October 2024 Issue Campaign - Global Washington

IN THIS ISSUE

Letter from our Executive Director
Issue Brief: The Methods our Members are Employing to Ensure Food Security
Organization Profile: Landesa
Goalmaker: Strength in Numbers: How Neena Joshi is Elevating Asia’s Women Farmers
Member Blogs
Welcome New Members
GlobalWA Community Events
Career Center
GlobalWA Events

Letter from our Executive Director

Elizabeth Stokely

As GlobalWA’s new Executive Director, I am very excited to introduce this month’s Issue Campaign on the inspiring interventions of our members in food security. I am energized by our members and their work, and am honored to be leading this wonderful organization and supporting our vibrant community.

Almost 30 percent of the world’s population, or 2.4 billion people, are moderately or severely food insecure. Though the world is off track to achieve SDG 2 – Zero Hunger by 2030, there has been progress. The agricultural finance solutions, climate resilient practices, new mobile platforms, and other innovations illustrated below in our Issue Brief hold promise as effective and sustainable models.

We had the pleasure of talking with Neena Joshi, Senior Vice President of Asia Programs at Heifer International, for our Goalmaker feature and learned about how cooperatives can accelerate progress for smallholder farmers. Landesa is our Organization Spotlight this month and highlights the direct relationship between land rights and food security.

Also, I look forward to meeting you at GlobalWA’s 15th Annual Goalmaker Conference. Our virtual day will be held on December 3 and our in-person day will be on December 4 at the Microsoft Conference Center. Be sure to register soon!

Elizabeth Stokely signature

Elizabeth Stokely,
Executive Director

Issue Brief

The Methods our Members are Employing to Ensure Food Security

By Joel Meyers

Photo of Tanzanian woman pouring harvested rice from her hands

Tanzanian woman pouring harvested rice from her hands. Photo: Ali Mkumbwa/UnSplash

Billions of people still lack access to nutritious, safe, and sufficient food. According to FAO, hunger and food insecurity trends are not yet moving in the right direction to end hunger and food insecurity (SDG Target 2.1) by 2030. Yet progress is being made across many countries, and different agricultural models and practices, growing awareness and practices for developing climate resiliency, and new agricultural finance tools and reforms are proving successful.

In this month’s Issue Brief, GlobalWA looks at how members are innovating, fine-tuning existing proven solutions and are moving the needle towards greater food security in the communities where they work.

The Hunger Project takes a very localized approach, developing skills and leaders from within the communities. They have three pillars to their approach:

Start with women: Studies show that when women are supported and empowered, all of society benefits.

Mobilize Communities: The Hunger Project provides trainings to build people’s capacities, leadership, and confidence, and envision their future and take action.

Engage Local Government: The Hunger Project works in partnership with local government bodies to ensure that they are effective, include the leadership of women, are directly accountable to local people, and provide access to resources and information.

Key to the success of their efforts is ensuring a mindset shift from “I can’t” to “I can” to “We can.” They achieve this through their VCA, or “Vision, Commitment & Action,” workshops where villagers are guided to envision the future they want, outline the steps to accomplishing their vision, and commit to the actions needed.

This formula has proven successful, having reached an estimated 12.4 million people in 9,500 partner communities in 1,200 project sites.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation logo

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a keen eye on climate change and climate adaptation when it comes to food systems and food security. The Gates Foundation recognizes that smallholder farmers are the ones feeling the largest impact of climate change and has committed $1.4 billion to help meet climate adaptation needs. More than 2 billion people depend on smallholder farms for food and income, yet less than 2% of global climate finance is devoted to helping these farms adapt to climate change. The funded projects focus on smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia with the main goals to build resilience and food security.

One such project is in partnership with Institute of Crop Science at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) which focuses on strengthening rice seed systems in West African countries. The project goals are to emphasize the integration of breeding, production, and extension to help more smallholder farmers meet the challenges posed by climate change. The project team works with Chinese and African breeding experts to breed new rice varieties, including customizing the Green Super Rice (GSR) varieties that can produce high yields even under extreme climate conditions to suit local environments.

The results have been very promising. Through four demonstrations sites during 2022’s dry season, and local farms in Mali, these new rice varieties created on average 30-50% higher yields. Hybrid rice seed production trials have also been successful in these local environments.

Opportunity International believes, and has aptly proven, that with financial solutions and training, people living in poverty become empowered to transform their lives and their communities. Their services focus on microenterprise, working with financial institutions to cater to communities’ needs and situations, training to build agriculture and business acumen, programs and training to enhance education opportunities, and building individual and community leadership.

Their Agriculture Finance (AgFinance) arm focuses on smallholder farmers – especially women – and addresses the issues of low crop yields, lack of available finance, lack of business training, and climate change.

Core to their AgFinance work are Farmer Support Agents, or FSAs, who are farmers, community leaders, and agents of change who connect directly with fellow farmers to help them access finance, improve their farms, and increase their incomes. They are digitally equipped with a smartphone and taught to use a data collection tool and training content.

FSAs provide fellow farmers with training on business, finance, agriculture practices, and group dynamics. These farmer groups also have access to support for information on distribution, markets, and a network of farmers to learn from.

FSAs teach farmers on how to produce higher yield crops and climate resilience, such as regenerative agriculture practices including minimizing soil disturbance, maximizing crop diversity, keeping the soil covered, maintaining a living root year-round and integrating livestock.

Mercy Corps, similar to Opportunity International, holistically examines smallholder farmers’ needs with an agricultural finance (AgriFin) and localized lens, creating customized approaches. They employ a market facilitation model to drive collaboration and innovation for smallholder agriculture between financial institutions, mobile networks, educators, tech start-ups & government.

Through their research and human centered design approach, they apply various tools, training including digital literacy, technologies, and partner-created innovations to create highly tailored bundled solutions.

Mercy Corps has invested in digital technologies extensively as they believe through digital literacy and useful technology, farmers can gain direct access to a range of inclusive and empowering financial information, platforms, and market access services. They start simply and as digital literacy increases with the farmers, sequentiall add more complex products.

One example of a tech innovation that has proved its usefulness and viability, is AgriPay, Zambia’s first digital banking platform for farmers. Partnering with ZANACO, the largest bank by customer size in Zambia, AgriPay is a mobile-based platform that provides a holistic suite of financial services designed for smallholder farmers. The platform is designed to be gender-inclusive to ensure the product was suitable for women as well as men. Read a case study here.

Food security for World Vision involves not only providing immediate and reliable hunger relief but also training on long-term agriculture and market solutions.

When there are conflict or natural disaster emergencies, or when poverty or circumstance occludes access to proper nutrition and adequate calories, World Vision will employ one or more mitigating programs such as emergency food rations, cash transfers, food vouchers, school feeding programs, and nutritional supplements focused on babies and those with severe illness.

For more sustainable and climate resilient solutions, World Vision provides training on agriculture and farming practices, improved seed access and cultivation, soil and water management, market access, nutrition, and dietary diversity.

World Vision’s various programs assist over 100 million people across 100 countries, and one USAID-funded program World Vision leads is ENSURE which improved lives of more than 215,000 in Zimbabwe. ENSURE — Enhancing Nutrition, Stepping Up Resilience and Enterprise — targeted six districts across Manicaland and Masvingo provinces and worked in partnership with the government, local leaders, and other nongovernmental organizations to improve food security and livelihoods through agriculture and economic empowerment programs, improving health through nutrition programs, and improving natural resource management through environmental stewardship programs. Key among the community resilience interventions are small-dams, small-scale irrigation schemes, and community gardens.

Many lessons were learned throughout this program with potential for wider applications in other similar agro-ecological zones in Zimbabwe and other countries highly vulnerable to climate shocks and and disruption:

The need for shifting the paradigm in agricultural development to reduce dependency on rainfed agriculture and monocropping.
The transformative power of small-scale irrigation schemes for building the resilience of smallholder farmers.
The garden is also a platform for sharing knowledge, innovation, and practices.
Gender equality has brought fundamental economic and social change in the community, which has been a game changer.
Strengthening community-owned institutions and linkages with local government and authorities.
Sustainability of community assets when ENSURE ends: The overwhelming response among interviewed farmers and community leaders was that they will sustain the assets they have created after ENSURE ends.

Read more about ENSURE here.

Grow Further takes a more fundamental approach to food security: agricultural innovation. They connect Indvidual donors, scientists, and farmers to incubate ideas and innovations to produce more nutritious, profitable, and climate-change ready crops and livestock.

There is a gap in funding models between scientists in low- and middle-income countries and granting agencies that can provide the necessary funding. Grow Further fills this gap with their process and platform which allows connectivity between individual funders who care about food security and the scientists developing agricultural innovations, with the end-goal to accelerate the development of agricultural innovation for the benefit of smallholder farmers.

One such project is enhancing Bambara groundnut production, adoption, and utilization for food security and increased income among smallholder farmers in northern Ghana. Bambara groundnuts are a highly nutritious bean which can be processed into oil, flour, and milk. The challenge is that yields are low and there has been little scientific research on increasing yields or producing varieties, and it has not yet been commercialized for wider distribution.

Grow Further will provide a grant over 3 years to cover all research and development costs associated with the project. The grantee is the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (CSIR-SARI), a public scientific research institution in Tamale, Ghana with key partners of Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Ghana, agricultural extension services; Seed Producers Association of Ghana for seed production; Heritage Seed Company LTD for seed production; and Rural Agrihub and WhatIf Foods for purchasing and processing of Bambara groundnuts.

By working closely with women farmers and other stakeholders, the project’s goal is to understand the agronomy and economics of Bambara groundnut production, particularly which traits are most desired, and breed the first commercial variety accordingly. It will develop innovation platforms that link research and development with agricultural extension (e.g., through on-farm trials). It will also conduct trials to develop recommended management practices (especially plant spacing, fertilizer, and weed control) and work with the private sector to develop seed production systems and markets.

The project aims to develop the first variety of Bambara groundnut in 3 years and release it commercially in the 4th year. Not only is Grow Further providing the grant to cover research and development costs, they will also provide capacity building, particularly around monitoring and evaluation and marketing and communications.

As you have read above, GlobalWA members are applying conscientious, holistic strategies, new innovative techniques and technologies, and are creating strategic partnerships to help ensure food security not only for their constituent communities, but as examples for the rest of the world to learn from.

The following member organization have issued summary statements about their food security work in communities where they work, followed by a list of Pangea Grant Partners who work on food security.

Global Communities

Global Communities works at the intersection of sustainable development and humanitarian assistance to deliver emergency food aid, support climate-resilient agricultural practices, and promote healthy diets in communities affected by crises, hunger and malnutrition. In Gaza, for example, where more than 2 million people — 96% of the conflict-affected population — face high levels of acute food insecurity, we have partnered with the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Central Kitchen and other stakeholders to distribute food parcels, bread, hot meals and nutrient supplements. In Central America’s Dry Corridor, our Honduras Agricultural System Support (HASS) program teaches sustainable, climate-smart farming practices and strengthens the resilience of local households to withstand extreme weather events, such as prolonged droughts. In Central America, Madagascar and Tanzania, our integrated McGovern-Dole Food for Education Programs offer daily nutritious school meals to more than 1,000,000 students. These programs also support local farmers, link them with schools, and utilize school gardens to promote nutrient-rich, diverse diets. In Ethiopia, which is experiencing one of the longest droughts on record, our Resilience in Pastoral Areas program enhances pastoral and agro-pastoral production, promotes optimal rangeland management for sustainable livestock farming, and leverages behavior change communication strategies to foster positive nutrition behaviors. And in Tanzania, Global Communities is piloting the “Women Forward” framework, which assists women smallholder farmers in climate-resilient food production and the development of market-based agricultural enterprises that enable them to sell certified, drought-tolerant maize and bean seeds.

Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is honored to work with nearly 4 million people in our many food security programs – which are absolutely crucial as global hunger and food prices remain high.

Conflict, extreme weather, and economic shocks—including fallout from the COVID 19 pandemic—continue to be the main drivers of food insecurity globally. Many of these events are interconnected, creating a cycle of unfavorable conditions that can be broken.

Mercy Corps works with communities, local organizations, and authorities to identify the root causes of food insecurity and malnutrition. We use this knowledge to develop comprehensive and inclusive programming aimed at improving nutrition and achieving food security.

We don’t just improve people’s access to nutritious food—we also address the underlying issues that keep people from accessing it and making healthy use of it in the first place. When we include food security and nutrition as part of our programming, whether it’s dealing with conflict, climate change, or another issue, we create enabling conditions for people to strengthen their foundation of well-being.

Pygmy Survival Alliance

Years ago, when Gasinzigwa, the Batwa chief of Bwiza Village, was asked why they no longer sang and danced, he said, “Because we are hungry.” Years later, his grown son, Jean Marie, explained.

“If someone is born in the wild, it seems like they are locked in a cage. You are desperate and dying … You are eaten by snakes and wild foxes. To be rejected by the rain and the sun… The feeling is not at all easy … You cannot change the grief caused by the history of hunger that was very severe. But we bear it.”

These testimonies, our population surveys, and the finding of 57% stunting of young children, relative to WHO standards, convinced Pygmy Survival Alliance to make food security job #1. Sometimes food is medicine, too.

Our toolkit for SDG2 includes improved agriculture, including arable land, tools, seeds, fertilizer, terraces and kitchen gardens; improved livestock, including goats and rabbits; and improved nutrition including vitamins and deworming for children, porridge and eggs in early childhood, and breastfeeding and nutritional education for families.

Before we started, more than half the babies died before age 5. Today, most survive, and for most people, constant hunger is just a painful memory.

The Hunger Project

The Hunger Project (THP) is dedicated to promoting sustainable food security by mobilizing communities to build resilience and long-term self-reliance. By addressing the root causes of hunger, local communities implement solutions that lead to lasting change. At the heart of our approach is the promotion of women’s leadership, recognizing that women play a critical role in food security and community development. We work closely with grassroots communities to mobilize local action, ensuring that solutions are adapted to the specific needs of each area, making them more effective and sustainable.

Through our programs, we support small shareholder farmers in sustainable agricultural practices that improve crop yields, restore soil fertility and enhance local food systems. Rural communities work with both climate-smart technologies and Indigenous knowledge to adapt to environmental changes and ensure consistent food production. Traditional knowledge and indigenous practices are preserved and promoted, as they are vital to combating malnutrition and supporting biodiversity.

Our holistic approach integrates gender equality, grassroots leadership and collaboration with local governments, creating robust food systems that thrive over time. By mobilizing individuals to take charge of their own development and fostering locally driven solutions, we believe that people can build resilient, self-reliant communities that are better equipped to achieve long-term food security for future generations.

World Concern

Due to the threat of climate change, inflation, population growth, and water scarcity, many around the world lack access to healthy, local, and nourishing food. At World Concern, we adopt a holistic, integrated approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of various factors influencing access to nutritious food. We focus on the provision of immediate food aid, but also on sustainable agricultural practices, nutrition education, and community engagement. We implement food security programs in ten countries worldwide: Bangladesh, Chad, DRC, Haiti, Kenya, Laos, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda. World Concern partners with communities to increase households’ food production, farm income, and environmental conservation. Additionally, our projects support livestock related interventions, such as administering vaccines, improving breed selection, and distributing livestock, to improve families’ financial and food security. Our facilitators work with rural farmers to increase their market access for their crops, livestock, and agronomy products. Increasing opportunities for local food production and market access offers sustainable ways for families to produce nutritious food for the long-term. Through these various activities, we aim to create lasting change and witness the transformation of improved health and livelihoods for the communities we serve.

Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation

The Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation (YRRF) is combating child malnutrition across Yemen, where years of conflict, economic hardship, and climate extremes have triggered acute food shortages. Over 17 million Yemenis face daily hunger, and children are especially vulnerable, with many suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM). We focus on the country’s hardest-hit regions, offering specialized nutritional care, including high-protein formulas and extended follow-up to promote recovery and reduce relapse rates. Additionally, we educate parents on proper feeding practices, enabling them to support their children’s long-term health and development.

Our community-based approach builds trust and ensures life-saving aid reaches those who need it most. Since the start of this year, we have reached over 2,600 children across remote, underserved areas where food and medical resources are scarce, yet the need remains immense. With your support, we can expand our programs to reach even more children, restoring health and hope in Yemen’s most vulnerable communities. Join us in creating a brighter, hunger-free future at yemenfoundation.org. Each contribution helps move us closer to a world where no Yemeni child suffers from hunger.

Pangea Grant Partners

Ewang’an Olosho Le Suswa (Ewang’an), Kenya

Ewang’an works with Masaai villages in the Rift Valley of Kenya. This year’s grant is supporting training of women and youth in 3 villages to develop more resilient agricultural practices as they struggle to cope with the effects of climate change. Their program will also provide training to support gender equity and reduce gender based violence. In past years, Ewang’an programs have also helped women develop their own enterprises as part of a strategy to keep children in school longer.

Grant Goals: Train 60 women and 20 youth in 3 villages to improve food security and develop resilience through gender and entrepreneurship training.

Green Community Volunteers (“GCV”), Laos

Green Community Volunteers (GCV) was founded in 2009 and operates in Luang Prabang Province in North Central Laos. GCV is the only local group in Laos that has been founded and run by indigenous women and it seeks to empower communities on environmental issues such as biodiversity preservation through art and cultural exchanges. Earth Rights International first introduced Pangea to the work of GCV.

Grant Goals: Build leadership capacity for indigenous youth and women to advocate for environmental issues, land rights, and food security. Provide training on sustainable agriculture and women’s health issues.

Taa’ Pi’t, Guatemala

Taa’Pi’t is an intercultural learning center for Tz’utujil Mayan children. Children have the unique opportunity to gain computer literacy and to learn to care for “Our Mother Lake” (Lake Atitlán) through an environmental education program based on the Mayan cosmovision and built on the strengths of the Mayan culture. The benefits of these programs are far-reaching: profoundly changing the capabilities and attitudes of the children, influencing their families and the community, and helping to strengthen the Maya Tz’utujil cultural heritage. With Pangea project funds, Taa’ Pi’t is continuing to address the issue of undernourishment in the community by offering cooking classes, re-introducing healthy and traditional Mayan cuisine, and supporting local organic farmers.

Grant Goals: Educate Tzutujil Maya women and children in nutrition, health, culture, sustainable farming, women’s income generation, and environmental stewardship.

Ufanisi Women’s Group (UWG), Kenya

Ufanisi Women’s Group (UWG) serves extremely poor, vulnerable rural women and girls in Bungoma County, Western Kenya. For the past several years, the group has been working toward building a sweet potato enhancement business, first by increasing farmer’s production of sweet potato vines, then by beginning to make enhanced products like chips, cookies, and pies. This year’s grant will support the group in taking the next steps by purchasing larger capacity equipment for production and storage, opening a sales stall in the nearest market town, and exploring other marketing opportunities.

Grant Goals: Expand their sweet potato product enrichment business and open a market stall in Bungoma.

Organization Profile

Landesa

By Joel Meyers

Secure land rights in Bong County, Liberia enable communities to grow food for sustenance and income. Photo: Landesa

Landesa advances pro-poor, gender-sensitive land rights reforms through law and policy tools. These reforms have helped alleviate poverty, reduce hunger, and ease conflict over land for more than 180 million families. Secure rights to land boost agricultural productivity, improve health, nutrition and school enrollment, and have placed billions of dollars in new land wealth in the hands of rural people.

We were able to connect with Dr. Jolyne Sanjak, Sr. Director of Global Programs at Landesa, to dive deeper into how their programs are advancing food security in the communities where they work.

Please introduce yourself and briefly describe your role at Landesa as Sr. Director of Global Programs.

My name is Dr. Jolyne Sanjak and I serve Landesa in the role of Sr. Director of Global Programs. Over my career, my work has centered on land rights following my belief that land rights are foundational to solving many global challenges, including food insecurity. I bring to Landesa my significant experience in economic development research and work on programs such as rural livelihoods, environmental sustainability, and gender and social integration, among others. Increasingly, Landesa and others are engaging with partners and approaches that sustain land rights by meeting the needs required for sustainable livelihoods, food security, and climate resilience. In my role, I support our four global teams: Landesa’s Center for Women’s Land Rights, Climate Change, Corporate Engagement, and Research, Evaluation & Learning.

Landesa’s mission is to secure land rights to break the cycle of poverty. Why is securing land rights so important for establishing food security in the Global South?

Food security has several dimensions including the supply or availability of food and access to food (economically and physically). In rural areas, most people experiencing poverty rely on their harvests to survive. Land degradation, droughts, and extreme weather patterns threaten these harvests and cause severe and often chronic food insecurity. Securing land rights for these farmers and other land stewards enables them to invest in their land for the long-term. Without the possibility they will lose their land in the future, a farmer has peace of mind to invest in sustainable practices like irrigation technologies, terracing, fallowing, and agroforestry and ultimately grow sufficient nutritious food for their families. This peace of mind and the incentive effects of secure land rights can also motivate investments that expand job opportunities off the farm and reduce the need for family members to stay on the farm to guard their rights, expanding economic access to food.

To establish food security, why is it important to establish land rights for women in particular, including inheritance rights for girls?

In sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, approximately two-thirds of women’s employment is in agrifood systems. However, women are less likely to own land and tend to farm on smaller parcels of lower quality. With secure land rights, women are better able to access resources like microcredit, agricultural subsidies, crop insurance, and agricultural extension, which can all contribute to increased agricultural productivity and food security. Women’s land rights have been linked to improved child nutrition as well.

A woman and her daughter in Odisha, India, were able to invest in their land after receiving formal title to a small plot of their own. Photo: Landesa

How has climate change affected your programs?

Climate change is degrading the lands more than 2.5 billion people rely on for their food and livelihoods. In 2020, Landesa committed to deepening its work on climate change; land rights offer a crucial foundation for communities to invest in climate-smart practices and benefit from restored ecosystems. Our Climate Change Program works at the global, regional, national, and community levels to influence systemic policy reforms that build climate resilience and to ensure the effective implementation of those reforms. We place a particular focus on women, Indigenous Peoples, and youth—groups that are both marginalized when it comes to land rights, and powerful agents in the fight against the climate crisis. The climate crisis has brought the need to secure these groups’ land rights into greater focus. This presents a new source of funding for local organizations, including direct funding to Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, as well as for organizations like Landesa, and expanded avenues for advocacy and partnerships from local to global levels.

Please describe how you are working with the private sector to establish partnerships, and why these are important…

Companies and investors are increasingly recognizing the importance of responsible land-based investments. Landesa works with companies to support responsible land-based investments, navigate land risks, build trusting relationships with affected communities, and meet global standards of responsible investment and value chain management. Strong land rights contribute to sustainable supply chains and foster more stable and productive conditions for business. Rural communities with access to strong land rights also benefit more from the economic opportunities created by these investments.

Landesa (formally Rural Development Institute) has been a formal organization since 1981. It is evident that you have achieved great success in your mission and have gathered a plethora of data to evaluate your methodologies for continuous improvement. What is your approach for securing land rights, and why is it important?

Landesa uses a systems change framework in our effort to secure land rights for women, men and their communities around the world. We operate at multiple levels of governance: we advocate for the inclusion of land rights in global agendas and sectoral norms, we work directly with national governments on law and policy reform, and we partner with civil society organizations from local to global levels to ensure policies become practice.

In coastal Cambodia, mangrove forests offer a source of food and livelihood. Photo: Landesa

Which countries or regions are seeing the highest need for securing land rights, and how is each region different and do you need to customize your approach to each?

Land rights challenges, especially for people experiencing poverty and marginalized groups, exist around the globe. Our country programs are in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and our global programs support progress on land rights in other geographies such as Colombia and Brazil where there are particular opportunities for advancing women’s land rights and for our corporate engagement efforts. It is widely accepted in our community of practice that there is no recipe or silver bullet to assure access to and security of land rights. Even within a country, the types of rights; the nature of land governance including the overlay of state law with traditional, tribal, or customary law and related practices; and the historical, cultural, and social patterns that underlie these may vary significantly. Pathways toward inclusive and secure land rights need to be context-appropriate and Landesa country programs are led and staffed by local experts. Landesa’s work pairs locally-led solutions with its learning from global comparative experience.

What are the biggest challenges you are seeing – any recent trends or world events, for example – that are affecting food insecurity today that you can share?

Climate change is by and large the gravest challenge humanity faces. Rural communities, and marginalized groups within them, feel the effects of climate change—including worsening food insecurity—the most harshly. But we also know the people most impacted by climate change are also those already galvanizing solutions, which is why we champion women, Indigenous Peoples, and youth in our work. Conflicts such as the ongoing war in Ukraine also have had reverberating consequences on food security for countries in the Global South.

Photo of smiling woman holding certificate

A woman in Mufindi, Tanzania holds her Certificate of Customary Rights of Occupancy documenting her right to land. Photo: Landesa

What advice can you share for small organizations who work in the Global South to help them achieve food security in the communities where they work?

Food security is a multifaceted issue. Securing local landholders and users rights to use, access, and control rights to their land—especially for Indigenous Peoples and rural communities who farm for subsistence or income—is critical. As you support programming to address food security, consider how land rights matter for meeting your objectives and find ways to support the people you work with or their governments to improve land rights, including through partnerships.

Can you share any personal stories or reflections from the field that give you hope

Despite much progress on land rights, some of the top-line country level statistics about just how many women, men, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities still face insecure land rights has not really changed much over my career—that can be saddening. However, today land rights are slowly and surely gaining traction with the increased urgency to resolve big global threats like climate change. And, Landesa and others are increasingly knitting together land rights work with efforts to address correlated needs that must come together for food security and climate resilience. These two trends are among the things that now give me hope that I might see real change toward tenure security for all.

Goalmaker

Strength in Numbers: How Neena Joshi is Elevating Asia’s Women Farmers

By Amber Cortes

Neena Joshi, Senior Vice President of Asia Programs, Heifer International. Photo: Heifer

Heifer’s new Senior Vice President of Asia Programs, Neena Joshi, is used to being around strong women.

Born and raised in Kathmandu, Joshi says her childhood was vibrant and exciting.

“I was a typical city girl, that was my life,” Joshi says.

The house was alive with intellectual and political conversations, from guests of her father, a noted writer, poet, and activist.

“So we had variety of people in my home, and we as kids were allowed to be in those conversations,” Joshi says.

She also spent her childhood surrounded by strong women—her mother was a banker, at the time an unusually high position for a woman to hold, and her mother’s five sisters had all achieved career success in Kathmandu as well.

“So maybe that is how I got into what I do now, by trusting the power of women,” says Joshi.

Since then, Joshi has worked with thousands of women, empowering them to go outside their homes to become community leaders, successful businesspeople, and political powerhouses.

Kamalamai Social Entrepreneur Women Dairy Cooperative members. Photo: Heifer

Photo of group outdoors with boxes of food

Photo: Heifer

She started at Heifer 24 years ago.

“I came to Heifer, I would say, accidentally,” explains Joshi. She was on a teaching path when she decided to interview with them.

Back then, Joshi says, the organization was small and Heifer’s office in Nepal had only ten employees. She loved being part of a dynamic team that could iterate and then come back to the drawing board.

“It was very fascinating for me, like a very raw person, who did not bring a lot of experience, but exploring, trying out things, succeeding, not succeeding, and again coming together,” Joshi says.

“So actually I’m very proud to say that I have been a part of the team who charted the growth for the Nepal program, which is one of the most successful and most impactful programs in Heifer,” Joshi says.

After serving in a variety of positions in the organization over the years, Joshi is now the Senior Vice President of Asia Programs, overseeing programs and offices across the region in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and most recently, South Korea.

These include overseeing Heifer’s flagship project, Empowering Women Farmers in Nepal, which helps women form farmer cooperatives to improve financial management and find new distribution markets, and the Poultry Project of National Pride in Cambodia, which helps local farmers use new techniques to increase yields and income.

“When I look at the work that I do in these smaller pockets that we invest in, we see profound changes,” says Joshi. “But if you look at it from a systemic point of view and at a macroeconomic scale, then we still see that those problems are becoming bigger and bigger.”

Smallholder women farmers play a critical role in food production in Asia. Women make up about 43% of the agricultural labor force in the region, and this figure is even higher in some countries like Bangladesh and India.

Photo: Heifer

Despite their large contributions many of these women often face significant barriers, including high poverty levels, food insecurity, and limited access to land, resources, and agricultural technologies.

Another example of a seemingly intractable problem comes in the form of cultural challenges.

“In Nepal, it’s a very patriarchal society,” Joshi explains. “And we primarily work with women. So these women are mostly expected to be inside the home and do the household chores and so bringing them out of that situation, in the groups, in the community, and [to] be with us and interact, is a challenge.”

But over time, Joshi sees the change, up close and personal. And it’s profound.

Joshi has known some of the women she’s worked with for the last 20 years and says she sees the transformation on both an individual and a community level.

“As you move on through the years, they become a completely different person,” Joshi says. “I’ve seen thousands of women emerge from being homemakers to community leaders to entrepreneurs to running for office, and even becoming members of Parliament.”

And nowhere is that change more obvious and impactful than within the past couple of years, when groups of smallholder farmer families form groups that become cooperatives. Heifer has helped all these cooperatives federate into an apex body of around 300 cooperatives and 400,000 households.

“So now I’m seeing how much power they hold,” says Joshi, who explained that just recently the president of the apex body met with the prime minister of Nepal.

“And the response and attention that they get when they say that I represent 400,000 households and primarily women, is very powerful,” Joshi says.

Photo of three women holding a small goat

Photo: Heifer

Joshi says many of these women in the apex body were the ones she has known for years and brought out of the home to discover what they can accomplish, together.

“I cherish those moments when I sit with them and then have these conversations,” Joshi says.

In fact, pulling the camera up to reveal the big picture of collective power is what shapes the narrative for the work that she does at Heifer.

“I feel like there’s a switch that goes off when people realize what they can do as a collective,” Joshi says.

“These farmers are all smallholders. They do not have the resources to grow their one farm. But when you look at all the farmers together as a collective, then that is what gives you that economy of scale. That’s when they can have bargaining capacity in the market. That’s when they can talk with their government and demand services.”

In Joshi’s view, the true power of these collectives is how they have transformed these women’s individual challenges into a force for systemic change, and what they can do to impact their own futures.

But for right now, Joshi just feels grateful to have a front-row seat to see what changes the collective will make happen next.

“There are a host of things that they can do when they come together, collectively, the power of these 400,000 women together.”

Member Blogs

Mercy Corps: Nuanced and Equitable: Mercy Corps’ Approach to Food Security and the Livestock Emissions Debate

Opportunity International: Adapting for Tomorrow: Evolving Support for Smallholders in a Changing World

Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation: Tackling Child Malnutrition in Yemen

World Concern: Food Security & Climate Resilience on the Eroding Coast of Bangladesh

Global Communities: Women Forward: Closing the Gender Gap in Agricultural Productivity

Pygmy Survival Alliance: How Bwiza Village Taught Us Food Security Is Job No. 1

Global Partnerships: Investing in Access to Healthy Food

Welcome New Members

Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!

Global Impact Collective

Global Impact Collective is a design and strategy consultancy that helps organizations worldwide tackle food, health, and environmental challenges that impact life. They solve problems globally with organizations invested in changing the world. We work with companies, nonprofits, government institutions, and foundations to bring the right people together to bring about change. globalimpactcollective.net

OneWorld Health

OneWorld Health builds and operates medical facilities in East Africa and Central America using a social enterprise model to create quality, affordable healthcare solutions to communities in need. oneworldhealth.com/

Panorama Strategy

Panorama Strategy is a consulting firm that partners with organizations and leaders to turn their vision for social impact into a reality. Through tailored strategies, stakeholder engagement, strategic communications, and coalition building, we collaborate with our clients to identify and fulfill their unique role in creating a better world. Our certified Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) and agile team of people-first strategists is part of the Panorama Group, a platform for social change that has nearly 150 employees across 18 countries and a broad network of partners around the world. www.panoramastrategy.com/

Water.org

Water.org is a global nonprofit organization working to bring water and sanitation to the world. They help people get access to safe water and sanitation through affordable financing, such as small loans. water.org