R4 Rural Resilience Initiative
Quarterly report | April – June 2012
R4 represents a new kind of partnership, bringing public- and private-sector actors together in a strategic, large-scale initiative to innovate and develop better tools to help the most vulnerable people build resilient livelihoods. R4 promises to leverage the respective strengths of its partners: Oxfam America’s capacity to build innovative partnerships and the World Food Programme’s global reach and extensive capacity to support government-led safety nets for the most vulnerable people. This partnership will enable thousands more poor farmers and other food-insecure households to manage weather vulnerability through an affordable, comprehensive risk management program that builds long-term resilience.
By combining HARITA’s successful model for participatory design and capacity building with the World Food Programme’s global capacity, R4 will help accelerate the scale-up and testing of this innovative approach in Ethiopia, Senegal, and two other countries in the next five years. R4 also constitutes a first step toward developing a sustainable insurance market for poor people, an essential factor in ensuring farmers’ livelihoods and food security, and in improving farmers’ resilience over the long term.