that threaten the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Groundswell participated in the Global Resilience Challenge, a multistage design competition that received nearly 500 initial applications to address the most difficult resilience challenges, and will now receive up to $1 million to implement its proposed solution in a way that can be scaled and adopted by others in the future.
“We are pleased and honored to have been selected as a winner of the Global Resilience Challenge, and look forward to the opportunity to implement the spread of innovative, viable solutions to the resilience crisis in West Africa’s Sahel region,” said Steve Brescia, Groundswell International’s Executive Director. “To do so we need to transition from business as usual and support the spread of agroecological farming. This can allow millions of families living with tremendous vulnerability to improve their soil fertility, food production, and resilience to climate change. We also need to strengthen the practice of agroecology with strategies that ensure a stronger role for women and improved gender equity, improved family nutrition, and effective citizen engagement to create enabling policies.”
The Challenge is the first project of the Global Resilience Partnership, a public-private initiative of The Rockefeller Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). With $160 million in contributions, the Partnership is committed to fostering resilience at scale and transform humanitarian and development assistance.
“In order to achieve our 2030 Global Goals, we must build resilient societies that can mitigate the impacts of climate change, and other inevitable challenges that threaten to erode development gains,” said Thomas Staal, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID. “These eight winners will bring us closer to achieving these goals by empowering the poorest communities on earth with the resources, tools and know-how to mitigate risks and foster growth.”
“We must better align humanitarian and development investments and thereby create a resilience dividend,” said Dr. Judith Rodin, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. “The eight winners of the Global Resilience Challenge demonstrated how we can create multiple wins for individuals and communities when problems are clearly understood and when solutions respond not only today’s realities, but build in flexibility to manage tomorrow’s unknowns.”
“These teams are looking at interconnected challenges--from water conservation to food security to climate change--and identifying holistic solutions that bring societies together to prepare for and overcome disruptions,” said Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Director-General of Sida. “By combining multiple sector resources and expertise with local knowledge and engagement, the ideas directly address the challenges and realities people are facing.”
The solution proposed by Groundswell focuses on building resilience of communities in the Sahel’s ecologically fragile dry lands, giving particular attention to women in the more vulnerable households. The team will help small-scalefarmers to experiment with agroecological innovations to increase climate-resilient food production and nutrition, while also regenerating soils and trees. By enhancing women’s access to credit, land, and water, the team will empower women farmers in the process. These efforts will be brought to scale by fostering intensive “farmer to farmer” learning and exchange between communities, linking up with district government development programs, and fostering more effective nationwide policies and programs to build resilience.
Peter Gubbels, Groundswell’s Director of Action Learning and Advocacy in West Africa, is the resilience team leader. “Groundswell and our local partners in Senegal, Mali and Burkina are very pleased to have been selected by the Global Resilience Partnership for this award,” said Peter. “We look forward to undertaking innovative and vital work to better integrate women’s empowerment and improved nutrition into ongoing agricultural work with rural communities in the drylands to strengthen their resilience and overcome food insecurity.”
Groundswell’s partners include Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD) of Burkina Faso, Sahel Eco of Mali, and Agrecol Afrique of Senegal.
About Groundswell International
Groundswell International is a non-profit organization that strengthens the power and potential of family farmers in Africa, the Americas and Asia to cultivate, grow and spread environmentally sound farming practices that work with nature, not against it. The result is people igniting local change to grow an abundance of healthy food, improve incomes, and revive landscapes so that communities – and ultimately entire nations – are better able to feed themselves today and well into the future. For more information on Groundswell International please visit groundswellinternational.org or follow us on Twitter @Groundswellint.
More information about the teams and details on the next stages of the Challenge can be found at www.globalresiliencepartnership.org.