connect - snv
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Connect#3 JULY 2014
CONNECT IS AN ANNUAL PUBLICATION PROFIL ING SNV’S WORK AROUND THE WORLD
Financing renewable energy
Connecting farmers to business
The safe sanitation movement
GlobalHighlights insideShaping
the future of development
In this rapidly changing environment the need for innovation and scaling up in development is a given. Yet keeping pace in the development sector with change, and
finding new ways of working are not always easy. SNV works hard to come up with smart ideas and innovative approaches. But it is always a challenge to balance innovation with implementation. Taking a new approach to the next level requires a variety of tools, and the expertise of many.
Pilot programmes are a proven method for SNV to test new approaches. This is a great way to assess a new approach and adapt it further. A successful pilot programme must then be capable of being scaled up to benefit millions. SNV can’t do this alone. Our partnerships with other NGOs, civil society and private sector organisations are crucial for increasing impact.
Do we know partnerships work? Yes! There are great examples where collaboration has brought SNV programmes to scale. Look at the National Biogas programme in Cambodia where hundreds of thousands of people benefit from clean technology, at 140 Inclusive Business projects in Latin America, Asia and Africa, and the multi country programme Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All in partnership with DFID. Can we do more? Definitely! The challenge is to innovate through pilot programs on the one hand, and continue to scale up our impact on the other.
Welcome to Connect 2014Our annual publication exploring SNV’s work around the world
As progress is made towards the Millennium Development Goals, new challenges continue to emerge. Extreme poverty has fallen globally, yet youth unemployment is rising, cl imate change is threatening smallholder l ivelihoods and fragile states are fall ing deeper into poverty.
Communication technology creates exciting opportunities for scaling up SNV’s impact at relatively low cost. Mobile phones are readily available in developing countries and can be used to provide information and services quickly and cheaply. This greatly increases development impact. For example SNV have partnered with Akvo, who produce Akvo Flow. This GPS-enabled smartphone application has the potential to transform water and sanitation mapping and supply, boosting delivery to many more people.
These technologies engage communities in finding solutions to their problems, and connect development organisations to their viewpoint. Technology is changing the traditional way of providing development knowledge and services. And changing it for the better.
Innovation takes many forms. It is looking at a problem from all angles. It is about new ways to use your resources. It is about doing more with what you have. It is about how to differentiate what you do.
Over the last year, by sharing knowledge and creative thinking with our partners and those we work for, SNV benefitted almost 10 million people. By linking innovation to implementation, SNV is helping shape the future of develop-ment. This is Smart development at work!
Arthur Arnold
“There
are great
examples
where
collaboration
has brought
SNV
programmes
to scale.”
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Arthur Arnold,
Chairman,
SNV Supervisory Board
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CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
Nice work if you can get itThe OYE programme is harnessing the talent and energy of unemployed young people in Sub Saharan Africa, to get them back to work.
Inside this year ’s Connect
In Focus21 Fertile Minds
22 Making every minute count
28 The life in one day of Silvia Amador
29 Girls in Control
33 Field of Dreams
34 SNV Twitter Junior Professionals
35 Turning Poo into Power
36 Meeting the climate challenge with confidence
37 Cleaning up a Dirty Business
41 Waste not, Want not
43 Getting on with Business
45 Putting down Roots
47 OUTtakes
Shaping the future of development As private sector investment becomes more and more characteristic of development funding, SNV’s CEO Allert van den Ham shares his perspective on how the development sector and private investors can work together, to deliver more than traditional aid approaches can.
A change is coming Across nine countries, SNV is spurring on the movement for sustainable sanitation.
Advocating for lasting progressSNV works for enduring reforms that keep improvements in place, and empower communities.
From small money to big changeUsing different forms of financing in smart ways, to bring clean energy to more people.
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Protecting l ivelihoods, preserving forestsForests are central to managing climate change, but are under threat from agricultural and energy use. Our REAP programme helps communities to work in harmony with their forests.
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Inclusive business from bean to brewConnecting smallholders to the supply chains of private companies, reaps rewards for everyone.
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Editor: Emma BolesWords: Emma Boles, Nick Greenfield, Philip SenPhotography: Aidan Dockery, Reinier van Oorsouw, Roel Burgler, Petterik Wiggers & SNVConcept & Design: HaagsblauwPrint: NPN Printers© SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, 2014
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We believe in working for
change that lastsThat’s why we see the problem through her eyes
to understand what keeps her in poverty.
We ask the questions that matter
and we develop solutions that work.
We convince those with influence to
make reforms that keep progress in place.
We support communit ies and authorit ies
to work together.
So we start with her…
and then we work with al l those around her.
We call it Smart Developmentbecause it works!
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CONNECT #5 JULY 2014
That’s why we see the problem through her eyes
to understand what keeps her in poverty.
We ask the questions that matter
and we develop solutions that work.
We convince those with influence to
make reforms that keep progress in place.
We support communit ies and authorit ies
to work together.
So we start with her…
and then we work with al l those around her.
We call it Smart Developmentbecause it works!
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
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Shaping the future of development
Fifty years ago, when Africa was sti l l referred to as ‘The Dark Continent’, idealist ic men and women embarked on their missions to developing countries to impart their knowledge and expertise. Funded by state aid and with the best of intentions, they hoped to instigate rapid change. However progress takes t ime, and their approach was constrained by paternalist ic att i tudes, and a narrower perspective than we have today.
Allert van den Ham,
CEO, SNV
CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
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Fast forward to 2014 and the world has transformed. Developing countries now have a strong voice in their own advancement and the development
community realises that cookie cutter solutions are not sustainable or inclusive. In addition, the private sector and related financing have become vital in furthering development. States, in many cases, are withdrawing aid from the development field. Private sector funding brings opportunities for growth, but also expectations for defined outcomes and ‘value for money’ results.
How can we best shape the future of develop-ment? The evolving trade and aid agenda, whilst fostering the economic basis of develop-ing countries, simultaneously threatens to limit its focus to those considered promising in the emerging global market. How do we address the challenges of countries at the bottom of the Human Development Index, such as Burkina Faso or Niger? Considered geopolitically unimportant and economically unattractive, these countries struggle to attract international funding. And the gap in inequality only widens further.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Targeted integrated public and private investment does bring progress. In Zimbabwe, the development of the agriculture sector is dependent on capital financing and technical assistance. Initial SNV financing for the Zimbabwe Agricultural Development Trust programmes there came from Danida and DFID.
This became the catalyst for local banks to come on board, and provide 50% of the required funding. A great example of state aid supporting the local private sector to finance the development of small and medium agricul-tural enterprises. In Bangladesh, a country that seemed destined to remain impoverished, there is now a growing middle class, increased literacy and improved life expectancy. By combining public funding, civil society expertise and private investment, Bangladesh is now on its way to being a middle income country by the next decade. The best outcomes come from working with the different strengths of the private, public and civil sectors.
SNV strongly concurs with a results based approach to development efforts, but we acknowledge the ever changing nature of the challenges. Many demand innovative solutions, requiring long term investment, research and experimentation. For example, how does a shrinking agriculture sector, challenged by climate change, produce enough food for a growing population? How do we support an underclass who still cannot pay for basic services, in countries with an emerging middle class? How do we tackle public sanitation in sprawling cities, where rain brings sewage flooding into the streets?
In Bangladesh, of 30 million urban inhabitants, only about 42% have ‘improved sanitation’ through latrines and septic tanks and the human waste in these is regularly dumped untreated in waterways or on marginal land,
harming health and water resources. In partnership with SNV there, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and DFID are prepared to finance and try out new approaches to public sewage management, at scale. This innovative project will give 1 million Kulna city area residents access to safe public sanitation, and benefit 250,000 people with improved sanitation facilities.
So innovation is indispensable, as we seek to address growing challenges. And let’s not forget that it is innovation that established Dutch development organisations such as SNV, as the recognised players that we are today. Let’s replicate what we know will work, but continue to invest in finding new solutions.
The future of development relies upon the right balance between private sector and public funding to address the problems of a broad spectrum of countries. In 2013, 50% of new donor funding to SNV was allocated to just five countries. It is such financing that helps SNV to continue to operate there, but what about all the other countries in need? From Bangladesh to Niger, basic services that are not attractive investments for the private sector, will continue to require public resources. The international community has a responsibility to ensure that regardless of economic importance, the peoples of those countries most in need, are not left behind. This makes for a promising future for development.
Allert van den Ham
A change is coming: The movement for sustainable sanitation for all
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WASH
With the Millennium Development Goal target for sanitation fast sl iding out of reach, it ’s clear a better approach is needed. Can taking a holistic approach to sanitation make it work?
How is it possible that in 2014, over one third of the world’s population – some 2.5 billion people – still live without adequate sanitation? How is it
possible that diarrhoea is still the second biggest killer of children under five years old – taking over 1,400 young lives every day? From reducing infant mortality, to keeping girls in school, as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has emphasised “improved sanitation can contribute to all our development goals”. But however clearly we may be able to see the problem, the solution still seems far from reach.
So why has it been so hard to make progress in this vital area? SNV’s Managing Director for Water Sanitation & Hygiene, Megan Ritchie, believes part of the issue may simply come down to bad PR. In short – we still don’t like talking about toilets. “Part of the problem is bad marketing,” she says. “That is to say we haven’t shouted loudly enough about this problem, while others have shouted more loudly about other problems.” Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene for All (SSH4A) Program me Leader in Asia Gabrielle Halcrow agrees that sanitation has been a hard sell so far. ”We’ve learned that to get people to value sanitation, there has to be momentum, it has to be a movement and then political leaders will come on board.”
Enabling the development of a drive for local sanitation has been a key factor in SNV’s growing Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene for All (SSH4A) programme, which focuses on promoting district-wide sanitation coverage in rural areas, improving local health and behaviour change while providing the
momentum needed for national-level policy development. Ensuring sanitation is firmly on government agendas.
This movement has been kickstarted in Cambodia, where three communes in Kampot province’s Banteay Meas district have gained 100% sanitation coverage in the last year alone. Cambodia has one of Asia’s lowest rates of access to sanitation – with open defecation still the norm for some 72% of its rural population. Two years ago, Banteay Meas had one of the lowest levels of sanitation cov-erage in Cambodia – with just 19% of residents having access to a toilet.
Kob Soeurn from Trapeang Sala Khang Lech commune, was the first commune chief in Banteay Meas district to stand up in front of other chiefs and commit his commune to becoming open-defecation free. “We have received training from the SNV programme, which made us understand the importance of having improved sanitation. We have used a combination of different approaches to encour-age households to build latrines. Following the triggering events we conducted door-to-door follow-up visits. We have been working closely with the monks to promote sanitation and hygiene and included sanitation and hygiene messages in village events, meetings and ceremonies.”
Now, after just two years working with SNV, remarkable progress has been made in Cambodia, with 68% of households having access to and using a toilet by May 2014, and a strong commitment to making Banteay Meas the first fully Open-Defecation Free district in
• A Very Big Problem People without sustainable
sanitation worldwide: 2.5 billion
Child deaths per year due to diarrhoeal diseases: 500,000
Reduction in diarrhoeal diseases from improved hygiene practices: 50%
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2.2million
In Asia from 2008 - 2013, ‘Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene
for All’ has improved sanitation and hygiene
for 2.2 million people
WASH
“DFID is excited to be entering into a new partnership with SNV to deliver improved sanitation and hygiene results in nine develop-ing countries.”
Leonard Tedd, DFID
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“Before the SNV-supported programme in my
commune, households did not know about the
options for building a toilet. The committee in my
village has worked very hard to make Trapeang
Kdolopen open-defecation free. This has not
been easy work, but we never had such strong
commitment before.”
Trapeang Kdol village chief Khun Sameth
“You can see that it starts spiralling,
in Cambodia, it’s turning into a
movement. It does take years of
investment in terms of capacity, but it
reaches its tipping point, when you see
sanitation coverage take off and you
see government support for it. That’s
sustainable change in the sector.”
Gabrielle Halcrow, SNV WASH
• SNV’s ‘Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene for All’ programme
2014–2018 is working to enable 4.7 million people in Africa and 2.2 million people in
Asia to access improved sanitation
and hygiene.
the country. Developed from SNV’s work in Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with support from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, the SSH4A programme is now a multi-donor programme being rolled out in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Megan Ritchie says a key factor in the SSH4A approach’s success has been a focus on sustainability. “Development organisations have been talking about rural sanitation for 30 years, so had it been working there would be no problem left anymore, but previous approaches just haven’t been sustainable,” she says. “The most innovative thing about SSH4A is that it is a holistic approach. It doesn’t just depend on paying someone to build a toilet or on stand-alone demand triggering, or Community-Led Total Sanitation. You have to look at all the components together to create a sustainable solution.”
With this firmly in mind, SNV’s Sustainable Sanitation & Hygiene for All model focuses on four key pillars - sanitation demand creation, sanitation supply chain strengthening, hygiene behavioural change communication, and governance. Crucially, by taking a district-wide, local-government-led approach in partnership with local authorities rather than focusing on individual communities, SNV both increases government capacity to run and scale-up sanitation initiatives and builds local momentum to reach all with improved sanitation.
This is essential to ensuring lasting impact. “What we know from rural sanitation is that you don’t get the benefits of reduction in disease burden or hygiene problems unless you have area-wide coverage. For the health impacts of improved sanitation to be realised and long lasting we need village-wide, district-wide coverage. Without that, the impact doesn’t last” says Megan Ritchie. Vital to achieving this, however, is making sure no-one gets left behind. “To turn it into a movement, you go district-wide, but you
have to make sure you are bringing everyone with you,” Gabrielle Halcrow says. “You can have progress, but getting that last group, the poorest group, is the challenge. That’s where you need to refine and tailor your approach. As people can start to see that the models work, that they are a success, and they can start to see the impact that it has on the communities, then it gets going of its own accord.”
No change is sustainable without ongoing government support however, and building government capacity in developing and implementing sanitation policy is also a vital part of the SSH4A approach. “I think that’s one of the real achievements,” Megan Ritchie says. “If you look at some of the countries in Asia where we’ve been working, you can see clear changes in sanitation policy. So we now have sanitation policy dialogues happening at the national policy level and even sanitation policies starting to emerge in countries that didn’t previously have them at all.”
Now, with €28 million in results-based funding from the UK Department for International Development, SNV is rolling out its SSH4A programme beyond Asia to eight countries in
WASH
CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Beyond just proving that SSH4A works though, expanding the programme out across more than 15 countries has its own advantages. “It creates the opportunity for an exchange between countries, between governments, so they’re not just being sold the idea in their country – they’re seeing it applied in other countries and they’re getting ideas,” Gabrielle Halcrow says. “And there is compe-tition between them – but it also creates the buy-in for it when they see other governments working with the approach and talking about what’s working.”
So while reaching the MDG targets on sanitation may yet be years off, in rural areas across Africa and Asia change is happening. And persisting. “What I’m most excited about is that it works!” Megan Ritchie says. “To go into the countries who did this three or four years ago and to see that these sanitary toilet facilities are still working and are still being used on a daily basis. That’s the part that makes it exciting for me – that it’s working – you can see it working!”
Akvo FLOW, is a mobile and online service that transforms
water monitoring data using Android smart phones.
In 2013 SNV and Akvo together signed a global
Memorandum of Understanding, to support shared efforts
to apply Akvo FLOW in a number of countries. Together we
will investigate the use of FLOW for applications such as
urban sanitation mapping, assess the potential of Akvo’s
services and tools for organisational development purposes
at SNV, and explore joint opportunities for funding and
impact. Partnering together to mobilise technology for
more effective safe water distribution.
“The biggest achievement is being able
to put an approach together that involves
the same components across a multitude
of countries, and while those approaches
need to be tailored to local contexts,
the approach is replicable and scalable
across a multitude of environments
across different continents. That is
something SNV should be proud of.”
Megan Ritchie, Managing Director, WASH
WASH
HI G
H L I G H T S
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Advocating for lasting progress
SNV ADVOCACY
“I don’t think advocacy work is easy or simple at all but I do think it is worthwhile.Kelly Bishop, SNV Renewable Energy team
From rural water policy in Tanzania , export market access for beekeepers in Ethiopia , to tax exemptions for solar lamps in Niger , we use evidence based advocacy in al l our work to shape an enabling environment, so people can build their own success.
With on-the-ground experience in 39 countries, SNV understands that sustainable poverty reduction at scale, requires reforms that tackle the causes of poverty. To advocate for the needs of people l iving in poverty, we work with governments, the private sector and civi l society. Together we develop policies, f inancing mechanisms, and legal and institutional arrangements that lay the foundations for lasting progress.
“SNV applies private sector development principles without losing the under-standing of the reality in which the smallholders operate.”
Hans van den Heuvel, Agricultural Counsellor, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
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Walking for hours every day to collect unsafe water that can cause i l l health
is a harsh reality for mill ions of rural poor in Tanzania. More than half of
the 34 mill ion rural poor in Tanzania lack access to clean water, and
thousands of Tanzanians die annually from diarrhoea and other water
borne diseases. Time spent collecting unsafe water or suffering i l l health,
means less time for education and productive economic activit ies.
Keeping it flowing
Nationwide there are an estimated 65,000 rural water points, of which approxi-mately 30,000 are non-functional due to
a lack of maintenance and management. The Tanzanian government had drafted rural water supply policies and laws but had struggled with buy in from district council authorities and community users. In recent years, SNV have been working with the government and local authorities to bring these vital resources back into use, to supply 7.5 million rural Tanzanians with safe water for their everyday needs. Starting at local level we sought to understand and gather evidence of the causes of limited access to water. We mapped water point
functionality and built the capacity of community water management organisations; gradually scaling up our work until we supported one fifth of the country. We used this evidence and the positive results of community management of rural water
points to advocate for this approach to district & regional officials and the Ministry of Water. With clear evidence of a way forward, the Ministry enabled a new rural water policy. This has given 50,000 people access to rural water supplies managed locally by 434 community organisations.
And the reform doesn’t stop there. The Ministry of Water has now adopted this approach nationally and is leading the process of establishing community organisations, monitoring progress and engaging in donor-government dialogue. Local communities are now empowered to manage their own water supply and have been linked with their local authorities, fostering collaboration. Rural water supply policy in Tanzania now has the potential to be fully sustainable and scalable, enabling cleaner water for millions more rural poor.
Through joint collaboration in Lao PDR with key partners in the sector (WSP, UNICEF and
Plan International), SNV supported the Ministry of Health and the Department of Environ-
mental Health and Water Supply to scale-up rural sanitation. This resulted in a national policy
that provides the framework for the Government of Lao PDR to take the lead in rural sanita-
tion; with a balanced approach to sanitation demand creation, sanitation supply improvement
and a reform process all geared towards an enabling environment for good WASH governance.
SNV ADVOCACY 13
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WASH
HI G
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For thousands of years Ethiopians have been practising beekeeping, but
it has remained a low yield and low value activity. Over 1.5 mill ion farm
households keep bees as an additional income source, yet the honey
market only realises around 10% of its potential. Nonetheless honey
production is a promising and highly inclusive growth area for rural
households due to low entry costs and abundant natural resources.
The sweet smell of success
We set out to increase incomes and market access for rural beekeepers, targetting our advocacy efforts across
a range of factors. Recognising that traditional hives are less productive and less easily managed by women, we supported the market-ing and micro financing of low cost, locally produced modern hives. We provided training in entrepreneurship, honey processing, packaging and quality management to support the honey value chain and increase incomes through inclusive business. Sector organisations’
capacities were improved and we advocated for national standards & quality assurance schemes to improve honey quality. With an increase in quality, Ethiopian honey could be sold as speciality table honey in export markets, vastly increasing earnings for beekeepers.
In recent years we worked with beekeeper organisations and regulators to secure EU 3rd country export listing for Ethiopian honey. Access to this important market increased
incomes and encouraged expansion to others; export markets now include not just the EU but also the US, the Middle East and Japan, and the value of export markets has increased more than 100%.
Through these initiatives producers are earning on average 25% more for their product and 80,000 households have experienced an increase in income.
By advocating on behalf of beekeepers lasting improvements in practices and regulations have been instituted, securing access for honey producers to more profitable markets. Ethiopian bee keepers can now look forward to building further on their market success for better livelihoods.
SNV ADVOCACY14
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The flatlands, sand dunes and roll ing savannah of Niger are rich in one
natural power source - sunlight. Niger is a country where 76% of the
population l ive on less than US$2 a day and poverty cuts deepest for
those in rural areas. Harnessing solar as an energy resource is a smart
way to provide poor rural communities with electricity for l ighting and
telephone charging. Access to solar energy reduces the burden of high
energy costs for families and provides the opportunity for productivity
beyond daylight hours.
Light moves
How do we support an emerging market for solar energy in a practical and pro poor way? Lack of awareness of the
availability of solar lamps combined with the costs of purchase make solar lamps an unaf-fordable luxury for most in Niger. So we applied our knowledge of renewable energy technolo-gies to advocate for a tax exemption for solar lamps; facilitating lower procurement prices for suppliers, which in turn increases the availabi-lity of solar lamps at much lower prices.
In co-operation with the Niger Ministry of Energy, we provided market analysis and consumer preferences, to support a solar tax exemption for 7 brands and 23 models, including simple solar lamps and solar lamps with telephone charging facilities. We worked with our partners and the government to guide the year long process. “Niger has a very low capacity to make changes. There is a lack of quality personnel and all the work falls to a small group of people who can
actually move things forward. However we have brought solar to some standing in Niger now.” says Kelly Bishop of the SNV Renewable Energy team.
This intensive process recently resulted in the successful tax exemption of a sizeable 1,240,000 solar lamps. Securing this tax exemption lays the foundation for the growth of a pro poor solar market in Niger that is sustain-able into the future. And by working hand in hand with the Ministry of Energy we have helped to mobilise the Government of Niger towards plans for removing taxes on all solar technologies; further boosting the future of renewable energy in Niger.
In Cameroon and Benin we are
also working with authorities to
boost the solar market through tax
exemptions for Solar Photovoltaic
technologies.
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REN
EWABLE ENERG
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HI G H L I G H T S
RENEWABLE ENERGY
From small money to big change
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RENEWABLE ENERGY
From those l iving in poverty, to those in business and in government, capital f inance can be a major barrier to engage in renewable energy technologies such as biogas and biofuels, improved cookstoves and solar. At SNV we are addressing this through a range of innovative f inancing strategies for both small and big investors in clean energy.
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Asmart idea can be transformative, especially one that supports clean energy access for millions of people who are without the financial means
to obtain it. Renewable energy is a potent way to improve the lives of poor people; reducing expenditure on costly fuels, providing light and safer cooking and powering small businesses. But to make renewable energy technology accessible to many it must be affordable. Financing however remains a key barrier for those in poverty. We are addressing this by adapting and scaling up multiple forms of innovative financing to our programmes; from microfinancing that supports a family to buy solar lamps, to results based financing for solar energy SME’s, to strategies that support access to carbon finance.
Microfinance facilitates the provision of small loans to the very poor, who cannot otherwise access traditional financing because they lack collateral. In Kenya we targeted households with little or no assets, for access to finance for Renewable Energy Technologies that would otherwise be out of their reach. We partnered with the Visionary Empowerment Programme (VEP) a non-governmental organisation which
offers micro lending services to over 200 women’s groups with more than 7000 members. VEP members save a small amount each month, which facilitates lending within the group at interest rates as low as 1%.
The uptake of domestic biogas and solar light-ing in poor households is often driven by women. By harnessing the expertise and network of VEP, we have been able to raise the profile of clean energy and facilitate microfinancing for biogas, improved cook-stoves, solar lanterns and solar home systems. ”I was informed about the biogas project and its benefits, I took a loan from VEP and I now have an 8 cubic meter digester, providing us with adequate gas for cooking and lighting in my kitchen. I also bought a solar lantern for our main house which we also use to charge our phones. My husband can join me in the kitchen as there is no smoke and the lantern is also for lighting when milking at 4.30 am. Now our children can reach us anytime as we do not have to switch off our phones to save power like before.” says Mrs. Eddah Wambui who has used her small loan to improve quality of life for her whole family.
• Energy poverty remains a challenge
Access to clean energy has immediate benefits
for poor people: on their health, education,
income, available time and comfort, next to long term effects of reduced greenhouse
gas emissions.
CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
1.3billion
people have no access to electricity
2.6billion people lack clean cooking facilities
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We have worked to expand both the range and accessibility of renewable energy products by considering community needs. We brokered business linkages between VEP and solar energy distributors such as Barefoot Smart Solar and D-light, and supported VEP with business plans, marketing strategies and assessments, to better adapt products and services to the needs and purchasing capacity of customers.
In addition to gaining access to small loans, some of the women’s groups have become points of sale for solar lanterns, enabling them to earn an income whilst raising awareness amongst others. We have also expanded outreach to remote areas where access can be especially difficult. Through working with the Kenya Tea Development Authority, rural tea farmers can now purchase solar technologies using a check off payment system against their tea sales.
Central to the uptake of renewable energy technologies is a sustainable market, and this depends on a balance between affordable supply and consumer demand. Household expenditures for kerosene, candles, batteries and cell phone charging in Tanzania are high - accounting for up to 45% of a family’s energy budget. To reduce monthly expenditure, consumers here are motivated to purchase small solar systems such as solar lamps, but only at the right price point. Despite the presence of an available consumer market, solar products are not affordable. Poor distribution and a lack of access to capital to buy stock at scale, leads retailers to increase their profit mark-up to recover their higher procurement costs. Higher prices result in lower turnover, perpetuating a poor sales market.
• In Mali we are helping small
enterprises to secure public-private impact investments for the
production and marketing of biofuel
briquettes.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
It may not be the most enticing substance but bio-slurry is
potent stuff. Containing organic materials and nutrients, it is
the residue of the material fed into a biodigester. SNV biogas
implementation in Ethiopia has demonstrated the many benefits
of biogas. The bio-slurry by-product can be used and sold by
food insecure smallholder farmers as fertiliser to significantly
increase crop yields and incomes. Ethiopian farmer Girma Mamo
says “Biogas is worthy of investment. I’m reaping the multiple
rewards of biogas”. Bioslurry is helping smallholder farmers to
minimise fertiliser expenses, increase their income and diversify
their agricultural products.
REN
EWABLE ENERG
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HI G H L I G H T S
15,450solar products
Small loans through VEP have financed the construction
of over 2000 biodigesters and the sale of 7,203 clean
cookstoves and 15,450 solar products
in Kenya.
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Realising that the solution lies in working across the whole solar value chain, we have partnered with Energising Development (EnDev) program, which is managed by GiZ to build a sustainable market for Pico-Solar products through Results Based Financing. This innovative financing scheme will support suppliers and retailers to mutually develop the distribution chain for affordable and reliable Pico solar products, and benefit more than 100,000 households.
Josh Sebastian of SNV explains “What the Results Based Financing essentially does is reimburse suppliers and retailers for some of the costs incurred in investing to successfully develop the market. All funds are performance based and there are no guarantees but they are free to pursue any orientation that results in end sales to consumers. Essentially if you can sell solar, you can earn incentives. What participants seem to like so far is that they are rewarded for their efforts. What makes this very interesting is that the private sector is not referring to this as a project any longer, they are referring to it as a business proposition.”
This innovative financing project is expected to stimulate an additional EUR 3,000,000 in private sector investment to the Lake Zone in Tanzania, save consumers greater than EUR 22,000,000 in domestic kerosene expenditures, and place clean lighting and electrification services within reach for more than 175,000 off grid rural users, all over the next three years.
Meanwhile in Cambodia, rice farmer Cheng Leng used to spend hours searching the forest surrounding his Kampong Speu farm for firewood. Now when Leng wants to boil water or cook food for his family of seven, all the 60-year-old farmer has to do is flick a switch and his methane-powered stove comes to life. “With biogas we don’t have smoke in the house like when we burn firewood; it is much better for our health” he says.
“This is really challenging a lot of
our typical assumptions on the role
we play as civil society in market
development. Results Based Financing
is putting a challenge out there that
the private sector can actually do
these things if they are given the
means to do it.” Josh Sebastian, SNV Tanzania
19 RENEWABLE ENERGY
• Over the past 10 years the
Vietnam Biogas Program has been
successfully developing a market
driven domestic biogas sector in
Vietnam – to date 135,000 digesters, 700,000 individual beneficiaries and
1,000 biogas Small & Medium
Enterprises.
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
Leng’s access to biogas is made possible through Cambodia’s National Biodigester Programme, initiated by the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and supported by SNV.
This programme has improved local livelihoods through the building of 19,171 household biodigester units, providing clean energy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Due to this reduction in carbon emissions, the programme has received its third consecutive issuance of 69,438 tradable Gold Standard carbon credits worth EUR 416,628.
The Gold Standard certification ensures that carbon credits are real and verifiable and is internationally recognised for both the Kyoto and voluntary carbon markets. One carbon credit is the equivalent of one tonne of avoided carbon emissions and these carbon credits are sold on the interna-tional carbon market. Selling these carbon credits helps the Cambodian government to continue to finance the pro-gramme. “Carbon finance supports the nationwide, sustain-able dissemination of clean energy technology that improves the livelihoods of rural farmers” says H.E. Nou Muth, the programme director. By utilising carbon financing the biogas programme is self-sustaining, greatly improving the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians.
From microfinance to results based finance to carbon finance; smart ways to scale up the benefits of clean energy access.
20 RENEWABLE ENERGY
• The Solar Cart is a mobile wagon with
solar panels providing portable power in
rural areas. In Benin, in partnership with
mobile phone operator MTN, SNV are
supporting micro-entrepreneurs to sell
mobile phone charging and small solar systems from
these carts, bringing solar power to approximately
300,000 people.
830 dairy farmers who form part of PROLACSA´s
milk supply chain in Nicaragua, will gain access to
biodigesters for productive and domestic use
through an SNV & HIVOS supported public/private
partnership. The aim of the programme is to boost
the uptake and knowledge of biogas for domestic
and commercial use. The dairy farmers will be able
to access credit at favourable rates and take
advantage of funds for energy efficiency projects
from the Green Initiative. Farmers can also cover
up to 30% of the biodigestor cost, by providing
manure for waste to energy conversion.
REN
EW
ABLE ENERGY
H
I G H L I G HT
S
69,438tonnes
Last year Cambodia’s National Biodigester Programme
avoided 69,438 tonnes of carbon dioxide -
the equivalent of taking 14,619 cars
off the roads.
“EnDev have observed SNV’s innovation strength in strategies for developing solar lantern and small Solar Home System markets.”
Carsten Hellpap, GIZ, Manager of EnDev partnership
Fertile minds: teaching the next generation to grow a better banana
The Honde valley, Zimbabwe is a beautiful fertile place to grow up in, but the families here were struggling to make a living from the poor quality, low yield banana
crops they were growing. To develop a banana value chain linking smallholder farmers to established market buyers and increase farmer incomes, it was clear that local banana growing practices had to change. Taking a tried and tested approach to improving banana cultivation, SNV worked with smallholder famers to establish farming demonstration sites, four of which were located at local primary schools. These demonstration plots soon became fertile forums, with school children learning the skills of better banana production. “Each student from the age of nine receives his or her own banana tree to take care of. They learn how to get the most out of it, and a certain degree of competition makes the children eager to learn new techniques!” explains Mr. Musoro, headmaster at St.Peter’s mission primary school in Mandeya. Banana trees at this school that once yielded just 15 kgs of bananas now produce 35 kg per tree. And the fruits of this initiative don’t stop here as these children, some of them future banana farmers, are taking their new skills home to improve their parents’ banana farms.
In Kenya, Ghana and Mali the Home Grown
School Feeding project, funded by The Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, is helping
smallholder farmers to be a part of the
school feeding procurement process.
Through skills training and a simplification
of the tendering process farmers are
gaining access to these valuable local
markets. In Kenya, this approach has
enabled about 12 farmer organisa tions to
directly bid and tender for the supply of
maize and beans to schools. In Ghana,
112 Letters of Intent have been signed
between 45 producer organisations and
131 school caterers, while in Mali 1,600
smallholder farmers were able to sell their
produce through the school feeding
programmes. Linking smallholder
producers to schools means better quality,
locally sourced produce for school children
and improved livelihoods for their
communities.
AGRICULTURE
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H L I G H T S
“You can see the crop results for yourself. But what is even better is that children start to teach their parents to grow their bananas in the same way.” says the school headmaster. Building on this momentum, SNV worked with local teachers and the Ministry of Education to produce a guide to managing demonstration plots, a banana production manual, and banana school syllabus. These learning materials have been shared widely through the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Education, the Market Linkages Working Group and across other SNV programmes, scaling up the benefits of this multi-generational approach. Banana production in the Honde valley has since increased on average 30%, with crop quality up to 70% improved. This means better prices and a more secure position in the banana value chain. Farmer incomes are up by more than 60%, and this is benefitting the whole family. Mr Nyakunika, St.Peter’s agriculture teacher clearly sees the difference: “If you would have come here three years ago, you would see schoolchildren who didn’t even have proper clothes, who were so hungry they had problems concentrating. And look at them now!”
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CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
GMT Time Zones
0 +1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 ±12
Making every minute count
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
[GMT+1] Niger
Aï Abarchi is coordinating the WASH Coalition
leading dialogue with the Government and
other NGOs, and working on tools to support 108 local
WASH committees to develop their own
village action plans for water management services, sanitation
and hygiene.
[GMT-6] Honduras
Rubén Gallozzi, REAP advisor, is improving the
competitiveness of the palm oil sector
in Honduras to increase its exports, and develop certified
environmentally sustainable production.
6,295000 in Water, Sanitation &
Hygiene
2,612000 in Agriculture
850,000 in Renewable
Energy
Almost 10 million
people benefitted from SNV’s work in 2013
(9,757,000)
85% of our staff are
local
We employ
1200 employees of
56 different nationalities
SNV has been building local capacity for
50 years
[GMT-4] Bolivia
Inclusive Business Program Leader
Horacio Barrancos Bellot is supporting an agricultural value chain for producers,
consumers and distributors of
improved cattle feed made out of malt
residuals.
[GMT+1] Democratic Republic of
CongoFodé Niang
Agriculture Value Chain Advisor is
working with 3,000 small holder farmers for increased food
security & incomes via rural spot markets,
access to finance and purchase contracts between producer
groups & commodity traders.
[GMT0] Ghana
Fati Bodua Seidu is Ghana Project coordinator of Procurement
Governance for the Home-Grown School Feeding (PG-HGSF)
Programme increasing incomes for 10,000 smallholder farmers,
including 3,000 women, through food supply contracts for
school feeding programmes.
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CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
GMT Time Zones
0 +1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 ±12
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CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
[GMT+2] Mozambique
WASH advisor Gilda Monjane Uaciquete
is working on a baseline study as part of the first phase of
a new project in Peri-urban WASH.
[GMT+6] Bangladesh
Rajeev Munankani WASH Global Sector
Co-ordinator, is working on Faecal
Sludge Management, to benefit 1 million
people with access to safer sanitation and 250,000 people with access to improved sanitation facilities.
We work with
1300 local
implementing partners
In 2013, we spent almost
€ 108 million fighting poverty
Last year, we secured
EUR 100 million
for future projects.
of capacity building to almost
2,000 organisations
from the private sector, government and civil
society
In 2013, we provided over
250,000 days
We work in
39 countries
[GMT+7] Lao PDR
Agriculture advisor Daovanh Sotouky is
improving the rice value chain in Khammouane
Province; supporting 300 rice farmer groups to build
relations between farmers and millers,
and increasing incomes for 2,500 smallholder rice farmers by 20%.
[GMT+3] Ethiopia
Selamawit Tamiru is leading a team
implementing the Menstrual Hygiene
Management project, to break menstruation taboos and improve
facilities for thousands of school girls across
Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda,
Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
[GMT+6] Nepal
Keshav Das, Renewable Energy
and Climate Finance Advisor is developing
a programme of activities in
partnership with Dutch energy utility
Eneco Energy Trading to promote Improved
Cookstoves in the Far West region.
[GMT+7] Indonesia
Agribusiness advisor Arman Ginting is
increasing smallholder farmer income by
25% through improved production, quality, and marketing
in the coconut and cassava sectors in
Lombok, Timor Tengah Utara and East
Java.
Inclusive business from bean to brew SNV’s innovative Inclusive Business approach is working to bring quality Nicaraguan coffee and cacao to new markets, and earn 5,000 smallholder farmers and their families a better price for their product.
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #5
AGRICULTURE
What do millions of people around the world enjoy every day at home and in the office, with their friends and their colleagues?
Coffee, of course! Coffee has become such a staple of modern life that most of us can’t imagine our day without it. Worldwide, we drink over 500 billion cups of coffee every year, with 90% grown in developing countries where over 25 million people earn their livelihoods from it. With the average price of a latte costing more than a fast food meal, coffee retailers seem to make large profits from coffee sales. But in a competitive market dominated by large traders, it can be hard for small coffee growers to secure a fair price for their product.
No less popular than coffee is that much-loved treat, chocolate. The chocolate confectionary market is an USD 80 billion a year industry, and global demand for chocolate is expected to increase 30% by 2020. Smallholder farmers produce 90% of the world’s cacao; however, most cacao farmers only earn a fraction of the retail price for their product. Low prices paid to cacao farmers means less money to invest in better farming techniques, in turn affecting product quality and yields as well as reducing its value.
In Nicaragua, through our Inclusive Business approach, we are harnessing public-private partnerships to put more money back into the coffee and cacao value chains, through a programme valued at EUR 10,750,000.
We are increasing incomes and promoting food security for 3,000 coffee and 2,000 cacao producers, by supporting access to the market of trading company Exportadora Atlantic S.A.. The capacities of 20 farmer co-operatives are being supported to increase quality crop yields through the expertise of the Foundation for Agricultural Technology Development and Forestry of Nicaragua (FUNICA), the University of Zamorano and UTZ Certified.
Exportadora of the Swiss ECOM group is aprivate coffee and cacao trading companywhich holds more than one-third of themarket share for both products in Nicaragua. The company recognises supporting farmers to improve product quality, and paying them a fair price, guarantees a better more profitable product. FUNICA is a non-profit organisation focussed on strengthening the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sectors through policy advocacy and technological innovation.
The University of Zamorano brings its expertise on integrated pest and disease management and bio-intensive family gardens to the programme. Finally, the experience of the UTZ Certified program, an international standard for coffee and cocoa, brings sustain-able agricultural practices to producers. The combined efforts of these players across six regions in Nicaragua brings smallholder producers into the value chains and earns them a better income. Our programme looks
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CONNECT #5 JULY 2014
• SNV advances economic development and socio-
economic inclusion through Inclusive Business models. These approaches seek to
increase the income, production capacity and well-being of low-income groups, while generating benefits for participating
companies. We have developed more than 140 Inclusive Business projects in Latin America, Asia and
Africa.
>140 Inclusive Business
projects in Latin America, Asia
and Africa
AGRICULTURE
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
across the whole value chain to understand what interven-tions are needed to improve product quality and reduce constraints that limit competitiveness. “By having good coffee, we have better prices and the farmer benefits”, says an SNV-supported coffee farmer in Nicaragua.
Coffee and cacao are luxuries and the best quality products achieve the higher prices for producers. Yet better quality requires more knowledge of modern farming techniques and management skills, as well as access to finance to buy quality supplies and planting material. Poor resources beget poor quality, leading to low prices which keep farmers in poverty.
Our interventions range from educating farmers in better agricultural techniques to farm management to coffee appreciation and marketing. We also strengthen farmer co-operatives in management, administration, decision- making and business alliances. “The main goal is that farmers can increase productivity to make high quality products and have an easier way to access high value markets. To achieve this we not only work with farmers to help get them certified and to implement good practices, we also work with co-operatives and their staff to strengthen them on every level”, explains Silvia Amador of SNV Nicaragua.
“We have received support and
technical assistance in the field
through SNV. This has helped to
improve the quality of our coffee”. SNV-supported coffee farmer
AGRICULTURE26
Salvadorian agroindustrial company JJ Borja Nathan is
leading Inclusive Business in the production of biofuels
through jatropha and castro cultivation. The project involves
200 farmers who will increase their incomes by 35% and will
impact another 880 people, 60% of whom are women.
Small-scale farmers are being supported by Centrolac, the
leading dairy products company in Central America. New
skills in milking best practices will increase productivity and
quality, along with training in how to gain access to a stable
market to sell milk at higher prices. This will benefit over
1,000 people through increased incomes.
Ethnic Pech and Afro-descendant farm communities battling
extreme poverty are in an Inclusive Business plan with
Dinant, an agro-industrial company in Nicaragua.
The farmers grow corozo palm which will be used to
produce energy and oil, increasing their incomes by 70%.
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One of the leaders of La Campesina, a small co-operative of cacoa producers comments. “Our co-operative is going to develop with help from SNV. The clients demand 100 tons per month. We produce only 250 tons per year. Improving productivity is one of our challenges. And we know that, with SNV, we are going to get to this goal. We strengthen productivity, the operation and the organisation and SNV helps us access better markets”. La Campesina is also working with SNV to increase the number of women in the co-operative. The co-operative members see the benefits of this Inclusive Business approach. ”We did not know any-thing about cacao, but La Campesina helped and motivated us and showed us how to start. This has made us feel very good and generated good money for us “ adds a co-opera-tive member.
This programme is also helping develop the next generation of coffee and cacao producers. Low prices and unstable markets often drive poor farmers to seek alternative crops. Working with the sons and daughters of farm families sus-tains the economies of rural communities.“I’m the son of a
producer. We know some things about farming. But the expertise that we have from the SNV courses, helps us to improve our knowledge.” says one young coffee farmer.
Young people are learning skills from climate-smart agriculture techniques to chocolate and coffee processing. “I studied a course of coffee tasting from the SNV develop-ment program SNV. Before, all I knew is that we cultivated coffee and drank it. But I didn’t know about different smells and tastes. Now that I have studied this course, I have a better vision about coffee. My ambition is to be a profes-sional coffee taster”, says a coffee student.
These smart interventions are integral parts of this Inclusive Business model. As producers of quality coffee and cacao, 5,000 small family farms are now part of the Exportadora Atlantic value chain, securing access to a stable market that pays fairly. Exportadora in turn benefit from the reliable sustainable supply of a high quality product. From bean to brew, these farmers are earning more and nurturing a fruitful future for coffee and cacoa in Nicaragua.
“In the cooperative, we are
now putting in practice what
we have learned; how to
approach and talk to the
farmers; and how to convince
them of what they should do.”La Campesina Co-operative leader
• The “Inclusive Business: Everybody Wins” Programme in Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru and
El Salvador has transformed the lives of more than 20,000
low-income families by increasing their
incomes by 20% to 70%. The programme
is implemented by SNV with Inter-
American Development Bank- Multilateral Investment Fund (IDB MIF) and in collaboration with private companies.
AGRICULTURE
More than 1200 pastoralists have benefitted from improved
livestock production systems following the introduction of better
farming practices. In North and North West Cameroon, SNV
improved the functioning of nine pastoral water-points, and 600
pastoralists have adopted improved livestock systems,
establishing over 300 hectares of more resilient animal pasture
by growing more nutritious grass and making use of manure.
As resources are scarce violent disputes often occur between
farmers and cattle grazers. More than 300 alliances were
established between farmers and grazers, and 24 new village
dialogue platforms were created which are achieving good
success in mediating these disputes. Better farming practices
are helping cattle pastoralists to sustain their livelihoods and
fostering better community relations.
AGRICULTURE
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>20,000 lives of low-income families have been
transformed
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3 JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
28
“I normally wake up around 6:30 a.m, I walk my dogs Mancha and Leena, have breakfast and then drive to the office.
I immediately check my mail for responses and make a “to do list” based on project activities.
Currently 80% of my work schedule is dedicated to the programme for Access to Sustainable Markets and Food Security for Coffee and Cocoa Producers in Nicaragua. Normally my work schedule is divided 50/50 between desk work and field work, but lately it has been 3 weeks in the field and 1 week at my desk. I like this because it gives me the opportunity to get infor-mation first hand. I get to know the organisa-tions, their structure, the people and the way they work, to better coordinate our goals.
At lunchtime, if I am in the office I like to meet with friends and when I am in the field I eat wherever I can, some-times at the house of a coffee producer. After lunch, the teams share the work done during the morning. The cooperative´s teams present their work and we discuss it. If I am developing workshops,
The life in one day of Advisor for SNV Nicaragua and Honduras
The most rewarding part of my job is to know that by doing what I do, I am helping others to improve their living conditions. Every day I try to be better and to do better.
Silvia is an economist with a Masters in finance and management control, and she works with small producers of coffee, cocoa, milk and palm oil to increase income, employment opportunities, gender inclusion and access to markets and services.
in the afternoon I will travel 4 to 6 hours north to the implementations areas. Around 3:00 p.m. people start getting a little sleepy, so we all enjoy a coffee break – as is to be expected I am a real coffee lover! At the end of the day it is time for paper work and emails, this can take until 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.
Being a young woman leading in these activities can be challenging -sometimes at meetings I am the only woman! I love working with people, and for this it is important to gain their trust. I have to be reliable and ensure my work meets a high standard. This shows people the respect they deserve and demonstrates my capability to address their needs.
What I really like about my job as an advisor in SNV is that I am given the freedom to develop my work. No two days are alike, every initiative gives me the opportunity to unleash my own potential to actively contribute to our goals.”
Yes, I need a coffee!
The cooperative´s teams present their work and
we discuss it.
Sometimes at
meetings I am the
only woman!
Silvia Amador
Having access to a clean functioning toilet at
school can make a big impact on the learning
experience for primary school children. 21,000
primary school students in 60 schools in north
and far north Cameroon, will benefit from access
during the school day to improved sanitation and
hygiene facilities. SNV has partnered with UNICEF
on a programme valued at EUR1,877,378 to
improve sanitation & hygiene facilities.
This includes constructing toilet facilities and
implementing better WASH management
practices. Through these interventions the
programme aims to indirectly influence the health
and learning conditions for an additional 25,000
students in 80 schools, making it easier for these
young school children to concentrate on learning.
WASH
HI G
H L I G H T S
Girls in Control
“I was shocked when I first had my period,” Ugandan schoolgirl Arong says. “I felt dirty and thought I had a dangerous disease.” Around the world
millions of girls like Arong suffer guilt and confusion when they first get their period. Poor education and social taboos mean that a girl’s first step into womanhood is often stained with fear and exclusion as she is confronted with harassment, embarrassment and poor health due to a lack of menstrual hygiene education and support.
“After seeing blood, I decided to escape from school and go back home. I was afraid to tell my mother about what I was going through. I instead lied to her that we had been sent home early. I was sleepless the entire night… I remained in bed and lied to my mother that I was sick. I stayed home from school until I saw no more blood.” For thousands of schoolgirls, menstruation means the end of their dreams of education. Rural African girls miss 20 to 30% of their classes every year due to the shame they feel around menstruation, while many drop out of school altogether during puberty.
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WASH
• By working with local young women
and the private sector, SNV is
developing the supply chain for menstrual
hygiene products such as re-useable
menstrual pads – ensuring schoolgirls have access to safe,
affordable alternatives instead of unhealthy traditional solutions like rags, straw or
feathers.
Girls in Control is a new SNV initiative helping thousands of young women across Ethiopia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe not only to overcome the stigma associated with menstruation, but to stay healthy, finish school and reach their full potential.
“Girls are our future,” says programme leader Selamawit Tamiru “and only when families, schools and communities understand menstruation as a vital part of being a healthy woman, can that future be assured!”
By working with schools, communities and local authorities, Girls in Control is helping to educate schoolgirls and their families on menstrual hygiene management – breaking down local taboos around female health. By ensuring that menstrual hygiene management is included in school curricula and that all schools in the programme districts have safe, clean toilet facilities for schoolgirls when they are menstruating, the programme is working to reduce dropout rate and number of school days missed. It seems simple, but the results are crucial: Empowered, educated young women, who can become the true drivers of development they have the potential to be.
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We want to harness the talent, energy and passion of unemployed young people in Tanzania, Rwanda, and Mozambique. In these countries poverty levels can be as high as 68%, and unemployment rates for youth are two to three times higher than those of adults. Instead of depending on insecure employment, these young people want a stable income and the opportunity for growth and professional development.
Nice work, if you can get it
Meet Isidory Faustine; a young mason from Tanzania who is now proud to call himself an entrepreneur. Isidory established his own biodigester business, following training in biogas
construction and enterprise development from the SNV supported Tanzania Domestic Biogas Programme. “Through the training I received, I’m running my own business and I get steady income, I have opened a bank account which I never had before, and I have savings. I am credible and trusted by my community members.” says Isidory.
Like many young people, Isidory is all too aware of how difficult it is to get a solid start in the employment market. Youth make up over 40% of the world’s unemployed with a staggering 73 million currently job seeking. And we know that youth unemployment is not just a problem for young people. Raising a generation that cannot find work gives rise to serious and far reaching economic and social conse-quences for developing countries. There is a link between protracted youth unemployment and social instability. Youth unemployment results in slower economic growth, reduced tax revenues, and limited resources for young families to invest in the health and education of their own children. Jobs for young people are the critical step in
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73 million
youth unemployed
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
helping nations to generate their own economic resources and to lift themselves out of poverty.
In partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, we are taking up this challenge with OYE, the Opportunities for Youth Employment programme. Matching skills to market needs, and supporting young entrepreneurs in Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania, is the aim of this 5 year, USD 14.2 million programme targeting 20,500 youth.
With the private sector generating 90% of new jobs, the only sustainable solution to youth unemployment is to match skills to private sector needs, and to develop young entrepreneurs and support new private sector markets to ensure future job creation. The OYE project will provide unemployed young people living in rural areas with skills training and opportunities in the agriculture and renewable energies sectors.
To bridge the gap between knowledge and experience the OYE project is partnering with existing and emerging initia-tives in agribusiness (e.g. crops, livestock, dairy) and green energy (e.g. biogas, solar, biomass), to equip youth with technical as well as soft skills in accessing on-the-job train-
SNV IN ACTION
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ing and employment. The project works to strengthen the capacities of local agribusiness and renewable energy providers in a way that ensures that training programmes remain locally relevant; further increasing the employment prospects for thousands of rural youth. OYE Tanzania recently trained private sector agriculture practitioners to educate OYE youth participants in dairy practices. Practi-tioners from livestock training agency LITA-BUHURI and private milk processing company Tanga Fresh were trained in OYE principles, and how to embed business and soft skills within technical curricula.
In Africa today young people make up 60% of the unem-ployed and 100 million more jobs will need to be created by 2020, just to maintain current levels of employment there.But quantity of jobs alone does not provide the solution. Up to 82% of African workers are ‘working poor’ - underem-ployed in poor quality, insecure, low income jobs, often in the informal economy. Economic growth and a productive workforce rely upon quality jobs which offer fair pay, advancement, are inclusive and sustainable.
OYE will facilitate internships, on-the-job-training opportuni-ties, and placements in private and public enterprises in
SNV IN ACTION
“At least 80 per cent or more of OYE
project trainees will gain employment
or start businesses in the high-growth
agriculture and renewable sectors” Roy van der Drift, OYE programme manager
these sectors. The project will develop relevant skills that fit quality roles and meet employer needs. We will enable future entrepreneurship by connecting youth to financial institutions and ensuring continued business coaching and peer-to-peer learning.
We know that opportunities like these can make a real difference. By training young people in the biogas sector in Tanzania we have already supported 60 enterprises, and created employment opportunities for more than 600 people. “I looked at the youth in our villages, and I couldn’t help them when I was a normal mason without biogas
“OYE teaches me I am not
too young to build dreams” Mugiraneza Pamphile, Rwanda
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
construction skills. But I am now happy when I look at the lives that have been transformed by training young men who finished school and didn’t have nothing much to do. They are now supporting their families and some have even gotten married,” says Isidory, whose new biodigester business has apprenticed and trained more than 50 youths, to become professional masons.
Getting out and finding a job is a job in itself, and requires its own set of skills and opportunities. OYE offers training in business development, financial and life skills to help enter-prising people like Isidory to take their skills further and to link supply with demand.
“Young people in rural communities need more than training. They need tools, networks and confidence to adapt
“Thanks to OYE, SNV and
MasterCard Foundation, I am
proud to be a girl, I can now
earn money and shape my life
by myself!” Musabyemariya Liliane, Ngororero District, Rwanda
SNV IN ACTION
and thrive in a fast-changing economy,” says Reeta Roy, President and CEO of The MasterCard Foundation. “We partnered with SNV because their programming reflects the local economic realities young people face, while con-necting them to new opportunities now emerging in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Tackling youth unemployment requires an innovative approach. By developing valuable skills for quality employment and fostering entrepreneurship in thousands of young people, OYE will promote fresh opportunities for this, and the next generation. And what does Isidory say? “I received training through SNV on business skills, business planning and management. This has truly trans-formed my life and also that of those who surround me.” To that we say - OYE!
Learning the skills to
build biodigesters
‘The meat of the poor’ or cowpea legume is a staple crop in
Niger, but poor quality post-harvest storage resulted in
smallholders losing up to 40% of their crop. In tandem, cowpea
farmers struggled to access credit. So SNV introduced the PICS
triple bag system for secure storage, and pioneered the use of
stored crops as collateral for micro financing. As a result
incomes have increased 25% for 52,000 people including 17,425
women, with 9,000 jobs in cowpea production created, including
2,300 for women. SNV strengthening the cowpea value chain,
as part of the Project for Development of Agro-Sylvo-Pastoral
Exports and Markets (PRODEX) funded by World Bank.
AGRICULTURE
HI G
H L I G H T S
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Field of Dreams
We have placed 16 talented young graduates in diverse SNV programmes, where they are working hand in hand
with SNV advisors in the field and gaining practical international experience of a wide range of issues and approaches. “The Junior Professionals Programme gives me the unique experience of working in an international development organisation, and gaining feet in the mud experience” says Maarten Klein who is working with the Renewable Energy programme in the Mwanza area of Tanzania. Euphresia Luseka his fellow SNV Young Expert agrees “There is no academic institution in Kenya that could build my capacity on issues to do with
professionalisation and private-public partnerships. I joined SNV and I am learning to be the best I can be in Water, Sanitation & Hygiene.”
These young graduates are also benefitting from the synergy of learning together. “By listening to each other’s experiences, we learn how we can contribute to improve our host projects.” says Geert Koster who is working with SNV WASH in Benin. Rem Neefjes, Country Director Nepal/Bhutan observes “The group interact continuously, sharing their experiences and learning from each other. So they form their own team or community of practice, in the real sense of the word. By using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook they reach out to others; profiling SNV and contributing to knowledge development based on practical experiences.” Yiva Check Herman, Junior Professional with SNV Agriculture DRC agrees “I am really experiencing the saying “Learning never ends”. This is going to help me in my advisory process, as I will observe with a more critical eye for detail.”
And the learning opportunities are not just for those on the programme, as SNV have also gained considerably by bringing fresh energy and insight to existing challenges. Rem Neefjes, Country Director Nepal/Bhutan says “The programme is responding to a long felt need to get fresh blood into the organisation. In Nepal, Lynette, our Junior Professional from Kenya has quickly found her place and is a full member of the Renewable Energy team. In a male dominated team of senior staff, her arrival was quite refreshing. I, myself, now have to use Twitter much more effectively because they all
“There are very few
female technical
water experts, and the
number is even fewer
in terms of young
female Africans, so
I am very proud to
be part of this SNV
programme to build my
skills and my career.” Euphresia Luseka SNV Young Expert
“I never expected
that just after 4 months
I will feel so responsible
and concerned about
what is happening in
my sector within my
country and beyond” Priva Kabre, SNV Junior Professional.
wanted to follow me and be linked up through LinkedIn. We are connected now and they outsmart me!” SNV Nepal Renewable Energy Sector leader, Guy Dekelver agrees. ‘Having joined SNV in a junior position myself and knowing how it opened up opportunities for me as a professional, I was very happy to hear this programme would be launched. Because its a win-win. Plus we have gained a fresh view on our activities as well as insights that have already helped to improve our work.’
Giving fresh talent a chance to shine, supports a broad and evolving SNV skill set that helps us to remain innovative in our approaches. Kiriana Thomas, Junior Professional with SNV Agriculture Zimbabwe, sums it up. “Nothing brings out the potential in a person like being with the right organisation with the right tools and support “
At SNV we know that actions speak louder than words. Getting hands on experience in the development field can be tough, so we started our own two year Junior Professionals and Young Experts Programme. “It is very difficult to find a job within a development organisation, since often extensive work experience is required. This programme will definitely open up many more possibilities for us.“ says Caroline te Pas who is working as a Junior Professional in agriculture in Cameroon.
SNV IN ACTION
Koen Joosten @SNVworldSNV local capacity building is driving development in Kenyan communities #SNV_RE
Giri Raj Katri @SNVworldDevelop youth entrepreneurship through different vocational trainings and support them to establish enterprises in local market #SNV_AGRI
Caroline te Pas @SNVworld Strengthen rural value chains to generate youth employment opportunities #InclusiveBusiness
Lynette Korirer @SNVworldCreate youth jobs #OYE
Yiva Check Herman @SNVworld Peer to peer learning is easier as it comes from a familiar perspective #JPP
Geert Koster @SNVworldAccelerating our development by learning from experienced SNV professionals #JPP
Thomas Kiriana @SNVworldInculcate entrepreneurial mindset during youth training programmes #OYE
Will iam Fotsue Noumoye @SNVworldYouth training programmes help youth to gain practical experience. #JPP
Suzanne Stas @SNVworldDeveloping local markets along the value chain opens up new employment opportunities for local people #SNV_WASH
Evelien Hennekens @SNVworldLets get incentives going for companies to hire underprivileged young people #OYE
Maarten Klein @SNVworldStimulating growth of local businesses to create new youth employment in the developing world. #SNV_RE
Priva Kabre @SNVworldPeer to peer learning lets you see your own problems through another’s eyes. #JPP
SNV’s Junior Professional Programme (JPP)
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
Turning poo into power and fertiliser is the goal of the biogas plant for the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture (KITA) in Ghana, an initiative supported
by SNV and the Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development. This innovative programme will have an impact across Renewable Energy, Agriculture and WASH, as the human waste from the institute’s toilets will be processed in the biogas plant to generate power, with the effluent by-product being used to improve agriculture.
“This biogas project is relevant to all SNV’s sectors and it is designed to provide a low cost solution to the growing sanitation problem and produce valuable by-products.” says Amanda Childress, SNV Ghana Country Director.The biogas plant will generate 3.5 kilowatts of electricity to power the institute’s computers, lighting and other services. The effluent leaving the digester, will undergo aerobic composting so that it can be used as nutrient rich organic fertiliser to boost productivity of the institute’s farms. “This project will provide all the benefits of biogas technology, and establish the institute as a climate-smart-agricultural institution.” observes Samuel Owusu-Takyi, Director of KITA.
Turning human waste into something of value; an inventive way to address sanitation challenges and improve livelihoods.
35
Turning poo into power
CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
“SNV is committed to
finding creative solutions
to some of the most
challenging issues that
hinder development and
affect the poor in Ghana.” Amanda Childress, SNV Ghana Country Director
SNV IN ACTION
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
Supporting smallholder famers with both the skills to manage their product sales, and
access to markets is a potent way to improve incomes. In Bhutan, our IFAD-funded,
Market Access & Growth Intensification Project has benefitted almost 8000 people,
through group training in skills such as book-keeping and female leadership. 760
households have secured contracts to supply vegetables to more than 30 schools and/or
institutions, replacing bulk imports of low quality food from India. Further the book-
keeping and female leadership skills module has been adopted by the Government and
will constitute part of the Government’s capacity building training module. Having
learned more sophisticated farm management and book keeping skills, these farmers
have increased their vegetable sales by 26%, and related income by 35%, and can look
forward to earning a stable income from a reliable market.
AGRICULTURE
HI G
H L I G H T S
SNV is building farmers’ capacities to adapt to the negative effects of climate change and build climate resilience through innovative solutions. Snow harvesting in Nepal is
the simple yet smart idea SNV and partners introduced to apple farmers in Jumla. Farmers face extreme drought from March to June when apple trees fruit, but every winter Jumla is inundated with water - in the form of snow. SNV is training farmers to harvest the snow into pits. When the snow melts, there is a ready-made water tank to irrigate the apple trees. Combining irrigation with training in composting, mulching and pruning techniques, produces a more profitable harvest for these farmers.
In Vietnam, the Community Based Insurance initiative compensates smallholders for crop losses due to extreme weather, pest attack and crop disease. SNV is piloting the use of insurance schemes to protect poor farmer livelihoods from
Meeting the climate challenge with confidence
the impact of crop damage or failure. Farmers pay a small insurance premium and if their yield falls below 90% of the village average, they receive adequate compensation to recover their losses. 2,500 households and 30% of farmland across five communes in typhoon-prone Nghi Loc district, are now covered by Community Based Insurance.
Perfect fertiliser application helps farmers maximise their yields and thus their income, but that’s hard to do when weather patterns are changing. In Cambodia ‘on-farm’ fertiliser trials are identifying the best techniques for increasing yield while minimising fertilizer usage for different seasons and soil types. Some farmers from the trial are already implementing the recommendations, and the project is helping researchers, farmers and students to share knowledge for the future.
AGRICULTURE
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From emerging towns, to some of the world’s fastest developing cities, managing human waste remains a big problem. The bulk of human waste in these cities
is dumped untreated in local waterways, on marginal land or in open drains close to people’s houses – polluting the local environment and posing a huge health risk to communities. In Bangladesh, while 42% of the nation’s 30 million urban residents have ‘improved sanitation’ (latrines or septic tanks), the vast majority of waste still goes untreated. The country has only one treatment plant, in the capital, Dhaka, servicing just 18% of the city’s 9 million people.
Without a working sewage system, for many, the only option in Bangladesh’s dense cities is waste removal by hand, a task left to the nation’s poorest and most marginalised. These “sweepers” play a vital role in managing human waste, but their jobs are poorly paid, unregulated and harmful to their health.
The problem is immediate and impossible to ignore. However, a new SNV initiative in Bangladesh is working on new solutions to both cleaning up the nation’s cities and building sustainable livelihoods in the waste business. With backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UK’s DFID, the Demonstration of Pro-poor Market-based Solutions for Faecal Sludge Management in Urban Centres of Southern Bangladesh project is piloting new strategies for faecal sludge management in Khulna city, and two small towns. The four year project aims to improve the living environment of more than 1 million people.
By developing faecal sludge management services, the project aims to reform human waste management, building government capacity to develop and implement waste management services and policy, and increase the productivity and protect the health and dignity of people working in this vital sector.
But it’s the innovative nature of the project that most excites project manager Rajeev Munankami. “We are not just focusing on providing access to sanitation – but ‘closing the loop’, from emptying of the pit, to safe trans-portation, and ultimately safe disposal of the sludge Currently, Khulna’s sweepers can empty one pit a day, but with the right tools and increased awareness at demand side, they can empty three to five – that’s a huge increase in income.” The project will also look into re-use of the sludge, both in agriculture and biogas generation. It may be early days for the project, but with a commitment to sustainable change and an eye to innovation there is no business too dirty to be cleaned up.
Cleaning up a dirty business
CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
WASH
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Protecting livelihoods, Preserving forests
Global temperatures have risen on average 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, giving rise to climate change effects of rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Climate change
pressures agricultural productivity and threatens food security, particularly affecting the developing world as agriculture is the major source of income for 70% of the world’s poor.
Forests store more than 650 billion tonnes of carbon, are central to natural eco systems and contain at least two-thirds of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Yet one of the leading causes of forest degradation and deforestation is clearing for agricultural and energy use. The expansion of
agricultural land is likely to continue as global population growth and changes in consumption increase the demand for food. How do we conserve forests in developing coun-tries yet encourage pro poor agricultural practices that increase incomes and improve food security?
REAP, our innovative REDD+ for Energy & Agriculture Programme, aims to advance understanding of the linkages between agriculture and energy use across different forest landscapes, in order to reduce emissions through forest protection, whilst improving the lives of local people. Based on our evidence, we are working with farmers, communities and policy makers to develop specific tools and guides, that protect livelihoods and preserve forests.
Whilst reducing carbon emissions is the responsibil ity of all nations, the burden of carbon reduction can at times conflict with the needs of developing nations to improve l ivelihoods and incomes.
REAP
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Our initiatives include a REAP siting or zoning tool that helps to determine areas suitable for the expansion of Palm Oil, Coffee and Cocoa farming; agricultural best management practices for farmers which reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions; and a toolkit for introducing and managing Waste to Energy practices. We are also developing a framework for understanding Agriculture to Forest relationships, a REDD+ model to support a reduction in the unsustainable use of forest wood for fuel, and innovative financing options for sustainable agriculture and renewable energy technologies.
These approaches work to balance agricultural needs with environmental benefits, empowering farmers and policy makers to work in harmony with their forest resources.
Protecting livelihoods, Preserving forests
• REDD+ aims to create a financial
value for the carbon stored in forests,
offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands
and invest in low-carbon paths
to sustainable development.
“Strategic partnerships help
us to scale up our REAP work
to achieve greater impact.
We work with more than 20
strategic public and private
partners including seafood
corporation Minh Phu, the
Tropical Forest alliance, and
the International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture.”Richard McNally SNV REDD+ Global Co-ordinator
650billion tons of carbon are
stored in forests
REAP
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
Revitalising Mangroves and Rewarding MarketsThe fish in your local market today, are more l ikely to have been farmed than to have been fished by net from sea or river. Aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry, particularly in Vietnam where seafood as an export industry is worth over US$6 bil l ion; of which shrimp exports comprise over one third.
However, the development of aqua-culture in Vietnam has come at the expense of the natural mangrove forest, 50% of which has been lost
over the past 30 years. Mangroves in Vietnam protect against tidal waves and storm surges; they are vital fish nursery-grounds, provide timber, honey, and other products; and raise land levels by trapping sediment. They also have a high carbon content with total carbon storage being very high, relative to most forest types. Healthy mangroves make an important contribution to both climate change adaptation and mitigation; a fact generally not well under-stood by the aquaculture industry at large.
Ca Mau province is home to half of Vietnam’s mangroves, half of its shrimp farming area and one-quarter of its shrimp production. It is here that the SNV Mangroves and Markets program- me set out to introduce integrated measures for 5,000 farmers that protect mangroves whilst supporting a viable aquaculture industry.
By working with shrimp importers, traders and farmers we have introduced integrated mangrove-shrimp farming, producing organic shrimp which has a higher market value, requires lower restocking costs, and is less susceptible to diseases common in intensive farming. We created a stable market for organic shrimp farmers by negotiating a purchase agreement for all certified organic shrimp at a
• The Department of Agriculture and Rural
Development of Ca Mau province, Vietnam recently
presented the SNV Mangroves & Markets programme with an
award for outstanding contribution to
Sustainable Aquaculture
741 farmers
received organic certification
10% price premium, with Ca Mau-based Minh Phu, the world’s second largest seafood proces-sor by shrimp export value. Research carried out in 2013 showed that the net income from selected integrated mangrove-shrimp farming was twice that of traditional shrimp culture or rice-shrimp without mangroves. A stable market and increased income from organic shrimp pro-vides a strong incentive to shrimp farmers to maintain and conserve mangroves.
Recognising that mangrove protection can only be sustained if regional and national authorities are engaged, SNV has partnered with the provincial government of Ca Mau and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) to draft and intro-duce a national policy that provides the legal basis for Mangrove protection. The policy also includes strategies for accessing carbon finance based on expected reductions in mangrove deforestation and degradation. Carbon financing will further encourage mangrove protection and help to offset mangrove rehabilitation costs. By taking a smart integrated approach to sustain-able shrimp aquaculture, we have made the protection of the Ca Mau mangroves a priority at policy level, and a necessity amongst shrimp farmers themselves.
27 shrimp
farmer groups established
1008 farmers
trained in organic shrimp certification and
mangrove restoration
REAP CASEREAP
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Rice millers produce a lot of empty rice husks; and rice milling machines use a lot of expensive energy. The smart solution? Burn the waste husks to
produce cheaper and greener energy for milling. Through the EU SWITCH-Asia funded ‘Waste to Energy’ program- me, SNV introduces clean and efficient gasification technology to Cambodia, adding value by saving millers’ costs and mitigating carbon emissionsHowever, gasifier equipment still needs to be paid for, and these set-ups don’t come cheap. That’s why SNV works to provide millers with constructive ways to access gasification technology themselves or to acquire cheap energy from other gasifier operators.
We have built networks between rice millers and several independent power producers which supply rice-husk derived energy either to the electricity grid or to private energy providers. Private company SOMA Energy aims to begin generating energy in 2015 from a 1.5 megawatt facility using rice-husk waste gathered from nearby rice mills. In exchange, those rice millers will benefit from
• In Burkina Faso, the Union of Women
Rice Parboilers Groups use rice husk gasifiers to supply energy for parboiling rice. To
make these solutions accessible, SNV develops micro-
finance products to ease the purchase of the gasifiers by the
Union.
• Cambodia produces around 1.6 million
tonnes of rice husk a year, but only about
25% is currently used as fuel biomass.
SNV and Eneco have joined forces in
remote Nepal to replace traditional
cookstoves with more efficient Improved
Cookstoves. Dutch energy utility Eneco
Energy Trading is supporting carbon
market innovation and financing for this
first ever Programme of Activities for
Improved Cookstoves in far west Nepal.
Each stove is able to reduce 1.2 to 2.4
tons of carbon dioxide, per annum; and
these emission reductions are worth real
money. “The carbon revenues will
ultimately pay for all the costs. Through
this ‘self-financing’ mechanism hundreds
of thousands people will benefit.” Utilising
carbon finance to reduce indoor pollution
and deforestation, targets benefits to up
to 150,000 poor rural households.
REN
EWABLE ENERG
Y
HI G H L I G H T S
SOMA’s lower energy prices. Purchasing something like a rice husk gasification system is costly and- most millers have to secure loans against their land or other assets.SNV and private sector suppliers are now developing direct-leasing programmes so that millers can access the technology without the risk of losing their assets if they can’t keep up payments. The direct lease package will also come with the option of gasifier installation, opera-tion and maintenance so the millers’ associations can quickly get their new technology up and running. The aim is to work with finance institutions and social venture capital organisations to create a revolving fund to upscale the adoption of gasifiers across Cambodia; in turn creating options for carbon financing. And since even clean energy gasifiers have waste products of their own, a pilot project is currently investigating ways to recycle the charred rice husks for extra income generation.From millers to financiers and power companies, SNV’s ambi-tion is to help to grow a sustainable waste to energy industry, benefitting enterprise and environment alike.
Waste not, want not
RENEWABLE ENERGY
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
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“Developing a domestic biogas sector in Asia or Africa is a complex challenge. SNV and HIVOS have demonstrated the determination and flexibility required to realise this ambition, providing support and leadership in the process of building new biogas sectors.”
Frank van der Vleuten, Climate & Energy Department of the Netherlands Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Over the past year SNV transi-tioned to a sector led organisa-tion, no longer dependent on one
source of revenue. In 2013, more than half of SNV’s turnover was funded from sources other than the Dutch govern-ment core subsidy. SNV surpassed its annual order intake target, winning con-tracts valued at close to EUR100 million. Several high value projects were secured including OYE, The MasterCard Founda-tion funded youth unemployment
programme in East Africa, and Faecal Sludge Management in Bangladesh, funded by DFID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. SNV has also responded to diversified donor funding modalities. Across 9 countries in Africa and Asia a EUR28 million programme, Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All will be funded by DFID through Results Based Financing. Currently more than 90 donors and companies support SNV programmes.
Getting on with business
Leading SNV Donors in 2013
Dutch Ministry of Foreign AffairsUSAIDDFID
UNICEFBill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Danida World Bank
Swiss Development CooperationEnDev
European commissionIFAD
Mastercard foundationNetherlands Embassies
“At close to EUR 100 million,
SNV’s order intake is a strong
indication of continued donor
confidence. Moving forward we
have full confidence in SNV’s post-
core-subsidy future from 2016.”
Michel Farkas, Managing Director Global Support Services
“SNV Ethiopia, as part of a consortium, will implement the Climate Smart Initiative because of its long standing experience in Ethiopia with the development and implementa-tion of food security and climate adaption projects.”
Wout Soer, The World Bank
“We partnered with SNV because their programming delivers the training, tools, networks, and confidence needed to thrive.”
Reeta Roy CEO, The MasterCard Foundation
SNV IN ACTION
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CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
Tackling big challenges demands collabora-tion. Pooling expertise and resources for greater outreach, SNV partners with private
companies Friesland Campina, DSM, Eneco, Ecom and Vitens; development organisations including BoP Innovation Centre, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and AgriProFocus, and knowledge institutes Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), IRC and Wageningen University. By working together we can do more in capacity building, advocacy, inclu-sive business and innovative financing.
Partnering for impact
SNV Expenditure 2013• Countries EUR 92.797.267• Global Support EUR 11.985.868• SNV USA EUR 1.759.541• Corporate projects EUR 1.347.646
FinanceIn 2013 SNV invested almost EUR 108 million on sustainable development programmes and services.
SNV Sector Expenditure 2013 • Agriculture EUR 56.578,000 • WASH EUR 29.008,000
• Renewable Energy EUR 22.304,000
SNV Regional Expenditure 2013• Africa EUR 86.540,000 • Asia EUR 13.342,000 • Latin America EUR 8.008,000
SNV IN ACTION
JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
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SNV Management Board Dedicated Delivery
Michel FarkasManaging Director Global Support Services
“In the Netherlands,
development aid has a
bad reputation, people
think it is a waste of
money, is not relevant
and doesn’t lead to
anything. I really want
to prove people wrong.
I believe in the fact
that at SNV we don’t
just tell people what to
do, we believe in people and in what they can do for themselves.”
Andy WehkampManaging Director Renewable Energy
“What drives my
passion for develop-
ment is to be part of
the renewable energy
momentum. Energy is
central to any develop-
ment process. It is great to have the opportunity to join forces with likeminded partners and colleagues, and
leapfrog with innova-
tive, practical sustain-
able energy solutions
that address the real
needs of people with
low income, particularly
women, and achieve
results at scale.”
Tom Derksen Managing Director Agriculture
“My drive to work in
development comes
from a love of working
with people, a love of
travel and my natural
focus on opportunities.
When I travel, I realise
again and again how
we are all much more
similar than we are
different. We all have the same needs and aspirations, but often not the same opportu-nities. Working on
those opportunities and
seeing them realised, is
what makes me tick.”
Allert van den HamCEO
“I am driven by curiosity.
The curiosity to find
out why things are
organised the way
they are, why not
different ly, and what
we can do about it?
How can we induce
changes that put
people in the driving
seat and realise their
own ambitions, now
and in the future.”
Megan RitchieManaging Director WASH
“You can’t work
productively, or go to
school successfully, if
you or your family are
consistently unwell
from poor quality water
or unsafe sanitation
and hygiene. I see the work we do in WASH making a real difference to the lives of millions of people – and
therein lies the
ambition to strive for
even bigger, longer
lasting impact.”
SNV IN ACTION
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CONNECT #3 JULY 2014
Putting down roots: sustaining Balkan community forestry beyond SNV’s legacy
The SNV Balkan forestry programme began in 1999 in Albania to support communal forestry - local people managing and using their forest and natural resources sustainably. Starting small, there were just three SNV advisors, working with three local governments and their communities.
From the ground up, the team promoted forest ownership and tenure rights of local people, and supported sustainable management of forest products, and of
forest services such as carbon sequestration. Of equal importance was women’s participation in forest management, rural community development and income, and good governance in forestry.
The programme took root and gradually grew, and in 2003 had engaged with 30 local govern-ments, 30 forest users’ associations, and a newly established regional federation of forest users. Crucially the programme also supported community forestry policy through strong working relationships with the Ministry of Forestry.
The programme expanded further in 2005, to work with local governments, communities and forest users’ associations across Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. In 2010 community forestry was boosted across the whole region, with the establishment of a Balkan forestry network organisation, now with members from 7 Balkan countries.
Following SNV’s strategic decision to focus on 3 sectors only, it was agreed that the valuable work of the forestry programme must continue nonetheless. The programme team and activi-ties transferred to independent foundation
“The programme’s success
is due to a clear focus on
supporting local communities,
combined with innovative
knowledge. Just like growing a
tree, you must know which tree
you want to grow, be flexible
and patient. Stay faithful to
your vision, and support and
protect it for the future.” Peter Kampen, Director CNVP
CNVP - Connecting Natural Values & People. The CNVP programme has since scaled up, to work with over 110 organisations across the Balkan region. This includes 5 Ministries, 18 government forestry agencies, and 60 organisations with over 40,000 participants - and still expanding!
From humble beginnings, the legacy of the SNV forestry programme continues to pay dividends; now a self-sustaining family forestry and rural development programme, benefitting 392,000 households.
40,000 participants
and still expanding
SNV IN ACTION
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JULY 2014 CONNECT #3
Girl powerAround the world, SNV staff rallied for International Menstrual Hygiene Day. This global initiative draws attention to the importance of menstrual hygiene manage-ment and education in break-ing down menstruation taboos to support young women to stay in education. From an Advocacy Walk to Uganda’s National Parliament, to Ethiopia’s first national Menstrual Hygiene Day, events in collaborations with govern-ment ministries in Tanzania and South Sudan, and Zimbabwe’s first very TV show on menstrual hygiene - SNV staff worked hard to break the silence around this vital topic.
OUTtakesWhat have SNV people been up to over the past year?
Here are just some highlights of our activit ies to raise awareness and share our knowledge of development challenges across Renewable Energy,
Agriculture and Water, Sanitation & Hygiene.
Cycling carbon free Guy Dekelver, SNV Nepal’s senior Renewable Energy advisor donned his cycling shorts and grabbed his bike for the Eneco Co2 Tour to raise aware-ness of climate change. Guy and 40 others cycled 150 kilometers from Eindhoven, The Netherlands to the Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany. Once at the Expo SNV, with Eneco, Dutch energy utility, co-organised side event Developing Clean Cook-stoves Projects – Experiences from the Field. This shared experiences and key challenges for climate finance and markets, low-carbon technologies and climate change resilience.
Feeding the changeFor EU Development Days in Brussels, Belgium, SNV collabo-rated with GIZ, UNIDO and ColeACP to host High Level Panel discussion ‘Feed the Change: Boosting Resilience, Food and Nutrition Security through Innovative Partnerships’. SNV was also officially welcomed as Dutch member of the Practi-tioners’ Network for European Development Co-operation; fostering exchange of experience and good practice among European development agencies and institutions with a public mandate.
COP 19SNV’s REDD+ team were actively involved at the 19th Conference of Parties in Warsaw, Poland, presenting on a variety of topics including REDD+ for a Green Economy; Rights, power and equity in the design of REDD+; Ecosystem conservation & restoration for healthy and productive landscapes’; and Rule of Law, Climate Change and Sustainable Development.
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Super StovesMrs Mai’s Noodle shop in Savannakhet Lao PDR, now has a super stove! SNV and partners are developing a commercial market for these eco-friendly cookstoves that use 20% less wood and charcoal, and emit less smoke than traditional stoves. By 2016, the programme aims to produce and market 100,000 stoves, with carbon emission reductions equivalent to 20,000 fewer people flying from Lao PDR to The Netherlands and back.
Climate smarts SNV’s Adrian Enright showcased some of SNV’s Climate Smart Agricul-ture work in Asia, at a side event for the Annual Conference of the Society for International Development in Washington, USA. To this gathering of 600 development practitioners, Adrian illustrated how SNV are developing ways to boost farmers’ resilience to climate change through new income opportunities from off-season horticultural practices.
Top of the classIn Kenya recently, SNV were delighted to take part in two local award ceremonies. The events were held to award the best performing schools in their respective counties. At the event SNV’s Mathews Wanjala was proud to award prizes to outstanding schools and students. But, the students weren’t the only ones receiving praise. At the event SNV was also recog-nised for its role in linking small farmers to school feeding programmes.
Empowering ProgressWhat is the Netherlands doing to promote access to sustainable energy for all, in the developing world? SNV, Philips and develop-ment bank FMO, in cooperation with DGIS, joined forces last year for ‘Empowering Progress’ an event promoting cooperation between Dutch players to increase sustain-able energy investment and business in developing countries. Following the event, SNV and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation agreed to join forces in project and business development.
Marking a milestoneTo celebrate 10,000 biogas digesters built and 50,000 lives improved in Kenya alone, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Ms Lilianne Ploumen, recently paid a visit to beneficiaries of the SNV/Hivos/DGIS supported Africa Biogas Partner-ship Programme (ABPP) which has improved access to clean energy for 175,000 people so far.
SNV IN ACTION
SNV USA office
SNV head office
5
SNV Head OfficeDr Kuyperstraat 52514 BA The Haguethe NetherlandsTel: +31 70 344 02 44Email: [email protected]/snvYoutube.com/snvworld
@SNVworld
SNV is a not-for-profit international development organisation. Founded in the Netherlands 50 years ago, we have built a long-term, local presence in 39 of the poorest countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Our global team of local and international advisors work with local partners to equip communities, businesses and organisations with the tools, knowledge and connections they need to increase their incomes and gain access to basic services – empowering them to break the cycle of poverty and guide their own development.
www.snvworld.org