Location: Caia, Machanga and Buzi districts of Sofala province
Duration: 2020-2024
Donor: Austrian Development Agency
Focus areas: Conservation Agriculture, WASH, renewable energy
Designed in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, our Agricultura Resiliente ao Clima (ARCA) Sofala project uses a nexus approach which integrates climate-smart agriculture, market access, and water and energy to increase productivity and incomes and improve access to water and sanitation.
During its first half (2019 – 2021) ARCA Sofala focused on beneficiaries‘ immediate fodo security needs post cyclone Idai. Adopting climate-smart agriculture helped to immediately increase their yields and, in the longer term, build resilience to future similar shocks (our projects have shown first hand how, when a cyclone hits, adopting conservation agriculture can make the difference between harvesting something and nothing at all). Now in its second half, ARCA is has turned its focus to include more market-led production through activities which increase farmers‘ access to makets and higher margins, for instance by supporting farmers to aggregate, store, add value to and find premium markets for products. ARCA is also improving community-based WASH infrastructure for both home consuption and productive uses (by upgrading selected water infrastructure into multi-use systems), and providing training and institutional support for water management commmittees to manage community infrastructure.
Selected results:
- Training in good agricultural practices and WASH: Through a field based extension network of 335 lead farmers (110 women) and 243 demonstration plots, ARCA has trained 3,046 smalholder farmers (2,103 women) in good agricultural and WASH practices
- Capaity building for water management commmittees
- Capacity-building for local government: ARCA’s primary partner is the district-based government services. ARCA has trained 78 SDAE extension and SDPI staff in good agricultural practices including conservation agriculture, WASH, and joint planning, implementation and reporting
