Projects

Torrential rains have plunged the Chocó region on Colombia’s Pacific coast into a major humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of families are severely affected. SWISSAID is launching an emergency relief effort.

In the Guéra region of Chad, important arable land and other natural resources are becoming increasingly scarce due to climate change. This sometimes leads to serious conflicts between nomadic herders and local peasants. This situation is to be improved through the multi-layered Triple Nexus approach.

Páramos are unique ecosystems in the Andean highlands, rich in biodiversity. However, as a result of climate change, intensive farming and livestock-raising activities, these areas are deteriorating, exposing the indigenous peasant families who depend on them to great vulnerability.

Climate change is having a major impact on the work of farmers in Colombia. Although agroecology is an effective solution to strengthen their resilience, it requires time and knowledge. A digital platform provides a remedy here: by sharing their experiences and advice, the farmers strengthen their agricultural skills. At the same time, the women learn to gain confidence in their central role within the communities.

Hunger and malnutrition are still widespread in many parts of Africa and Asia. Global warming and dependence on agricultural products from multinational corporations are exacerbating the problem. A transnational project, which is being implemented in four countries on two continents, is dedicated to the rediscovery and rehabilitation of traditional local seeds. The aim is to improve the living conditions of people in the South.

On the one hand, over 100 million people worldwide make a living from gold mining. On the other hand, working in gold mines poses a massive threat to the health and safety of workers. In Tanzania, many artisanal mines secure the livelihoods of the population. With the help of its partners, SWISSAID supports people in improving conditions in the gold mines and market access. For example in the Geita region in the north of the country.

Niger is particularly affected by climate change: heavy rainfall alternates with droughts. This fuels hunger. But not everywhere: one region has improved its living conditions with the help of SWISSAID. And in the long term.

Targeted campaigns in the Marathwada region sensitise young people, adults and state actors against gender based violence and discrimination. Through a holistic approach, the dream of a life free of violence should finally become a reality for as many girls and women as possible.

After the pandemic, girls and boys from the community of Sincé in northern Colombia had to go back to school – if only getting there wasn’t so difficult. This is exactly where this SWISSAID project comes in: Using new educational methods, the emotional and psychosocial well-being of the insecure young people is to be strengthened again. Awareness-raising measures are designed to prevent violent situations and creative learning methods help young people to rediscover the joy of learning.

SWISSAID strengthens the independence of indigenous women in Ecuador. Agroecology, leadership, basic rights: Thanks to training in these areas, women can improve their food security and economic independence. And they help to combat violence.

In Guinea-Bissau, SWISSAID has set up literacy courses for women, covering reading, writing and arithmetic. These new skills, which make selling and negotiating easier, enable them to increase their income and feed their families.

Achieving gender equality in rural areas, where 80% of the agricultural workforce is female, has been a cornerstone of SWISSAID’s work for decades. Development may sometimes seem slow, but the successes are there for all to see. As in Chad, where access to land, livestock and agro-ecology training is improving the living conditions of women, and with them those of their entire families.

The lack of agricultural knowledge, access to credit, and the ever-increasing cost of living keep rural families in southern Shan State, Myanmar, trapped in poverty. With the rise of violent conflicts and the effects of climate change, many people are forced to migrate. SWISSAID has initiated a project to enhance the value of crops through agroecology, enabling farmers to envision a dignified future.

How can we remain hopeful when our main means of survival requires constant adaptation and the knowledge to do so? This is the challenge facing the inhabitants of the Fabidji commune in Niger, whose crops are being affected by the disastrous effects of climate change. A project aims to strengthen their resilience.

To have access to clean water and toilets in the school compound. Improve the health of communities through the knowledge conveyed by the children. Learning basic nutrition through school gardens: this is the promise of the Blue Schools that are flourishing in the four corners of the world. Like here in Niger, where awareness and infrastructures improve the health of the population.

Known as the lungs of our planet, forests are essential for biodiversity and the survival of all living beings, including humans. In Colombia, a project in the tropical region of Sucre aims to raise awareness among indigenous communities about their environment, in order to live in harmony with the forest and protect this vital space.

Chad has been devastated by the heaviest downpours in three decades, resulting in unimaginable suffering. The heavy rains have stripped the people of their homes, farmlands, and crops. Those afflicted with hunger are in dire need of new seeds to ensure the upcoming harvest is secure. SWISSAID has initiated an emergency relief initiative to distribute seeds and food packages.

With the Sustainable Tribal Livelihoods project, SWISSAID is improving life in small villages in India. Girjabai Baria and her family are benefiting from this: thanks to new farming methods and sources of income, their lives have taken a positive turn.

Farmers’ seeds represent much more than the promise of a harvest. They ensure food security for billions of people around the globe and embody the identity of various regions worldwide. Farm families are fighting to preserve this diversity, thereby ensuring the survival of future generations, just like Maricela Gironza, a farmer in Colombia.

Communities in the central Indian state of Maharashtra depend on the natural resources of forests and ponds to survive. But these resources are increasingly threatened by climate change and poor natural resource management. A SWISSAID project has been working on resource reclamation by and for communities in central India.

Marthe Tchere, a smallholder farmer from Bokyo in Chad, was one of the first to join SWISSAID’s goat project. Thanks to the animals, she can now feed her family, earn her own money and use it to send her children to school. And in doing so, she earns the respect of the men in the village.

The Baiga tribe is a community living in central India. The loss of forest areas – their main resource for centuries – as well as the climate crisis, has made them very vulnerable. In recent years, learning agroecology has allowed them to develop new means of survival in harmony with nature and adapted to climate change.

The CROPS4HD program takes place in four SWISSAID countries. In Niger, it revalorizes forgotten traditional crops that hold great nutritional potential for peasant families. Resistant and adapted to the climate, they are a real solution to the problems faced by Nigerien families.

In recent years, poverty and inequality have been on the rise again in Nicaragua. In rural Terrabona, one of the poorest regions of the country, the food security is threatened. The challenges of adapting agriculture to climatic changes are great and the opportunities of the population are few. Agroecology shows smallholder families a way out of the impasse. 

The project launched by the Colombian alliance «Guardianas de los Páramos», of which SWISSAID is a member, aims to protect the ecosystems of six municipalities in the Boyacá region. The focus is on the rehabilitation of traditional agricultural varieties and techniques, the protection of biodiversity and the strengthening of the role of rural women. Fernando Chaves Valbuena, journalist for elcampesino.co, tells us about it through the women who carry this project.

Thanks to classes and training courses on biopesticides, poultry farming and ploughing, Halimé Hamza has become a sought-after specialist in her small village in Ndongilo. Her newly acquired knowledge is making a lasting contribution to her family’s food security.

In some parts of the world, owning land is the key to sustainable food security and the assurance of being able to provide for one’s family. But with women – 50% of the population – denied access to land, incomes are meagre and families struggle to make ends meet. A project on access to land for women in Guinea-Bissau aims to restore this balance and improve the agricultural diversification of families.

Hunger, misery, hardship: a tragedy is brewing in Niger. 3.7 million people are threatened by acute hunger. Conflicts and climate change are to blame. The people are left with nothing. SWISSAID is helping quickly and unbureaucratically with food parcels and seeds.

15.11.2021 | Farm-saved seeds are diverse and well adapted to local conditions – they also form the basis for healthy yet affordable nutrition. Therefore, it fulfils all the requirements for making local food systems more independent and resilient. Especially in the context of the ongoing pandemic and the global climate crisis, this sows hope.

Water is central to the lives of people in rural communities in Niger. In these regions, we strive to raise awareness among the population for a sustainable and optimal management of this resource and to secure its access. To avoid tensions, accidents and exodus.

For many people in Chad, clean water is still not accessible. They drink polluted water in order to survive – and deadly diseases are a frequent consequence. Salvation lies beneath solid rock: SWISSAID is clearing the way for a healthier future for all women, children and men in Chad by drilling and providing the necessary infrastructure.

In the rural areas of Guinea-Bissau, the best way to provide sustainable and effective aid is to work directly with the farmers, grouped together in associations. But bringing these smallholder farmers together is only the first step.

In the north of Myanmar, the landscape is adorned with huge tracts of forest. Despite being the main resource for survival, the population has little access to it. Large industries are destroying the available land and replacing it with banana plantations. Thanks to the perseverance of the villagers and the help of SWISSAID, the village community is able to assert its rights.

Although Chad is rich in oil, its population remains one of the poorest in the world. SWISSAID is supporting several civil society organisations in this Central African country in their efforts to improve the distribution of income in this sector and in their advocacy work on behalf of young people and women.

The year 2020 was marked by uncertainty and concern – for Mariana Hortas as well. But despite the difficult circumstances, the Ecuadorian is optimistic about the future. Thanks to agroecology, she has reason for hope for herself and her family.

In Nicaragua alone, hurricanes “Iota” and “Eta” in November 2020 left 1.5 million people suffering their devastating effects. With an emergency aid project over the next six months, SWISSAID will be supporting families who were already living in extreme poverty before the disaster – and who are now struggling to survive.

The idyll in the south of Tanzania is deceptive. Many young people are moving to the cities. Those who stay behind struggle with dwindling fish stocks, malnutrition and poverty. A fish farming project promises new perspectives.

Washing hands is a decisive measure in the fight against the coronavirus. It is simple and shouldn’t be complicated to implement – so long as there is flowing water. In Niger, where access to clean water is still reserved for a minority, a virus can quickly lead to disaster.

Isolated from the rest of the world and without information: the inhabitants of the indigenous community of Jubal in Ecuador have been left on their own since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chains have collapsed, and farming families are threatened with malnutrition and financial hardship. Knowledge of agroecological farming methods promises salvation.

Dried out or washed away: seeds have a hard time in Niger’s nutrient-poor soils. With climate change, it is therefore becoming increasingly important that seeds are resistant to extreme weather conditions. Local farmers have also recognised this. Their knowledge of the use of traditional seeds is a key element on the road to long-term food security.

India keeps on setting grim records in the fight against the coronavirus. And as if that were not enough, the country is repeatedly hit by natural disasters. People who are already living at  subsistence level are fighting for survival. SWISSAID has responded by providing emergency aid.

Year after year, more and more local varieties of agricultural seeds are disappearing – including in Colombia. To reverse these losses, so-called seed guardians are working hard to produce high-quality seeds adapted to local conditions. They have developed a “participatory guarantee system” for this.

Earlier generations of Colombia’s indigenous people made necklaces of vanilla to bring happiness and love. Today, not only traditions but also a wealth of knowledge about this valuable plant have been lost. Now the indigenous people on the Pacific coast are reviving their heritage – and hoping it will help them find a way out of poverty at last.

Where to help when there people have nothing? Access to water is the most important thing, says SWISSAID employee Ibrahim Hamadou. In Niger, children in the “Blue Schools” learn why hygiene and healthy nutrition are also essential for survival.

A centre of expertise which trains future experts in agroecological techniques – farmers, promoters, association leaders. Widespread dissemination at local level and lobbying at  national level: this is the ambitious project of SWISSAID Guinea-Bissau.

Nicaragua is one of the countries most affected by climate change. The people most vulnerable to climatic hazards are farming families, whose crops either dry up during droughts or drown in torrential rain. Under these conditions, greater resilience based on agroecological mehtods can mean the difference between ruin and survival.

Weren’t things better before? Not in Ecuador, and not for Raul Upaya Romero. The courses in agroecology have obviously left their mark on him. The smallholder’s sparse, low-yield land in the Ecuadorian Andes now thrives with a variety of different vegetables.

In Myanmar today, many women farmers are also taking part confidently in discussions with groups of men. They have been on courses where they expanded their knowledge of agroecological cultivation methods and built up their self-confidence.

Tanzania’s rich natural resources are more a curse than a blessing. Mining brings corruption, insecurity and inequality. Many actors are working to improve the raw materials sector.

In Nicaragua, farmers’ lives are rules by the climate catastrophe. There is nothing they can do about drought and floods. But they can tackle their effects with the help of agroecological cultivation methods and the right local seeds. The farmers first step is to more CO2 in the soil.

What many people may smile about has a serious background: sanitation systems are in scarce supply in impoverished countries and the consequences are devastating. For that reason, donations support the construction of latrines – and drinking water supply systems. This gives women and children more time and energy to work and learn and generally improves everyone’s health.

For the Embera people on the Colombian Pacific coast, the forest is both a place to live and a food security back-up. Deforestation has put the indigenous people in a precarious position. Now they are reforesting, switching to agroecology and looking for other ways to ensure their survival in the long term.

Despite a large-scale school dinner programme, many school children in India suffer from vitamin and iron deficiency. In school gardens they grow the vital crops themselves and so learn about agroecological farming.

Farmers in Marathwada, India, are suffering from the drought – yet again. SWISSAID is supplying the poorest with water and food rations. For the moment, thanks to this and to our awareness-raising work with the authorities, hundreds of women can breathe a sigh of relief. But the climate crisis calls for long-term solutions.

Women feed the world – yet they often have few rights. This is why SWISSAID has been working for decades to empower women. One of them, the farmer Louise Ndodjita, is successfully asserting herself in the male-dominated society of Chad. This is thanks in part to a literacy course.

The right materials to hand, the necessary knowledge in their heads: with a little support, smallholder families in the Ecuadorian Andes can find their own way out of destitution. Once organised in water committees, they can protect their valuable water reserves for the long term – and thus also arm themselves against climate change.