ANNUAL Report Selfhelpafrica.Org Our Vision Is an Economically Thriving and Resilient Rural Africa
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2016 ANNUAL REPORT selfhelpafrica.org OUR VISION IS AN ECONOMICALLY THRIVING AND RESILIENT RURAL AFRICA. Cover: Vanessa Brown and her daughter Linda Kampira in Balaka, Malawi. WHERE FARMING FOR WE WORK AFRICA’S FUTURE MICROFINANCE 5 8 11 BACK WOMEN: EDUCATE GIRLS WHAT’S 30 INSIDE Letter from the Chairperson 34 Reports and Consolidated Financial Statements 39 YOUTH Directors and Other Information 40 WORK Report of the Directors 42 33 Statement of Directors’ Responsibilities 65 Independent Auditors’ Report 66 2016 in Figures 68 Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities 69 FINANCIAL Consolidated Balance Sheet 70 STATEMENTS Company Balance Sheet 71 39 Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows 72 Notes to the Financial Statements 74 Gorta-Self Help Africa Annual Report 2016 3 4 Where we work: OUR PROGRAMME SPEND IN 2016: 21.1%ZAMBIA 15.2%ETHIOPIA 13% 14.5% UGANDA WEST AFRICA OUR WORK 12.2% 8.2% ACROSS AFRICA MALAWI KENYA IS ENDING POVERTY AND IMPROVING THE 8.4% 7%ERITREA, LIVES OF LOCAL ENTERPRISE DEVelOpment EDUcatiON COMMUNITIES taking place in the far north, in Number of households Karonga district. ZAMBIA: Gorta-Self Help reached: 66,494 Africa implemented seven Number of households projects in Zambia in 2016, reached: 100,275 with a total lifetime value of approximately €11.5million. ETHIOPIA: Increasing farm production, supporting The main focus of our projects cooperatives and new UGANDA: Gorta-Self was in food and nutrition, enterprise and developing Help Africa was the lead enterprise, livestock, climate market opportunities for agricultural adviser in a resilience and seed enterprise farmers is at the core of our USAID-funded development development. 43,000 work in Ethiopia. project in Uganda which households are benefitting from ended in September 2016. current project work in Zambia. Current projects in the country The nutrition-focused One new project was started also focus on strengthening scheme is underway in 15 in Zambia in 2016, working community-based seed districts across the country with 23,000 households in the production, improving the and is one of Gorta-Self Help Central, Southern and Lusaka resilience of communities Africa’s largest projects. regions, supporting vulnerable to a changing climate, and farming families to combat the improving productivity and Elsewhere, work is underway effects of changing climate. livestock value chains. to develop community-based seed enterprises, to promote Number of households Number of households agri-based enterprises and to reached: 62,095 reached: 169,920 tackle the impact of climate change on rural farming households. MALAWI: Gorta-Self Help WEST AFRICA: Gorta-Self Number of households Africa is working on a Help Africa worked in four reached: 172,895 countries - Burkina Faso, combination of directly Ghana, Togo and Benin. implemented and partner- led projects in Malawi. Projects, which are The programme goal, to KENYA: Supporting implemented through local support smallholder farming smallholder farmers to partners, will reach 66,000 communities to achieve move from subsistence to households directly and sustainable livelihoods, is in prosperity is central to our provide almost 666,000 others line with the government’s programme work in Kenya. OUR WORK with support through an early current Growth and weather warning system. The Development Strategy II. Our largest scheme in Kenya ACROSS AFRICA focus of activities is on climate is benefitting 20,000 people IS ENDING change adaptation, agriculture The largest single project to increase farm production and nutrition, enterprise, water is DISCOVER, a five-year and establish enterprises in the POVERTY AND and sanitation and production collaborative venture with Keringet region of the drought- by women of cashew crops. A a number of international prone Rift Valley Province. The IMPROVING THE total of close to €5 million will partners that seeks to support project focusses primarily on be invested during the lifetime households in adapting to dairy and potato production. LIVES OF LOCAL climate change. DISCOVER is of existing projects. Number of households at its mid-point, with our work COMMUNITIES reached: 47,812 Gorta-Self Help Africa Annual Report 2016 6 MALAWI: Patricia Twibe farms a one-acre plot in Balaka district in Malawi. She found it tough to support her family on such a landholding, but the money she now earns from a small business buying and selling fish in her village helps her to supplement her income. Ethel Khundi and her daughter Memory (13), Malawi. WEST AFRICA: For the children of Habibou Tiendrebeogo, the route to school is through her fields. Habibou has been the main bread-winner in her home since her husband lost his sight some years ago. She grows maize, beans and sesame seed for commercial sale, and is able to send all of her children to school, including her 24 year old daughter, who had previosuly dropped out. ETHIOPIA: Long gone are the days when mother-of-two Aster Ayele earned a meagre income as a labourer on her neighbour’s farm. With a loan provided by her local Savings and Credit Cooperative, she set up a micro-brewing business, and started rearing animals. Today, her eldest daughter is studying at university. UGANDA: Evelyne Safari embarked on a beekeeping business with her husband three years ago, and hasn’t looked back. They now have six hives on their small farm in rural Uganda, and are earning enough to be able to send all four of their daughters to school. “My daughters are going to get the education that I didn’t have myself,” she says. ZAMBIA: Foster Simeo is a model of resilience in Malela, Northern Province. Farmer, mother of five and grandmother to 19 children, she has to provide for her husband, who is deaf and mute, and her youngest child as well as two of her grandchildren. She recently received goats from Irish Aid’s Local Development Project, which she hopes to breed and make an income from. KENYA: Julie Gitari admits that sometimes she struggles to find the energy to work her small farm. Julie lives with HIV. She has adapted her farm to cope with her health condition, rearing poultry and small livestock as well as growing vegetables and other high- nutrition crops in a polytunnel. Farming for Africa’s Future at home and abroad. Stronger ICT systems are In 2016, Gorta-Self Help Africa allowing us to deliver greater impact, efficiency and invested more resources and levels of accountability in the work that we do. One supported more households in particular example of this increased ‘reach’ can be sub-Saharan Africa than ever before found in Malawi, where one million mobile phone in the organisation’s long history. calls were logged last year from rural poor farmers who were seeking our advice on their farm work. The focus of that work remained on hundreds of thousands of small family farms, which are the As we embark on a new five-year Strategic Plan main source of food, employment and income for (2017-2021) we are, without doubt, entering a period the continent. of considerable uncertainty, in Africa and globally. The outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election and We have been greatly encouraged in our work the decision by the UK to leave the European Union by the increasing recognition and support for will both have implications for the continent, while African smallholder agriculture. In recent years, the continuing threats posed to the continent’s ability African governments have re-committed to to feed its growing population by climate cange and investing strongly in agriculture, aiming to double other factirs, underline the scale of the challenges productivity levels and halve post-harvest losses that face organisations like GSHA. on the path to eradicating hunger by 2025. We are confident however that our mission – to Private companies, including many from Ireland support sustainable livelihoods for Africa’s smallholder and the UK, have also invested in Africa’s farmers – is the right one. We will continue to play a agriculture value chains, paving the way for an key role in agricultural and economic development, awakening of Africa’s agri-food systems that by supporting hundreds of thousands of rural poor multiplies the options for farmers - in the seeds families to grow more, and access new and better they plant, the farming methods they apply, and markets, in the years to come. the markets they can now access. Gorta-Self Help Africa (GSHA) has been encouraged by the way we have been able Raymond Jordan, to apply information technology to increase Group CEO, Gorta-Self Help Africa the scale and reach of what we can achieve, 8 OUR MISSION IS TO SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS FOR AFRICA’S SMALLHOLDER FARMERS. Small loans in 2016: Ethiopian Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) SAVINGS AND CREDIT COOPERATIVES: TOTAL SAVINGS 54,600 OF SACCO UNIONS €3.15M members (81M ETHIOPIAN BIRR) 611% 80% 47% increase in of households of capital disposable have sufficient provided as income access to loans came among food throughout from member households the year savings 50% of SACCO members have an annual average disposable income of €800 (20,000 Ethiopian Birr) 54% 87.5% 30% of RuSACCO Drop in Income members are households for SACCO women considered members is below the 30% more than standard of for non-SACCO living threshold members* *within the same community 10 Tirngo Girma, member of Urjji Berissa RuSACCO, Sire, Oromia, Ethiopia. Microfinance Access to affordable microfinance is vital if smallholders are to invest in developing their farming businesses. Gorta-Self Help Africa Annual Report 2016 11 Evidence shows that women in Africa re-invest about 90 percent of their income back into their households, compared to between 30–40 percent where men earn the money. Giving women the skills to run successful farms and businesses is an efficient way to strengthen poor families.