Project profile — Food Security Through Cooperatives in Northern Ghana

• Ghana (100.00%)

• Basic Health: Basic nutrition (12240) (10.00%)
• Banking And Financial Services: Education/training in banking and financial services (24081) (20.00%)
• Agricultural policy and administrative management:
Agricultural policy and administrative management (31110) (10.00%)
Agricultural development (31120) (30.00%)
Agricultural co-operatives (31194) (20.00%)
• Other Multisector: Rural development (43040) (10.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (significant objective)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project seeks to ensure that poor smallholder farmers and their families in Northern Ghana have enough nutritious food to eat throughout the year. It helps smallholder farmers increase the amount of food they produce and get a good price for their crops. The project works with farmers’ cooperatives to provide farmers with training in cultivating alternative crops, marketing, and business management. Through the cooperatives, the project also helps farmers to gain access to drought-resistant seed varieties, tools, crop storage facilities, and farm equipment such as tillers and tractors. The project works with credit unions to provide farmers with access to loans, so that they can invest in their farms. This support makes it possible for some of the smallholder farmers to eventually make the step into commercial farming.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased economic stability and higher level of gender equitable economic productivity for women and men in target communities; (2) increased levels of services / support to women and men members provided by credit unions and cooperatives; and (3) increased awareness and responsiveness of government to food security issues raised by smallholder women and men farmers.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2018) include: (1) 51,959 direct beneficiaries (of which 29,244 were women) have improved their knowledge in good agronomic practices, financial services and business management skills; (2) food security with the proportion of food secure households (for up to 12 months) increased by 28% (from 70% in 2013 to 98% in 2018); (3) nutritional status of beneficiary households have improved due to more diverse diets introduced by the project, including the utilization of soybeans; (4) malnutrition was reduced, especially for children under five years old, with the proportion of underweight, stunted and wasting decreasing substantially between 2013 and 2017 (underweight children decreased from 15% to 7.6%, stunted children from 32% to 15.7% and wasting children from 8.7% to 3.1%); (5) the annual incomes of project beneficiaries have increased with men's average revenue increasing from $137 in 2013 to $1,208 in 2017 (representing an increase of more than 780%) and women's average revenue increasing from $79 to $856 over the same period (equivalent to an increase of more than 980%); (6) operational self-sufficiency of nine credit unions have increased, with the credit unions being able to cover all of their operational costs and generate a net profit of 86% of their expenses (compared with 44% of them that were in financial distress and the other 66% that could only cover 67% of their operational costs in 2013); (7) customer satisfaction of credit unions’ services have improved from 30% in 2013 to 70% in 2017; and (8) support provided to improving gender equality using the concept of a "gender-model family/households" led to 95% improvement in spousal relationships and 86% in joint decision making between husbands and wives for the 284 targeted families. These results have cumulatively contributed to increased gender-equitable food security and incomes for targeted households in Northern Ghana.

• Proactive disclosure