Country Summary:
Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon
Our work in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Cameroon is part of a cluster of country programs in West Africa and Brazil. The WABRA cluster is developing horizontal learning and support linkages across these country programs and new multi country programs that leverage our combined expertise
Over 20 years’ supporting sustainable development in The Gambia and Senegal
Senegal – Gambia – Guinea Bissau- Cameroon Annual report 2017-18
United Purpose United Purpose is an international development charity with an innovative community led approach to delivering the Sustainable Development Goals and eradicating global poverty and inequality. We lift people up out of poverty by providing solutions to poverty that last. Our unique approach combines high quality intelligent development, disruptive innovation and enabling independence making us a powerful agent of change. Working with partner organisations, our projects improve livelihoods, reduce vulnerability and promote greater equality. To achieve this, we also influence policy, pioneer business partnerships and engage public support for our approach. Our Vision: A world where justice, dignity and respect prevail for all Our purpose: To tackle poverty and inequality, by enabling people to improve their lives for the longer term. Our way: Challenging a culture of dependency, providing practical local implementation of the sustainable development goals and placing communities in the leadership of innovative solutions. United Purpose The Gambia & Senegal P.O. Box 2164 Serrekunda The Gambia BP 25448, Dakar - Fann. Senegal Contact: Tel: +220 439 6071 / +221 770998898 email: tony.jansen@united-purpose.org Website: www.united-purpose.org Country Reports: https://issuu.com/concernuniversal
Funding Partners USAID DFID Gates Foundation AGRA Scaling Seeds & Technology Partnership (SSTP) European Union START Fund ECHO Big Lottery Fund Electric Aid Penny Appeal St James Place
United Purpose Senegal-Gambia-Guinea Bissau-Cameroon is a leading international development and humanitarian aid organization, specialising in Livelihoods, Resilience and strengthening local organisations to respond to their own needs. We work with local communities and Gambian, Senegalese, Cameroonian and Guinea Bissau organisations to understand and respond to needs with sustainable solutions that mobilise resources, innovation and enable independence.
Implementing Partners Senegal: ASAPID, CADP, USOFORAL, COPI, ADY, AMUKULEN, AZOHS, ESPOIR CASA, Justice et Developpement, KABONKETOOR , AGADA, RESOPP, URIS, ADG, UCSC, Practical Action, SBC4D, Jokalante, CRS, La Lumiere, RABEC, ADev; Gambia: WASDA, FFHC, AVISU, TARUD, NATC, Fangsoto, Fankaso, Nematulie, Hewal, SJFF, KART, PYDA, BeeCause, WIG; Cameroon: Mboscuda, NOWEFOR
United Purpose, 4th Floor, 14 Cathederal Rd, CARDIFF, WALES, CF11 9LJ, UK. Tel +44 (0)2920 220066. Registered as a Charity No: 272465
In 2017-18, we worked with 39 local partners, the Government, civil society and the private sector; Channelling around $1.5 million USD of
development aid to help over 566,000 people improve their lives.
Country Summary:
SENEGAMBIA & Camerooon
Welcome 2017–18 has been a year of solid program achievement through ‘intelligent development’ work in Senegal, Gambia and Cameroon. We reached the first year of our large four year national nutrition-oriented project in Gambia called Balu Tin Marino - addressing systemic drivers of high rates malnutrition in rural communities using a value chain approach to bio-fortified foods. This year UP is testing new crops varieties with high nutritional value, reinforcing existing utilisation of ‘super foods’ in the form of African leafy vegetables, and has seen promising signs of acceptance of a new method of whole grain millet milling by women target groups– all of which can greatly increase nutritional intake. We completed our 3.5 year USAID supported peace building project in the Fogni cross border region of Casamance with outstanding results relating to poverty reduction & the creation of social capital through joint livelihood projects and community resource management. This work will continue via our new EU supported project, ‘GoECO’, which will expand community driven forest management through supporting local solutions to environmental management and green job creation, via sub granting to local CSOs. Our approach to new innovation as an aid to poverty reduction continues with a pilot to test new access points to Talibe street children in Dakar, and the continued roll out of ICT tools for delivering information to and from rural communities via the social enterprise Jokalante whose development we are supporting. Jokalante reached a key milestone with 90% of their operational costs secured and we continue work with them on new applications of the ICT tools in development projects. Enabling independence is central to our approach. Key to this is long term partnerships and capacity building of civil society . This year we worked with 39 partner organisations to deliver our programs. Increasingly we are also adding tools for market based development, looking to enable sustainable changes to markets in favour of the poor. The region has not been without its challenges in this period. A slow onset emergency in the the north of Senegal following poor rains in 2017 has seen 700,000 people in need of assistance. In Cameroon, the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate seeing 30,000+ people displaced into Nigeria and spreading violence in Cameroon itself. All of this reinforces the relevance of the work we are and will continue doing but also the sometimes challenging reality on the ground.
Tony Jansen Country Director Gambia, Senegal & Guinea Bissau
We are guided by our experience of 25 years’ practical development in partnership with Gambian and Senegalese people and organisations to focus on these areas. They represent where we understand that we can help the most people in the most important ways. Improved agricultural productivity and farm incomes Intelligent development shapes what we do and how to do it. This approach guides our work with local partners to sustainably improve the livelihoods of our target beneficiaries - rurally based and ultra-poor subsistance farmers. In our livelihood work we help households transition from farming for subsistence to farming as a business and for others to exit farming into new livelihood opportunities. During 2017-18 we worked with farmers to increase productivity by introducing new crop varieties, better production methods and access to certified seeds, promoted off-farm production of bee keeping and processing and better management of forest fruits; we promoted alternative technologies to produce charcoal for cooking without cutting down trees and more; we helped youth to access jobs, through youth vocational training, helping young people develop business plans and access finance and extension services; and we strengthened market access through access to market price information. In Cameroon our work has enabled 776 croppers and 282 herders to come together to access new farming methods and new ways of f managing their livestock, increasing productivity and improving social cohesion. Using ICTs services, agriculture extension information now reaches most of Senegal via a network of community radio stations and a growing database of farmers who can be sent voice messages in local language, a service we are expanding into the Gambia. The result of the work we have done with our partners over the last year has enabled 73,051 people to have a sustainable increase in cash income, 59,367 people with increased yields, 66,383 people with a decrease in ‘hungry months’, 58,884 people with increased understanding of environmental issues and engaged in environmentally farming initiatives such as soil fertility and protection, environmental protection, reforestation and forest management and governance activities, 6,262 people that have established or strengthened their businesses, or who have received access to business inputs/ services and 1033 people with micro-finance loans issued for their enterprises, or who have been helped to access micro-finance from another provider.
Resilience Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Resilience building are cornerstones of United Purpose’s humanitarian work in Senegal and Gambia. In early 2017, UP started implementing a project on food and nutrition insecurity in the north and east of Sénégal, where over 7,000 people from 20 villages in the Regions of Tambacounda and Louga are supported with: three tranches of cash transfers; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions; and the distribution of certified seeds of beans, melon and hibiscus. Other interventions include: local livestock and small ruminants vaccination campaign; and an Early Warning Systems (EWS) pilot related to the identified risks in the zones of intervention. Other interventions in Senegal are directed towards the achievement of the Government of Senegal’s Plan d’Urgence pour la Sécurité Alimentaire (PUSA) 2018. This involves cash transfers to vulnerable communities in need of food (especially in the protracted lean season). In addition, four Prefectures (Tambacounda, Goudiry, Louga and Linguere) have been recently supported by UP DRR project to develop Contingency Plans for Food and Nutrition Insecurity and Climate Change Risk (Rainfall Deficit). In The Gambia, resilience activities for UP during the period have mostly been implemented through our first year of a nutrition-orientated bio-fortification project (locally named Balu-Tim-Maring-Ngo Project). The project’s aim is to reduce levels of micronutrient deficiencies of women and children in The Gambia through sustainable and integrated approaches to crop fortification of three main crops: African leafy vegetables (ALVs), Orange Flesh Sweet Potato (OFSP) and Pearl Millet. The project will also build the capacity through a ToT approach– training of trainers on nutrition which is being rolled out progressively to reach 300 mothers houses or groups, who will learn about nutrition through practical joint cooking and learning events in the village. In addition we worked to promote on farm biodiversity through the establishment of seed fairs and farmer seed networks.
Building Capacity We believe that strengthening civil society is vital to building sustainable & equitable societies. Building the capacity of local civil society organisations enhances and strengthens the ability of those organisations to fulfil their mandate, by providing much needed development support to their staff and advocating on their behalf to government. Capacity Building efforts in 2017–2018 highlights are: Our work with 154 women’s garden groups in Gambia (reaching 17,650 women) who received capacity building. Of these 65 garden groups conducted market analysis and developed production and business plans. Five Women’s Marketing Federations who these groups are members of, were trained on cooperative concepts and are currently in the process of jointly establishing a national APEX cooperative that will be the umbrella body for all vegetable producers in the country – the first time for such a membership based farmer structure in the Gambia. A market information system (MIS) is being developed with 2500 facilitators. 7 market price collectors are trained and are soon to start collecting weekly market prices of vegetables and send to the system to be accessed by the vegetable growers. In Casamance, 16 CSOs received the final year of 3 years of capacity building support. All now have basic M&E systems in place, 14 increased female participation in governance and 7 recruited more female staff, 11 have new strategic plans, and all are now developing regular quarter reports and plans and budgets. In Linguere and Tambacounda we worked with 20 communities to build their capacity in Disaster Risk Reduction and the ability to better connect with local authorities and services. This year, the capacity building of UP-supported social enterprise Jokalante focused on sampling and tools for M&E, business management and bid development.
Peace Building and conflict resolution Results Resilient lives
impact
472,571 people
Better Health
impact
88,797 people
Upholding Rights
impact
5,071 people
In total 566,439 people in Gambia, Senegal & Cameroon were directly assisted to improve their lives, with improved food security, better health, greater respect for rights, and decreased vulnerability.
We use a people to people peace building (P2P) approach (including relationship rebuilding and reconciliation), by bringing individuals and communities to work together on small community-led livelihood projects, via local organizations as sub grants, and through strengthened CSOs and CBOs, to address some of the common drivers of poverty in conflict impacted communities in Casamance, Senegal and cross border in Gambia. We have found this to simultaneously address poverty and rebuild community cohesion. Social capital is formed through everyday contact between people, and results in the forming social connections and networks based on trust, shared values, and compromise. The approach has proven highly effective in delivering tangible poverty reduction activities while contributing to resolution of conflicts and the capacity building of a strong civil society. One of the key impacts that the livelihoods project had in both Senegal and The Gambia was to strengthen community relations and inter-village linkages and thus create a more secure environment in which people could conduct their daily lives. We started new work this year through Action for the Respect of the Rights of the children (ARDEN) project to improve the wellbeing and skills of 100 street children (locally called Talibe) in Dakar, Senegal staying in Daraas. We aim to reduce the number of children begging in the street and improve their health, well being and future by working with Koranic teachers, health structures, the local authorities, a women’s group called “Ndeyou daras” to identify and address key issues faced by Talibes, raise awareness on children’s rights and to build children’s skills. In NW Cameroon we completed our work on promoting dialogue platforms – 54 are in operation - and strategic interventions to build social capital between herders and farming communities with alliance farming proving an excellent tool for conflict resolution. The work has expanded into a new project to scale up practical reconcilliation and we are working with partners to respond in practical ways to the crisis.