Tearfund Canada, Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) and Communauté Baptiste au Centre de l’Afrique (CBCA) are partnering on an agriculture and livelihoods project in Eastern North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo.
The community faces several challenges, including low agriculture production for both household consumption and income generation, as well as limited economic and farming skills to support a transition from subsistence to market-oriented farming. Land scarcity and instability in remote areas force farmers to use smaller plots near their villages. Additionally, there are issues with low-quality seeds, market disorganization, lack of entrepreneurial skills, gender inequality in decision-making, an influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and climate disruption.
The previous project saw some increase in food production; however, the results were not as expected due to insufficient adoption of new technologies and the effects of climate change. Many Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) members were not involved in conservation agriculture, and new concepts like Transforming Masculinities and Church and Community Transformation needed more time for integration. This follow-up project aims to improve food security, food sovereignty, and gender-equitable livelihoods for farming households across 16 villages.
The project will focus on four pillars: increasing climate-smart and market-driven agricultural and livestock productivity; enhancing sustainable nutrition; promoting gender equity and positive gender relationships and increasing sustained household incomes through improved agricultural and business value chains. This project builds on lessons learned from the previous project phase and aims to work with 12,397 participants in 10,956 households with a total of 71,214 members.