In October 2007, USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Fund, in close collaboration with the Microenterprise Development office, initiated the STRIVE (Supporting Transformation by Reducing Insecurity and Vulnerability with Economic Strengthening) Program. A five-year, $16 million effort, STRIVE uses market-led economic strengthening initiatives to benefit vulnerable children. In doing so, the program aims to fill current knowledge gaps on effective approaches to reducing the vulnerability of children and youth.
Managed by the Academy for Educational Development (AED) in concert with technical advisors from Action for Enterprise, ACDI/VOCA, CARE, MEDA, Save the Children, the IRIS Center and USAID, STRIVE is implementing up to five field projects in Africa and Asia between 2008 and 2012. Each project is pursuing a unique economic strengthening approach, ranging from savings-led finance to workforce development to value chain interventions. STRIVE is tracking and documenting the impacts of these diverse interventions on child-level indicators related to both economic (financial), and non-economic (e.g. health, nutrition, education) vulnerability factors. As a result, STRIVE aims to identify and demonstrate interventions that can sustainably increase incomes and document how such increases improve (or fail to improve) the lives of children.
- Afghanistan: Secure Futures (ASF), AED and MEDA
- Liberia: Agriculture for Children's Empowerment (ACE), ACDI/VOCA
- Mozambique: STRIVE Mozambique, Save the Children US
- Philippines: STRIVE Philippines, Action for Enterprise (AFE)
- STRIVE Monitoring and Evaluation, The IRIS Center
Margie Brand
STRIVE Program Director
AED
Center for Enterprise and Capacity Development
1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
USA
margie@eco-ventures.org
October 2007 to September 2012
The report assesses economic and vocational training programs being implemented in the Burmese refugee camps near the Thai-Burma border to see what is possible given the Thai Government’s restrictions on refugees’ freedom of movement and their right to work. Findings note the protection failures of the Thai Government’s current policies and how these, in fact, place refugees at heightened risk for arrest and economic exploitation. The report also concludes that much more could be done by the humanitarian community to promote the self-reliance of refugees even within the camp settings.
The Women’s Commission traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in May 2008 to research Burmese refugee women’s economic coping strategies and how that impacted their vulnerability to gender-based violence. The delegation looked at programs currently being implemented by the humanitarian community in Kuala Lumpur in order to identify whether or not refugee women’s economic coping strategies were being supported by livelihoods interventions. Additionally, the delegation looked at whether or not those interventions include gender-based violence prevention or protection components. Finally, the delegation sought to better understand the unmet needs of refugee women and how they relate to their livelihood strategies and experience of gender-based violence.
The report presents the findings of a two-week field assessment that reviewed livelihood programs targeting returning internally displaced persons in the Midwest region of Nepal and Bhutanese refugees living in seven refugee camps in the southeast of the country. The report details some of the more creative interventions being implemented for both populations by international and local non-governmental organizations - such as relief substitution projects in the refugee camps and value chain interventions with forest users groups and off-season vegetable cooperatives. The report also highlights some of the opportunities that are being over-looked such as capitalizing on the existing in-camp economies and ensuring that vocational training programs are market driven.
Publication provides frameworks and detailed guidelines around a rights-based approach to household livelihood security. The Household Livelihood Security Assessment (HLSA) process aims to enhance understanding about local livelihood systems and the constraints, vulnerabilities, marginalization, and risks or poor families living within this context.
The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children is engaged in a three-year research and advocacy project aimed at improving the effectiveness of economic programming targeting refugee, internally displaced and returning women and youth. The project includes ten field assessments covering camps, urban settings and early return contexts. Under the program, six innovative pilot projects have been funded to allow operational organizations to try out new approaches and capture new learning.
For more information, see the Promoting Appropriate Livelihoods for Displaced Women and Youth activity profile.
Dale Buscher
daleb@womenscommission.org
August 2006 - October 2009
FIELD Report No 2: Economic Strengthening for Vulnerable Children: Principles of Program Design and Technical Recommendations for Effective Field Interventions aims to begin to fill a knowledge gap between specialists in an array of disciplines including child protection, economic strengthening, health and education on how to most effectively work together and implement integrated programming. The resource illustrates best practices in economic strengthening for vulnerable children in a format that can be readily adopted and adapted by donors and practitioners for incorporation in their work.
The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children is engaged in a three-year research and advocacy project aimed at improving the effectiveness of economic programming targeting refugee, internally displaced and returning women and youth. The project includes ten field assessments covering camps, urban settings and early return contexts. Under the program, six innovative pilot projects have been funded to allow operational organizations to try out new approaches and capture new learning.
For more information, see the Promoting Appropriate Livelihoods for Displaced Women and Youth activity profile.
Dale Buscher
daleb@womenscommission.org
August 2006 - October 2009
The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children is engaged in a three-year research and advocacy project aimed at improving the effectiveness of economic programming targeting refugee, internally displaced and returning women and youth. The project includes ten field assessments covering camps, urban settings and early return contexts. Under the program, six innovative pilot projects have been funded to allow operational organizations to try out new approaches and capture new learning.
For more information, see the Promoting Appropriate Livelihoods for Displaced Women and Youth activity profile.
Dale Buscher
daleb@womenscommission.org
August 2006 - October 2009
The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children is engaged in a three-year research and advocacy project aimed at improving the effectiveness of economic programming targeting refugee, internally displaced and returning women and youth. The project includes ten field assessments covering camps, urban settings and early return contexts. Under the program, six innovative pilot projects have been funded to allow operational organizations to try out new approaches and capture new learning.
For more information, see the Promoting Appropriate Livelihoods for Displaced Women and Youth activity profile.
Dale Buscher
daleb@womenscommission.org
August 2006 - October 2009
The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children is engaged in a three-year research and advocacy project aimed at improving the effectiveness of economic programming targeting refugee, internally displaced and returning women and youth. The project includes ten field assessments covering camps, urban settings and early return contexts. Under the program, six innovative pilot projects have been funded to allow operational organizations to try out new approaches and capture new learning.
The program will culminate in the production of a comprehensive livelihoods handbook which will be rolled out in three regional workshops in West Africa, East Africa, and Southeast Asia in 2009. The rollout of the handbook will be accompanied by an extensive advocacy campaign targeting donors and practitioners on how to improve funding for and design and implementation of economic programs targeting displaced populations. The aim of the Women’s Commission project is to bring about global systemic change in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of economic programming focused on improving both effectiveness and sustainability in conflict and post-conflict settings.
Dale Buscher
daleb@womenscommission.org
August 2006 - October 2009
PRISMA seeks to improve the lives of very poor women and orphaned or vulnerable children in rural East Africa by easing access to financial services for women in East Africa, especially the carers of orphans and vulnerable children. Women are a primary focus because they tend to invest additional income in improving the lives of their children.
Project Goals:
- Increase the number of World Vision’s female loan clients in five East African countries from 50,000 to 210,000.
- Improve the level of net assets among 75 percent of loan clients
- Through lending, create 277,000 jobs for women and sustain 1.3 million jobs for women
- Improve care and support for 150,000 orphans and vulnerable children, and impact 1.8 million children overall
- Offer savings accounts for 150,000 orphans and vulnerable children that can
be used for education or to start up a business
Project Interventions through Microfinance:
The PRISMA project will implement activities with the five microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the project countries that result in the following nine outputs, or tangible services:
- Increased capacity to learn and support integrated HIV/AIDS and microfinance services.
- Improved access to appropriate financial services for rural female clients, including those caring for orphans and vulnerable children.
- Improved responsiveness of credit and savings products to the needs of rural female clients.
- Increased capacity of MFIs to partner with World Vision and other HIV/AIDS agencies.
- Increased capacity of the MFI boards in governance.
- Increased capacity of senior leadership to transform MFIs into large-scale deliverers of financial services in rural areas.
- Increased capacity of MFI managers in rural finance, management, business planning, and staff development.
- Increased efficiency of MFI financial services and systems.
- Transformation into a regulated financial institution.
Project Outputs:
PRISMA project outputs will contribute over the next four years to the following two outcomes, or benefits:
- Sustainable, client-centered, development-integrated microfinance institutions
- Improved household incomes and/or resilience of economically active women, including those caring for orphans and vulnerable children.
The project is also active in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania
Grace Tiberondwa Sebageni
PRISMA Project Manager
World Vision International
Kampala, Uganda
grace_sebageni@wvi.org
February 2006 to December 2009
