Resilience of the most vulnerable smallholders is enhanced, as part of a transformative COVID-19 response and recovery. This is done by incorporating COVID-19 sensitive and COVID-19 specific interventions to (i) safeguard the most vulnerable in rural and urban settings; (ii) promote transformative economic recovery; and (iii) build capacities and institutions for resilience through knowledge management of the lessons learned on COVID-19 stimulus measures and recovery plans for policy advocacy purposes; targeting social, economic, environmental and governance dimensions in Mali, Myanmar and Guatemala.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having devastating short- and long-term direct and indirect impacts on the lives and livelihoods of smallholders in rural, peri-urban and urban settings. Apart from the pandemic’s toll on human health, containment measures, particularly the restricted movement of people and goods, are resulting in a dramatic increase in poverty; undermining livelihoods and increasing food insecurity and malnutrition among most vulnerable population’s groups such as women (pregnant, lactating), children, indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities, to name some.

COVID-19 has underlined the need for a recovery effort that builds on a robust contextual understanding, focuses on building back better through risk and conflict-sensitive approaches that support a transition to more inclusive, resilient and sustainable economies and societies ahead of future pandemics, climate change and other threats. Recovery efforts need to be geared towards enabling countries and communities to recover and become more resilient through the implementation of comprehensive multi-risk management approaches across the food and agriculture systems; necessary to improve livelihoods’ resilience, including stepping in early to take action, to mitigate the impact of disasters as well as the cost of emergency response and reconstruction.

Resilience of the most vulnerable smallholders is enhanced, as part of a transformative COVID-19 response and recovery.

This is done by incorporating COVID-19 sensitive and COVID-19 specific interventions to (i) safeguard the most vulnerable in rural and urban settings; (ii) promote transformative economic recovery; and (iii) build capacities and institutions for resilience through knowledge management of the lessons learned on COVID-19 stimulus measures and recovery plans for policy advocacy purposes; targeting social, economic, environmental and governance dimensions in Mali, Myanmar and Guatemala..

The most vulnerable farmers’ and pastoralists’ livelihoods, with particular attention to women, youth, migrants, displaced people and indigenous peoples are protected and their capacities are promoted to enhance their resilience as part of a transformative COVID-19 recovery.

Mali

Farmers’ and pastoralists’ livelihoods of vulnerable rural households affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are protected and promoted, giving due attention to most vulnerable groups such as women and youth.

The subprogrmame aims to benefit a total of 4,200 young people, women and people with disabilities, who are active in the fields of agriculture and livestock and members of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and rural micro-enterprises (MER), in order to strengthen their resilience.

By September 2022, 700 vulnerable households living in the 54 villages of the communes of Bafoulabé and Mahina in Kayes region have received agricultural inputs (seeds and agricultural equipment) for market gardening, small ruminants and veterinary kits for fattening activities as well as a close monitoring of good agricultural practices in farmer field schools.

Myanmar

Most vulnerable rural women in Myanmar are empowered and trained to enhance their resilient livelihoods, lead community multi-hazard risk management and promote transformative COVID-19 economic recovery.

This is being planned through: 

• Improved agriculture productivity, availability, access and consumption of nutritious food and income for target most vulnerable women-headed households. 
• Increased Women Self Help Groups (WSHG)'s access to quality agriculture inputs, finance and market and their capacity to lead the improvement of Village Disaster Risk Management Plans to include preventive risk reduction measures and Anticipatory Actions. 
• Knowledge shared and policy brief developed to include women-targeted resilience building in the COVID-19 Economic Relief Plan (CERP) implementation. 

The achievements so far include the identification of local partners and consultation on scoop and modality of the intervention finalized by the preparation of letters of agreements.   

Guatemala

Vulnerable family farmers in the rural area of Guatemala (with particular emphasis in women and indigenous peoples) improve nutrition-sensitive and climate-adapted food production, access to liquidity and resilience to multiple risks as part of COVID-19 transformative recovery.

The first action in the implementation of the project was the design of an intervention strategy to work in rural communities, with organised groups that develop or carry out economic activities to generate income and were affected by the confinements decreed for the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The organised groups were composed especially by women and youth (73% of the identified groups are made up of women and the remaining 27% have mixed participation). 

The strategy proposed working with formal and informal organizations of producers in strengthening their infrastructure and productive capacity (increasing the performance of income-generating activities), in organizational strengthening (having stronger, better managed and more resilient organisations) , commercial and market strengthening (sell at a better price and increase the market position of income-generating products) and the provision of unconditional cash transfers to allow them to meet their immediate food needs and other basic needs, while the other actions strengthened productive income-generating activities); all this with the ultimate goal of improving the living conditions and income of families.

CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED

Based on the subprogramme activities and on the nature and significance of potential environmental and social impacts, the subprogramme is classified as medium risk, since; 

• Among the main beneficiaries there are women, youth, migrants and displaced people and indigenous peoples.

Lessons learned from the implementation include;

The collaboration among FAO in Mali and the Malian Association for the Protection of the Environment "STOP SAHEL", whom through a participatory approach that included the involvement of administrative authorities and municipalities, contributed to protecting the livelihoods of the most vulnerable farmers and herders in the circle of Bafoulabé with particular attention given to women, young people and people with disabilities.

In Guatemala among the lessons learned is the selection of informal groups led by women and young people, which has generated a work approach that is different from the traditional one, since they can become legally recognized structures, such as associations. Therefore, increasing the participation of women in these groups is important in order to give legitimacy and recognition to their work. These groups can become informal organizations for women to claim their rights, approach local governments in search of support or have more visibility with economic actors in the municipality and scale to the national level. 

However,

• The sub-programme promotes direct action to foster decent employment, fair treatment, non-discrimination and equal opportunity for all, workers whether women, youth, migrants, displaced people, and in particularly disadvantaged and vulnerable categories.
• The sub-programme has no or minimal potential negative environmental and/or social impacts, either upstream or downstream.
• The sub-programme will not be controversial in terms of the interests of key stakeholders.
• In the case of minimal impacts, the risk remains low because there are widely known and readily available good practices that will be used to address those impacts, and a track record that implementers of the sub-programme (e.g., farmers, fishermen) know how to apply and do engage in these good practices.