USAID Hamzari Program FY19Q1 Performance Report

Awardee Name and Host Country CARE Award Number 72DFFP18CA00004 Awardee HQ Contact Name and Title Mara Russell, Director Food Security & Resilience Activity Start Date 10/01/2018 Activity End Date 09/30/2022 Submission Date 01/30/2019 Awardee HQ Contact Name Mara Russell, Director Food Security & Resilience Awardee HQ Contact Address 1899 L Street, NW, Suite 500 - Washington, DC 20036 USA Awardee HQ Contact Telephone Number +1 (202) 595-2827 Awardee HQ Contact Email Address [email protected] Host Country Office Contact Name Moustapha Niang, Chief of Party USAID Hamzari DFSA Host Country Office Contact Telephone Number T. + 227 20754554 / C. +227 85126363 Host Country Office Contact Email Address [email protected]

*This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of CARE and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

I. Program Overview Table Geographic Focus: The project targets all vulnerable households in three communes in the - , and Guidan Roumdji in the Guidan Roumdji Department. Project Goal: Sustainable, Equitable and Resilient Food and Nutrition Security for Vulnerable Groups in Maradi Purpose 1: Extreme vulnerability reduced for vulnerable women, youth and marginal households in Maradi Sub-Purpose 1.1: Self-governing collectives and platforms increase social capital and resilience within, between and beyond communities Sub-Purpose 1.2: Adequate food access assured among extremely poor women, youth and marginal households Sub-Purpose 1.3: Increased absorptive and adaptive capacity build resilience to shocks and stressors for women, youth and marginal households Purpose 2: Improved nutritional status among children <5 years of age, adolescent girls and Women of Reproductive Age (WRA) Sub-Purpose 2.1: Improved optimal MIYCF and RMNCAH practices Sub-Purpose 2.2: Increased consumption of diverse nutritious food by children under five years of age, adolescent girls, and women of reproductive age (WRA) Sub-Purpose 2.3: Increased utilization of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) and nutrition services Purpose 3: Improved access and use of equitable and sustainable WASH services to reduce disease and malnutrition among vulnerable populations Sub-Purpose 3.1: Reduced disease due to fecal-oral transmission Sub-Purpose 3.2: Improved hygiene among women, youth and other vulnerable groups Sub-Purpose 3.3: Increased access to water for women, youth, disabled, etc. Purpose 4: Sustainable diversified livelihood opportunities enhance food security for poor women, youth and other vulnerable groups Sub-Purpose 4.1: Increased diversified crop and livestock production among poor women, youth and other vulnerable groups Sub-Purpose 4.2: Increased income from on farm and off /non-farm opportunities Sub-Purpose 4.3: Enhanced sustainable linkages with market systems for women, youth and other vulnerable groups Target Beneficiaries (Disaggregated by Program Element and by Fiscal Year) Total Unique Direct Participant Households: 40,000 Purpose 1: 2,000 Purposes 1 & 2: 21,200 Purposes 1, 2 & 3: 17,600 Purposes 1, 2, 3 & 4: 2,000 Purpose 2: 25,000 Purposes 2 & 3: 33,000 Purposes 2, 3, & 4: 20,000 Purpose 3: 2,400 Purposes 3 & 4: 8,500 Purpose 4: 3,000

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 1 Roles and Responsibilities: • Technical Partners: Provide technical leadership and advice including development of technical tools and guides, training, supervision, monitoring and quality control. • CARE Niger is the consortium lead and is accountable for overall program coordination and accomplishments for all target objectives. CARE’s role also extends into financial management; management of vouchers and cash transfers; monitoring, evaluation and learning; sub-recipient management; compliance with donor procedures and U.S. Government regulations; and maintenance of the relationships with USAID/FFP. CARE will be the technical lead for Purpose 1, Purpose 2 and Purpose 4. CARE will also provide leadership in ensuring that gender equity considerations are integrated into all aspects of the program. • WaterAid is responsible for leading strategy, oversight, and quality implementation of Purpose 3. Partners will collaborate under an integrated team approach to apply best practices and state-of-the art approaches, leveraging existing institutional stakeholder relationships to ensure responsive, adaptable, and effective leadership, high-impact outcomes, and sustainability. • Karkara will support implementing Agriculture Livelihoods and VSL/IGA technical components under P4 such as supervision and implementation of farmer field and business school activities; and developing community groups (VSLAs, FFBSs, etc.) to train women, youth and vulnerable groups to acquire integrated farming and business skills necessary to transform agricultural activities into business-oriented livelihoods that attract and benefit from investment. • ANBEF will act as service provider to support sexual, family, and reproductive health and planning; support health facilities with provision of SRHR/FP services; and work closely on safe spaces and husband schools. ANBEF will organize community meetings with MMD groups, village leaders, grandmothers, Mother Leaders, Care Groups, youth, and other influencers to discuss the importance of infant and young child feeding. In addition, ANBEF will take part in the gender analysis and formative research on SHRH so they can address specific barriers and tailor their messages to the influencer groups. • DEMI-E will work as sub-awardee of WaterAid to implement WASH technical components under P3. Although WaterAid will identify community relays during their initial visits to villages to assess WASH coverage and barriers, DEMI-E will be responsible for working with community relays through the whole CLTS process, training them in gender, data collection, ethics, participatory methods, sanitation and hygiene (CARE and WaterAid will review and update materials, as needed, for the community relay training). Although DEMI-E will report to WaterAid, and the quality of work will be monitored and supported by WaterAid staff, DEMI-E staff will be incorporated into the larger Hamzari work, specifically on hygiene and behavior-change messaging, and will serve as an essential learning partner to understand methods for improving implementation adoption at the community level. • Forsani will implement Health and Nutrition technical components under P2. It will collaborate in the Hamzari consortium by training clinic and community-based health staff on SBC message delivery and the training of Care Group Lead Mothers. Additionally, Forsani staff members will act as a source of information on the delivery of nutrition and health messages to pregnant and lactating mothers; recruit and train fathers/male community leaders on nutrition SBC and promotion of family planning; and to work closely with local government health facilities to provide supplementary support and referrals.

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 2

II. Overview & Context Based on Niger’s Directorate of Statistics’ provisional results for the last crop year, cereal production is 5,952,562 tons, which is a surplus of 685,620 tons. However, the Maradi Region is still in the minimal acute food insecurity phase, with deficits in agricultural and fodder production in some zones, resulting in the prevalence of malnutrition among pregnant and lactating women and children under two years old. This situation was identified by more than 80% of approximately 40 villages interviewed during the targeting validation by the USAID Hamzari team in November 2018.

From a programmatic point of view, the interactions between the USAID Hamzari team and FFP have led to several strategic shifts, including the following: • The elimination of direct distribution commodities during the first year of the project. • Changes in the project’s geographic coverage. For example, in October 2018, FFP suggested CARE consider a communal approach instead of only focusing on the original 142 villages in the proposal. In response, the project team developed an approach that targets all the villages in the three communes of Chadakori, Guidan Roumdji, Guidan Sori, which are comprised of 567 communities with a population of 374, 299, including 142 Core Impact Groups with a population of 202,816.

There were some security events that affected the Maradi Region. The Guidan Sori commune shares borders with the Department, and one of the villages (Souloulou) within this department shares a border with the Zanfara State, Nigeria. In December 2018, an attack in this location wounded several individuals and caused the deaths of ten soldiers, including five from Niger and five from Nigeria.

III. Performance updates from the Quarter 1. Technical activities The USAID Hamzari program’s first quarter activities focused on staff recruitment, partner mobilization, establishing office space, purchasing office equipment and supplies, and Refine and Implement Period planning.

Communication and Exchange: • On October 30, 2018, the USAID FFP team comprised of representatives from the Niger Mission, the West Africa Regional Office and the Washington, DC Office conducted a meeting with the USAID Hamzari team in the CARE Niger Office. USAID representatives included the AOR for Hamzari, the Regional Food Security Specialist, the Niger FFP Officer, the Niger FFP Development Assistance Specialist and the Niger Project Management Assistant. The objectives of the meeting were: 1) Initiate contact with USAID FFP technical teams who will be key actors throughout the implementation of the program; 2) Introduce the Refine & Implement (R&I) phase and clarify activities and timeline; 3) Discuss and clarify questions about activities sited in the proposal document.

• The USAID Hamzari program held a Start-up Workshop from November 5 to 10, 2018. All partners were present and learned together about the project, its overall goals and objectives, the theory of change (ToC), and the various roles and responsibilities of the team.

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 3 Activity Planning: The gender taskforce began working on the terms of reference (ToR) for the gender analysis. The taskforce is led by the USAID Hamzari Gender Lead, coordinating with the USAID Hamzari Strategic Learning Lead, and supported by the CARE USA Gender Technical Advisor. The first draft of the Gender ToR outlines the scope, methodology, and intended results of the study. The study will help the USAID Hamzari program to review the ToC in light of identified local causes to gender social-economic and political inequalities for men, women, girls, and boys. Gender constraints and opportunities will be examined for all aspects of the ToC, and a gender strategy based on findings will address all key outcomes and activities.

The USAID Hamzari leadership developed a draft ToR for the Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) in conjunction with the 2 other DFSAs in Niger, to foster a spirit of collaboration and share cost.

The USAID Hamzari team organized and facilitated a Target Validation workshop from November 27th to December 1st, 2018. There were over 40 participants including the USAID Hamzari Consortium and CARE Niger teams, along with government representatives such as the representative of the Maradi Governor, the representative of the Maradi Regional Counsel, 6 representatives from each mayor’s office in the three communes of intervention Guidan Roumdji, Guidan Sory and Chadakori (each mayor was accompanied by the community development manager from their commune), and 6 representatives from the local government technical services departments (community development, population, health & nutrition, agriculture, livestock farming, and rural engineering).

The USAID FFP team attended the final discussion of the Target Validation workshop. They shared their expectations for the targeting process and added their perspectives to the overall discussion at the event. Together the workshop participants outlined an inclusive strategy to cover each commune, targeting the following three levels: i. Core Impact Communities, where most of the activities will be carried out benefiting the poor and extremely vulnerable households, young people, pregnant and lactating women. ii. Catalyst Vehicles that provide services and support those in the core impact community to strengthen their livelihoods. iii. The Municipality where dialogue will happen between all stakeholders, maximizing synergy for community support, and extending support services throughout the municipality.

Committee Meetings: On December 26 & 27, 2018, WaterAid attended a water sector meeting organized by the Ministry of Hydraulics and Sanitation. The group updated national data related to the Water Sector through discussions related to program indicators, theoretical and actual coverage rates, failure rates, basic household access rates, etc.

2. Program Management

Staffing: The following positions have been recruited: Chief of Party; Strategic Learning Lead; M&E Lead; Gender Lead; Food Security Technical Coordinator; Knowledge Management & Communications Manager; Inclusive Governance & Youth Advisor; Environmental Compliance

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 4 Specialist; Procurement Officer; MCHN Manager; Livelihoods Manager; Logistics and Admin Manager; Finance Manager; Finance & Operations Director.

Office: The Maradi office is operating with the appropriate infrastructure and necessary equipment.

3. Partnerships, Collaboration and Linkages CARE is in the process of completing negotiations with all program sub-grantees. The sub agreements with Forsani, ANBEF, and KARKARA have been signed. CARE conducted a post- award assessment evaluating each partner’s organizational and management capacities as the bases for an individualized capacity building plan. AREN continues to have major structural problems and a sub-agreement was not signed with them; CARE is documenting this AREN situation and will formally send a correspondence of the outcome to USAID.

The USAID Hamzari consortium used the Targeting Workshop in Maradi as an opportunity to identify local and regional development and government actors and to introduce the USAID Hamzari program; generating support and an increased interest in program activities. Some of the ministry representatives at the workshop included: • 1 Representative of the Regional Council of Maradi; • 6 Town Hall representatives from the three communes of Guidan Roumdji, Guidan Sory and Chadakori (the mayor, accompanied by the communal head in charge of community development); • 6 Departmental technical services representatives (community development, population, health and nutrition, agriculture, livestock, rural engineering)

The WaterAid team conducted outreach and information visits both nationally and locally. They presented the USAID Hamzari program to other collaborators, notably the Ministry of Hydraulics and Sanitation, the WASH coalition NGO members, and other sector networks.

IV. Challenges and Lessons Learned 1. Challenges during this quarter Challenge Response Status (pending, resolved) Commodity Management

Administration WaterAid: Recruiting qualified staff Given the delay in recruiting the in a timely manner so WASH Coordinator position, the their expertise can be team proposes that the budget Pending used for startup for 4 staff positions be used to activities such as the recruit a Sanitation Specialist. Water Assessment. Programmatic Delay in R&I workshops Moving forward on internal given the continued lack timelines to meet R&I Period Pending of an appropriation. deliverables and begin on-time

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 5 implementation in FY20.

Other

2. Lessons Learned The Startup Workshop was an opportunity for consortium partners to meet and collaborate on activity planning which increased the sense of cohesion among the group. Building on this sense of cohesion within the consortium, CARE will conduct regular training, coordination and planning meetings to emphasize our collaborative work and capitalize on the synergy as a group.

Participants at the Targeting Validation Workshop appreciated that the USAID Hamzari DFSA used an inclusive, participatory, and transparent approach increasing communication within and between stakeholder entities. This participatory approach will continue to be the preferred strategy for partner engagement within USAID Hamzari.

V. Plans for Next Quarter • Organize training on monitoring and evaluation, security, communication, and various technical aspects • Finalize approval for IEE ToR and start consultant recruitment process • Participate in FFP Gender and Youth, R&I Inception, and M&E workshops if held • Finalize approval for Gender Analysis ToR and start consultant recruitment process • Prepare draft ToR for the other assessments within the formative research agenda • Obtain approvals for other assessment and begin if possible

For FORSANI: • Recruit and establish a technical team in Maradi • Participate in Refine & Implement activities

For WaterAid: • Finalize and sign sub agreement between CARE and WaterAid • Establish contacts and gather information at national and local levels • Identify and train local actors • Establish a working framework with Demi-E and other actors • Finalize recruitment and orientation of new team members • Finalize and approve Water Study ToRs • WaterAid national and regional participation in Refine and Implement activities • Conduct joint visits to field level government services • Map sanitation and drinking water points in the program intervention areas

For ANBEF: • Identify and train local actors • Develop and implement action plan • Recruit staff • Establish contacts and gather information at national and local levels

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 6 VI. Annexes 1. List of Acronyms

CARE Niger Hamzari - FY19Q1 Quarterly Report Award Number: 72DFFP18CA00004 Submitted: January 30, 2019 7 ANNEX 1 – List of Acronyms

ANBEF Association Nigérienne pour un Bien-Etre Familial CAAB Centre Africain d’Agrobusiness CARE Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere CLTS Community Led Total Sanitation COP Chief of Party CU5 Children under 5 years of age DFAP Development Food Assistance Program DFSA Development Food Security Activity DEMI-E Développement pour un Mieux-Etre DRR Disaster Risk Reduction FFBS Farmer Field Business Schools FFP Food for Peace FORSANI Forum Santé Niger FY Fiscal Year GBV Gender-based Violence GoN Government of Niger HH Household MAIP Multi-Actor Innovation Platform MIYCF Maternal, Infant and Young Child Feeding MMD Mata Masu Dubara ODF Open Defecation Free PPP Public-Private Partnerships RISE Resilience in the Sahel-Enhanced Reproductive Maternal, Newborn, Child, and RMNCAH Adolescent Health SBC Social Behavior Change SBCC Social Behavior Change Communication TOC Theory of Change UNDP United Nations Development Program USAID U.S. Agency for International Development VFW Vouchers for Work VSLA Village Savings and Lending Associations WASH Water, Sanitation and Hygiene WFP World Food Program WRA Women of Reproductive Age