Food Security & Livelihood Sector – WATAN

Food Security & Livelihood Sector

SECTOR INTRODUCTION

Every individual has the right to a quality of living that is sufficient for ensuring their health and well-being. This covers the protection of one’s food and livelihood rights.

WATAN’s Food Security and Livelihoods (FSL) focuses on meeting the immediate, and lifesaving needs of conflict-affected populations and building their resilience as they recover from disasters.

Our FSL program is designed to address the root causes of food insecurity and to bring about sustainable poverty reduction and nutrition outcomes by improving community capacities and skills to reduce vulnerabilities due to conflict-induced shocks and promote long-term development for resilience.

SECTOR MISSION

Increase the number of Syrian families who are well-nourished, help them become productive and efficient families, in addition to ensuring a decent life for them.

Ensure food security and sustainable development by improving the lives of the most vulnerable through promoting the sustainable use of available resources, including equitable sharing, and sharing of benefits arising from implemented projects.

Focusing on people who aren’t able to produce enough food and income or do not have the means to obtain the minimum family requirements for an active and healthy life.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

WATAN analyzes the context and circumstances of livelihood vulnerability in both urgent situations and chronic crises. This analysis helps WATAN better comprehend vulnerability, wants, and preferences and is essential to the creation of comprehensive, integrated solutions that support long-lasting solutions.

WATAN’s Food Security and Livelihoods (FSL) Program are frequently delivered in conjunction with other sectors and vary substantially depending on the situation. They concentrate on three key areas:

During and soon after an emergency, ensuring access to food and the safeguarding of livelihoods, mostly through ready-to-eat rations, free bread, food baskets, cash support, and in-kind transfers.

Support affected households and communities in protecting household and livelihood systems, avert erosion of productive assets, and support households and communities in restoring productive assets. Securing livelihoods during the recovery phase by restoring and bolstering community and household resources, capacities, and methods through several unique agriculture, livestock, and irrigation projects

Increasing self-employment, paid work, and entrepreneurship in rural and urban areas to advance food security, and improve household resilience, such as (Small business grants, supporting food processing, creating job opportunities related to agriculture, livestock, and irrigation activities, and Cash for work) projects.

SECTOR HISTORY

The first project was initiated in 2012 by the Food Security Program, which resulted in the distribution of 3,800 food baskets in Homs, Hama, Aleppo, the Damascus rural and Deir Ezzor to help 22,400 beneficiaries. Due to successful implementation and urgent needs, WATAN worked in the same year to support bakeries and provide 210 tons of flour in Deir Ezzor with RAHMA International.

The program has expanded the focus to include more long-term results, from strategic crop cultivation, agricultural tools, and agricultural services to support livestock.

PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY AND
DIFFERENTIATORS

WATAN’s food security and livelihood program philosophy are grounded on addressing the multi-faceted challenges that communities face in the target areas, which meets HH’s immediate needs as a platform to subsequently nurture sustainable livelihoods, whilst concurrently strengthening communities’ resilience to multiple hazards.

Understanding of conflict dynamics and adopting Do No Harm principles. These approaches integrate gender and empowerment of women, men, girls, boys, the disabled, and the elderly to ensure equal access to opportunities and minimize harm via protection mainstreaming.

Achieve Food security for all people, at all times by access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Support all aspects of the targeted family’s well-being by addressing the underlying drivers of the family’s poverty, food/nutrition insecurity and vulnerability to climate and disaster risk.

Provides leadership to design and scale up interventions focus on empowering households and communities to graduate the poorest households out of extreme poverty by developing productive and resilient livelihoods enabling them to feed their families, care for and educate their children.

Develop FSL program achievements to activities that involve increasing skill levels and empowering communities to acquire diverse skills for more sustainability.

Promote livelihood strategies that protect, recover, and strengthen individuals’ and households’ abilities to earn a living. To prevent repeated displacement.

WATANS WORK IN THE FSL PROGRAM

People: Its dedicated staff, volunteers and partners are always working to provide nutritious food in hard-to-reach areas and promote lasting solutions under difficult security conditions.

Presence: Present in all provinces, and access to all areas affected by the Syrian crisis. WATAN has an unrivalled network, deep field presence, local knowledge, and great relationships, inside and outside Syria.

WATAN are equipping farmers and vulnerable individuals with skills, technologies and the start-up capital necessary for them to sustainably grow food and/or start income generating activities.

Long-term sustainable interventions: responding with impactful interventions, such as micro grants, support value chains projects (in both agricultural and livestock sectors), to achieve sustainable long-term outcomes that will continue to be a major focus of society.

Seeing the success of others in society will build awareness.

PROJECTS

  • Food security livelihoods work of WATAN foundation focuses on the following thematic areas:
    1. Food Assistance:

    1.1 Cash & Voucher: Cash for food, Voucher for food, and Multipurpose cash in those areas where markets are functional, and supply of food commodities is in place.

    1.2 In-Kind: Food basket, Ready to Eat Rations (RTERs), Bread distribution (free and subsidized), and bakery support on rehabilitations and inputs supply. Cooked meals delivered at the collective centers, open field and informal settlement of IDPs affected by the flood, storm and conflicts.

    1.3 Blended Modality (in kind and cash or in-kind and voucher, or voucher and cash).

     

    1. Agriculture:

    2.1 Supporting the value chains (wheat, olive, pistachio, fig, barley, legumes, and vegetable).

    2.2 Supporting inter-cropping agriculture systems that include small-medium farming activities and home gardening (considering diseases transmission and the need for irrigation for the proposed crops under this approach) in specific areas.

    2.3 Supporting the fodder crops cultivation to be linked with livestock recommended activities.

    2.4 Enhance the integration between agriculture and irrigation activities.

     

    1. Livestock

    3.1 Prevention of livestock epidemics through vaccinations (esp. Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD), Sheep Pox, Enterotoxaemia, FMD, (ND) Newcastle Disease) and treatment of internal & external parasites.

    3.2 Support local fodder manufacturing and provide livestock breeders with fodder, raw materials, related equipment, and technical extension.

    3.1 Livestock value chains with priority on smallholder dairy and poultry value chains with related extension services.

    3.4 Provide treatment for livestock to prevent epidemic and local diseases by the mobile clinics, improve the productivity and the genetic pool of dairy animals by improving access to livestock services such as (artificial insemination and fertility treatments).

    3.5 Capacity building, Para vet (technical training for vets) inside Syria, and awareness sessions for livestock breeders.

     

    1. Irrigation

    4.1 Rehabilitation of canals, wells, and pumps to sustain farming through cash for work and service providers.

    4.2 Supporting participatory irrigation.

    4.3 Support the solar system.

    4.4 Complementarity between rehabilitation of irrigation and agriculture assets and water harvesting.

    4.5 Consider climate change and water scarcity by using modern irrigation systems such as drip irrigation.

     

    1. Income Generation Activities (Livelihood related to agriculture, livestock, and irrigation)

    5.1 Income-generating activities such as:

    • Cash for work activities aiming at creating linkages and synergies among irrigation, harvesting, rehabilitation of the canal, flour mills, bakeries, and silos.
    • Small business grants that linkage with agriculture and livestock activities
    • Food processing activities target mainly female-headed households by the provision of small business grants to establish small to medium food processing workshops
    • Supporting food processing to producing Ferekeh, producing burgle, food, bread through domestic mud bakeries, pickles, jam, dry tomatoes, etc., and vegetable production by targeting mainly

    female-headed households, with the refreshment of local technical knowledge, connection the HHs with local markets and providing raw materials and tools.

    • Create job opportunities related to agriculture, livestock, and irrigation activities.
    • Support the existing businesses with survival support packages (market skills, Grants, rehabilitation, productive assets) to maintain their business and protect their productive assets.
    • Support more livelihood activities for camp residents to integrate them in the communities and decrease the number of dependent people in the camps.

    5.2. These livelihood activities support both host communities and IDPs.

DECLINE