General Report
Ahead
of the continuous significant cut-off of alimentary and livelihoods supports to
refugees by international principal funders, AFID has initiated a
community-based programme called Community welfare circle in order to
contribute to palliate to growing issue. Under this programme, in 2025 AFID
partnered with RELIVE-I (Refugees’ enhanced livelihoods interventions for
veridical empowerment initiative) consortium whose main role is community
engagement. The programme is partially supported by Global whole-being fund and
implemented in an equitable partnership with community members.
The
core objective for this programme is to enable refugee households to respond to
the imminent food and economic crisis, and contribute to their self-reliance
through improvement of their income generating activities, participation in
community self-help groups, and their community resilience.
The
beneficiaries are provided with:
1.
Trainings,
mentorship and orientation (eco-friendly sustainable farming practices,
financial education, business coaching, budgeting and marketing
2.
Provision
of necessary resources such as tools, seeds and other agro-inputs
3.
Linking
beneficiaries to specialized service providers (money lenders, agro-input
suppliers, buyers and processors)
For
the first six months, the Community welfare circle programme managed to
implement the followings:
1.
120
smallholder farmers, unemployed youths aged 16-39 were provided with trainings
on eco-friendly sustainable farming practices, financial education, business
coaching, budgeting and marketing, manure making. Those already engaged in
income generating activity were given continuous mentorship and coaching to
enhance their skills and competences in risk mitigation and management, and
sustainability.
2.
30
youths/ smallholder farmers were given farming tools, seeds, seedlings, and
other agro-inputs such as hoe, sprayers, watering cans, after trainings and
capacity strengthening, and 5 cash to boost their existing business and install
new ventures.
3.
Two
forums to link our beneficiaries to potential service providers such as community
lending groups, maize buyers, agro-input (ecofriendly sustainable manure and
pesticide) processors)
While
implementing this programme, we have learned two important lessons including the
importance of human-centered approach and
sustainable interventions.
In human-centered approach, it is
therefore very important that programme implementation strategies consider the
active participation participants, that the interventions focus on the
individuals or communities in need, and that these should be tailored.
A gained participation of the
beneficiary communities is a won success of the programme: in engaging
beneficiary communities throughout the programme cycle (planning,
implementation, monitoring, and evaluation) the ownership and success for the
programme is guaranteed. In these first six months, the Community welfare
circle programme’ success is 100% based on the community engagement and active
partnership that we have built from the inception phase.
Interventions should be focused on
individuals and communities targeted: in prioritizing the needs,
priorities of the communities and individuals, the programmes are more
responsive and meaningfully contribute to beneficiaries’ self-reliance and
their communities’ resilience.
Interventions
should not be focused on group needs: the community welfare circle has been
designed to respond to specific needs of target individuals and communities.
The beneficiaries according to their economic history, sectorial preferences
and specializations.
Sustainable
interventions should lead vulnerable communities to diversification of income
sources and sustainable enterprise development as crucial for enhancing
resilience to shocks.