An Introduction to Household Economic Strengthening

The LIFT II Project• Funded by USAID Global Health Bureau’s Office of HIV/AIDS • Five-year project, through July 2018• Three core partners (FHI360, CARE and World Vision) and

numerous resource organizations• Offers:

• Support for linkages between Nutrition Assessment, Counseling and Support (NACS) and economic strengthening, livelihoods, and food security ES/L/FS services

• Strengthened community services that provide ES/L/FS support as a component of a continuum of care for families.

• Access to tools and resources• M&E Support • Program quality and implementation support

What is Household Economic Strengthening?

“A portfolio of interventions to reduce the economic vulnerability of households and empower them to

provide for the essential needs of the children they care for, rather than relying on external assistance.”

PEPFAR working definition, 2011

Training objectives

By the end of the training, you will be able to…

Define key terms related to HES Explain why HES activities will enhance existing programs for OVCs Describe poor populations along the HES framework Describe and estimate the HES needs of the households with whom they are working Explain the need to assess HH needs and capabilities Describe how HES activities interact with the market and vice versa Conduct basic organizational and partnership capacity assessments For each of 3 HES activities discussed, describe

What they are How they can help households and individuals What types of HHs they are best suited to help Key program design factors [to discuss with partners], and Several pros and cons

Access M&E tools and describe M&E objectives for HES activities

What are Livelihoods?

A livelihood is the combination of the resources used and the activities undertaken in order to

ensure day-to-day and long-term survival.

• working to earn income, • bartering owned assets for

food, • growing / raising food,• Feeding programs

• sending children to eat with neighbors,

• receiving government food assistance, etc.

• Begging• Boarding school

Examples of livelihood activities people undertake to access food:

Important Concepts in Vulnerability

• Households often become poor after experiencing a shock (e.g. sickness caused by HIV)

• Vulnerability to shocks varies between households, within households and over time

• Household livelihood strategies are shaped in part by vulnerability

• Coping mechanisms and safety nets are important to building resilience to shocks

Types of Coping Strategies

Minor Coping Moderate Coping Severe Coping

• Selling protective assets

• Seeking wage labor • Migrating for work• Borrowing• Reducing spending

and food consumption• Drawing on social

assets

• Selling productive assets

• Borrowing at exorbitant rates

• Further reducing spending and food consumption

• Depending on charity; • Breaking up

household• Migrating under

distress• Going without food

Why is HES Important?

• Enables households to meet their needs, decrease reliance on moderate and severe coping strategies

• Health, nutrition and economic well-being are closely linked.

• Positive health and nutrition outcomes usually can’t be achieved while households lack access to income.

For LIFT, economic strengthening supports PEPFAR’s primary objectives:

• HIV prevention• Care, treatment and support• Impact mitigation

Poverty Characteristics

Poor nutrition decreased productivity & income

Poor living conditions quality diminishes with poor health;

spending reduced, assets sold

Low education minimal access to needed services and activities that

generate income

High level of immediate needs low investment in long-term assets

and needs

Poor Health

Weakened immune systems, increased dietary needs

Susceptibility to environmental ailments: respiratory disease, water/ waste-born diseases;

crowding spreading

Poor quality health care or adherence to regimens compounds

health problems

High levels of household disease and mortality

Who are Vulnerable Children?

“[Children] who, because of circumstances of birth or immediate environment, [are] prone to abuse or

deprivation of basic needs, care and protection, and thus disadvantaged relative to [their] peers.”

National Guidelines and Standards of Practice on Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social

Development. Nigeria, 2007.

Approaches to Household Economic Strengthening for Vulnerable Children

ES Activity

Child

ES Activity

Adult Caregiver

Child

“Review of Impacts on ES Programs on Children” (2011)

BENEFITS• Decrease or change in child

labor• Enhanced care practices• Improved diet• Increased school attendance• Increased demand for non-

economic services (health, education, social capital building, etc.)

• Financial literacy in young• Social capital in girls

HARMS• Increased child labor• Gender-based violence• Dropout of programs not

appropriate• Low repayment of microloans

Poverty Tax

“Poverty Tax” causes the poorest to pay the most to meet their basic & essential needs

What does this mean for us?

Meeting the Needs of the Ultra PoorThe ultra poor… Development interventions thus need to…Have simultaneous and complex needs

Be integrated to provide support for multiple needs without impeding one another Be coordinated

Are highly vulnerable to exigent shocks (weather, conflict, economic decline, etc)

Be flexible, able to meet varying & immediate needs

Cannot move out of poverty overnight

Include long-term contingency planning

Have been excluded thus far (to a large extent) from successful (transformational) development interventions

Be explicitly targeted at this group Work at national / regional level, must identify specific needs and vulnerability constraints affecting local ultra-poor

Household Economic Strengthening Activities

Matching needs to HES Activities

Provision

Promotion

Protection

Income

Income Growth

Income Stabilization

Risk Reduction

Loss Management

Destitute / Distress

LIVELIHOOD PHASE Time

The LIFT Framework

Group Discussion: Households and ES

• Break into groups of 3

• Take a few minutes and write on a sticky note a description of a HH you have worked with or that is typical of the populations we work with

• Discuss each example and place on your copy of the PPP spectrum. Can also use printed examples provided.

• Then we will place on the large diagram and discuss

Current State of ES Programming

Challenges???

Current State of ES Programming

• A lot of poor practice • Requires specialized skill sets and expertise (just as effective

health programs do) • Traditionally, many ES activities have been implemented poorly,

with untrained staff and have had limited results• Budgets have often been insufficient• Some interventions that are no longer widely practiced elsewhere

(e.g. NGOs providing loans) are still widespread in ES programming

• Limited learning from practices and experiences elsewhere

Common Problems in Economic Strengthening

No demand for products produced by target households or no jobs available.

Organization’s services end once the project’s funding runs out.

Organizations provide services that they have no experience or capacity in (i.e.: microfinance, value change development)

IGAs and other activities not supported ‘in full’ from A-Z.

Projects do not know their performance and only measure what donors require.

Same activities are provided to all target households, even though needs and capabilities vary.

Households that improve their economic situation stop receiving services and subsequently relapse.

How to “Do It Right”

Understand and assess household needs and capabilities

Research and predict the effect of activities on the market and vice versa

Select direct beneficiariesImplement or partner?Monitor, evaluate, adjust, repeat

How do we understand people’s needs and capabilities?

Understanding Beneficiaries

Who is the target population?

What do they need

to do to build

capability?

Wh

at a

ssis

tan

ce is

nee

ded

to

bu

ild

cap

abili

ty?

Challenges:- human

- natural- physical- financial

- social

Interventions:- social protection- asset protection- income growth

Wh

at are the

challen

ges?

What are the

interests &

capabilities?

Capabilities & Interests:- Education

- Skills- Employability

Action required:- persevere- organize- build

Vulnerability:- high- moderate- low

Household Livelihoods Assessments (HLA)

• Develop a holistic understanding of household and community livelihoods and wellbeing (economic conditions, health, food security, political and environmental security, market conditions, etc.)

• Determine household and community needs and designing interventions to meet them

• Examine intra-household dynamics and how poverty affects VCs and other household members differently

• Understand local economic opportunities • Establish a baseline or reference point from which to

identify and measure changes (positive and negative) in the future.

A Good HLA will tell you…

Livelihoods context including hazards, risks and vulnerabilities

Policy / regulating environment Opportunities and threats

Differences in access to productive assets and total food and cash income

Between and with communities and householdsSeasonality of livelihood strategies and shocks

Timing matters!

www.povertytools.org/povertypres/Selecting_Poverty_Tools/player.html

Welcome to the LIFT Theater!

Market Analysis

Market vs. Marketplace?

A Good Market Analysis will tell you…

The local supply and demand of goods, commodities, services and skills

The accessibility of inputs, including commodities, capital or services, and sales outlets

Poor households’ connections to marketplaces in order to access goods and services, and to earn income

How the environment (political, regulatory, etc.) shapes incentives and opportunities for households and enterprises to participate in the market

Organizational Capacity and Partnerships

Organizational Capacity

Two parts

1. How well do you do what you do now?2. What is your potential for engaging in new endeavors? (HES

Activities)

Partnerships

Transparency

Trust is an important part of any relationship and transparency of goals, motivations and processes are essential for building trust and maintaining accountability to each other, beneficiaries, donors and communities

Shared goals

and

principles

Partners share the same values and aim to achieve the same objectives as your organization. Even when missions are different, you should be able to agree upon a shared set of program outcomes.

Mutua

l benefit

Healthy partnerships will design programs to ensure that all organizations meet individual as well as collective goals.

Mutua

l Respec

t

Partners should value each other for reasons other than financial contributions. Decision-making should be an equitable process.

Partnerships Do they have a good reputation implementing the HES activity

you are interesting in? Do they have reports that show positive results from past HES

projects? Do they have a standardized and documented approach to the

HES activity? Do they have experience working with VC and their households?

Do they have the expertise to tailor their approach to households with different socio-economic characteristics?

If they don’t have sufficient staff expertise currently, do they have the necessary resources to recruit and oversee new staff or consultants?

Monitoring & Evaluation

Broad M&E ObjectivesProviding program planners and implementers with information to select HES activities

Identify appropriate target households for participation and allocate resources accordingly.

Knowing what and how households and VC are doing

Allows program staff to see past numbers and percentages to understand the role a program has in helping human beings.

Giving managers insight into whether HES activities are meeting household needs

Helps them move toward achieving long-term livelihood and food security objectives.

Providing ‘data for decision-making,’

Allows managers to base program decisions and changes on accurate information rather than on ‘hunches’.

Being accountable to stakeholders Includes beneficiary communities, implementing partners and funding agencies.

HES Examples

ES Benefits: Practical Examples

ES for OVC Caregivers in Uganda: Caregivers who joined savings groups with literacy training increased household assets and improvements among OVCs in # of meals eaten and living conditions over non-participants.

© Paul Rippey

ES Benefits: Practical Examples

Guaranteed labor program in India: Children of a safety net program offering guaranteed work to the impoverished were less likely to engage in child labor, had greater school attendance and improved health outcomes.

© BBC

ES Benefits: Practical Examples

Savings Groups in Burundi: Providing social messaging through savings groups was found to improve financial decision making authority for women, reduce exposure to violence, reduce acceptance of violence, and increase consumption of household goods relative to luxury goods.

© SAWSO

ES Benefits: Practical ExamplesFONKOZE in Haiti: By offering a continuum of provision, protection and promotion services, FONKOZE provides integrated programming to move people along the economic strengthening pathway http://www.fonkoze.org/aboutfonkoze/whoweare/howworks.html

Savings and loans (village)

Jummai ModuAbdul Bolakall