Program contribution to Alliance Biovision/CEAS 2023-2024

In Sub-Saharan Africa, widespread poverty and inequality are compounded by a growing population, climate change, environmental fragility and weak social capital. The COVID-19 pandemic, the severe drought in East Africa and Madagascar as well as worsening insecurity in Burkina Faso further jeopardize people’s lives and livelihoods.

Despite agriculture being a mainstay of these economies, extreme poverty and malnutrition remains more prevalent amongst rural and pastoralist communities. Women and girls are disproportionately undernourished and lack ownership of productive assets. Inappropriate farming practices and heavy reliance on wood fuel are accelerating environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and soil depletion. Combined with shifting weather patterns, these factors expand the likelihood of pest invasions, leaving people vulnerable to natural threats. Access to sustainable agricultural technologies, information, and basic services such as waste management and electricity is patchy and unequal. Moreover, civil society often lacks the capacity to engage in local and national policy processes and so inadvertently reinforce poor service delivery, rural-urban divides, and weak government accountability.

Key results Biovision:

• Substantial expansion of project portfolio in East Africa, with 9 new projects that started in 2021
• New cooperations with ICRISAT, ICRAF and the World Vegetable Center allow mainstreaming agro-ecological approaches in international organizations
• Enhanced focus on supporting market linkages of farmers and SMEs
• Enabled almost 100’000 people to benefit from improved integrated health services
• Helped channeling almost $35M into agro-ecological research, training or businesses
• Organized 38 multi-stakeholder events in 2021
• Succeeded in nesting agroecology firmly in the UNFCCC negotiations

Key results CEAS:

• CEAS enhanced its agro-processing expertise with better integration into value chains and the nutrition sector in collaboration with international NGOs and the private sector
• Improved solid waste collection for 13’500 households in 2021 and improved policies for water and sanitation management in 11 local administrative units
• Studies conducted to better understand the factors influencing household behavior
• Adopting an integrated approach to rural electrification to serve not only households, but also small and medium-sized enterprises

Joint key results Biovision/CEAS:

• More than 30’000 people and 850 multipliers were trained in ecological practices in 2021
• More than 20'000 households adopted ecological practices, of which 13’000 could improve their food security and 14’000 improved their incomes
• Strengthened 280 CSOs, research organizations and SMEs in their roles as development actors and in fostering an agro-ecological transformation of food systems

• Alliance members actively participated in Learning Journeys on Country Ownership and strengthening Civil Society as well as in PSEAH mainstreaming events organized by SDC and others, and they included PSEAH aspects in their project partner agreements
• In 2021, the Alliance actively participated in the UN Food Systems Summit, in collaboration with SDC and FOAG
• In June 2022, the Alliance in collaboration with GPFS organized an experience sharing workshop for Swiss Green Cluster organizations about "Agroecology for Development"

Outcome 1: Resilient livelihoods
Improvement in the resilience, food security and incomes of vulnerable and marginalized small-scale producers through the use of ecological and innovative approaches. (responsibility: Biovision and CEAS)

Outcome 2: Sustainable communal services
Improved and affordable access to waste management and sustainable energy at village and small town levels increase penetration rate of basic services. (responsibility: CEAS)

Outcome 3: Enhanced capacities
CSOs, research institutions, SMEs and citizens are enabled to play their full role in inclusive and sustainable development. (responsibility: Biovision and CEAS)

Outcome 4: Enabling environment
Coherent policies, improved funding and favorable institutional framework for scaling up agro-ecological innovations to enable a sustainability transformation of the food system. (responsibility: Biovision; contributions by CEAS)

Outcome 5: Raising awareness in Switzerland
People living in Switzerland and institutions engage for achieving the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs as part of a global effort contributing to peace, sustainable development, security and wellbeing. (for this outcome no SDC-programme contribution must be used; responsibility: Biovision)

Phase 2 01.01.2023 - 31.12.2024   (Completed)