Staff and Volunteer Honored for Advancing Gender Equity |
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More than 1,200 women attended a “Women’s Conference” organized by one of our Sunhara program partners in Pratapgarh, India, to celebrate International Women’s Day. Flickr album. |
ACDI/VOCA on International Women's Day honored two of its own—Shipra Deo and Nancy Walker—with its first Advancing Gender Equity Award, which recognizes outstanding commitment to gender equity and exemplary efforts to promote gender approaches and analysis in our global programs.
Deo is an ACDI/VOCA gender and livelihoods specialist who works on the agricultural value chain development program in India called Sunhara, which uses tailored approaches for women farmers. Walker is a longtime ACDI/VOCA volunteer, who has helped build and integrate gender approaches into several overseas programs, including our recent agricultural and environmental development program in Sierra Leone called PAGE.
"I commend Ms. Deo and Ms. Walker for the tremendous work they do in the field to empower women and men in their communities," says ACDI/VOCA President Carl Leonard, who presented them with the Advancing Gender Equity Award. More.
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Thank you! 'Gift of Coffee Excellence' Reaches Goal to Help Bolivian Farmers
 Good news! Our community has made the "Gift of Coffee Excellence" a resounding success, raising $10,000 to provide local coffee research and expertise to Bolivian farmers in the rural Yungas region.
"We're extremely thankful to everyone who supported this effort to help fight poverty and hunger in Bolivia," says Diana Roach, senior director of ACDI/VOCA's volunteer program. "This shows incredible support for and belief in the work we do."
The generous donations—from people like you—will be used to outfit a coffee research institute at the Unidad Académica Campesina-Carmen Pampa and provide expert training so local farmers can get the skills and equipment they need to reach premium global markets and earn more money. More.
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 The global community finally understands the food security problem and has responded with elegant development approaches, says USAID's Chief Economist Dr. Steve Radelet, but it is a good news/bad news scenario: Will the worst budget crisis in recent times squeeze resources to a point where substantial progress is undermined?
Speakers at the March 15 Capitol Hill Forum, organized by the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development and 22 co-sponsors—including ACDI/VOCA—warned against undoing key political and financial commitments made in the aftermath of the last global food crisis.
"This is the worst time to disinvest in agriculture," says IFPRI's Dr. Ousmane Badiane. "For the first time, we have the right conditions to make a difference." More.
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Women's Association in Lebanon Gains Entry to Leading Food Company
 In Lebanon's fertile Beqa'a Valley, a women's rural development association has transformed its food-processing business from a seasonal activity to a year-round source of income for its members.
Dunia El Khoury, president of the Women's Association of Deir El Ahmar, used to close her organization's processing center every summer—putting 20 women out of work—because local demand for its products would significantly decline. Now, thanks to help from ACDI/VOCA's Lebanon Business Linkages Initiative, the members are busy all year, preparing food products under a contract for one of Lebanon's leading food companies. More.
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Malawi Local-Language Workshop Yields New Business Ideas, Linkages
 Pigeon peas have powerful potential in Malawi, which is among the world's top exporters. Known locally as nandolo, pigeon peas are important both as a cash crop and as highly nutritious food.
ACDI/VOCA recently hosted a one-day value chain stakeholders' workshop on pigeon peas in Zomba, Malawi, as part of our project's larger efforts to build local partners' and stakeholders' capacities to use commercial agriculture to boost local nutrition and food security. The event also marked the first time a value chain workshop in Malawi has been held in the local language of Chichewa. More.
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Afghan Almonds Offer Farmers High-Value Market Opportunity
 The quality and taste of Afghan almonds attract a premium price on the world market, especially in India and Pakistan. Working to seize this market opportunity, the Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives for the North, East and West project (IDEA-NEW) contracted an Afghanistan commercial nursery to plant 100 hectares of new almond orchards in the northern region to benefit 200 farmers.
"I am satisfied with the growth of my trees," says one orchard owner. "And I am grateful to IDEA-NEW for establishing one big almond orchard for me and providing me with technical assistance on the methods of gardening, like the layout and design of the orchard with a proper system of irrigation." More.
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Food Aid Nourishes Haiti's Young, Hungry
 ACDI/VOCA has an outspoken fan in the southeast Haitian city of Jacmel, where our food distribution activities benefit an orphanage called Faith and Love in Action. Melissa Jean is 11 years old and in her fourth year of primary school. She is one of 74 children cared for by the orphanage and has lived there for more than five years.
Jean told representatives that she enjoys the food supplied by ACDI/VOCA: "I love the wheat with peas and the cornmeal. If any of the other kids don't clean their plates, I will do it for them." More.
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Selected new awards: |
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Russia: $7 million, four-year North Caucasus Agricultural Development Project, funded by USAID, to strengthen agricultural value chains to reduce poverty and mitigate conflict. |
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Kenya: $2.27 million follow-on USAID award for the Kenya Maize Development Program to improve the productivity of staple crops by smallholder farmers and improve both their incomes and overall food security. |
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Peru: $3.6 million, 32-month Peru Coffee Value Chain Productivity and Production project, funded by USAID, to address the major weaknesses in the country’s coffee value chain that prevent smallholder farmers from reaching their full potential. |
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Colombia: $52,631, nine-month fixed-price agreement, funded by the Colombian government's Department de La Guajira, to help strengthen the coffee value chain and provide technical assistance to coffee producers of the indigenous Koguis group. |
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Ghana and Kenya: $44,000 subcontract from Chemonics International to provide expert training in value chain approaches to financial services at two regional knowledge-sharing events in Ghana and Kenya for USAID economic growth officers. |
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