That’s why an Oxfam America emergency response launched in La Pelota last October sought not only to meet people’s immediate needs, but to help them mitigate the risks of their community for the future.
When it rains hard, La Pelota is one of the first communities in the area to flood, in part because a vigorously growing plant called la ninfa clogs the local waterways. The plant is a sign of another problem people face: poor infrastructure for sanitation. Most families rely on pit latrines whose contaminants feed the growth of la ninfa.
In October, Tropical Depression 12-E hit. It rained for almost two weeks straight. On one side of La Pelota the lake overflowed, and on the other side its natural drain spilled its banks.
“It began to rain quite a lot. Little by little, the lake drained, but then the water level rose as it continued to rain,” said Juan Francisco Flores, a 32-year-old community member. “The lake doesn’t flow fast enough through the channel. The water backs up and that’s what floods the community… The stream was flooding on one side and the lake on the other. We were isolated.”
The response from the community to the flooding was well planned and evacuation was timely, due to preparedness work that had been done by Oxfam partner Fundación Maquilishuat (FUMA), in recent years. However, damage to crops was severe.
Together with FUMA and the World Food Programme, Oxfam America launched a food-for-work initiative that not only helped families in La Pelota survive in the first months after the emergency, but reduced the risk they would face in the future. FUMA and citizens of La Pelota decided to clean out the channel to allow the water to flow more easily and prevent flooding. Oxfam provided material to do the work, FUMA provided monitoring and technical assistance, and the families carried out the work.
The project provided people with 100 pounds of corn, 33 pounds of rice, 20 pounds of beans, and a gallon of cooking oil, in exchange for 80 hours of work a month.
“The food-for-work project has been well received. It was very effective to implement this project at this time of year, when people usually don’t have work,” says Sandra Quinteros of FUMA. “There’s been a selection process for the FFW program, with several criteria—that they lost at least 50 percent of their production; that they live on less than two dollars a day; that they have many children or older adults to care for; that they are day laborers; and that they are willing to work.”
The food-for-work project has been implemented in 99 poor communities like La Pelota, in 15 municipalities throughout El Salvador. A total of 3,800 families earned a three-month supply of corn, beans, rice, and oil for a family of five, enabling them to recover from their losses and now live in better prepared communities.
]]>If the rain continued at least there would be pasture for his two cows, guaranteeing their health and ensuring his family would have milk to drink. But the shorter rains, which should have fallen earlier in the season, had failed to come to Keih Tekli. And without them, Mehari was unable to sow his sorghum, one of two main crops he depends on. Instead, he would rely on teff, a tiny grain planted later in the year that is a staple of the Ethiopian diet.
For small-scale producers like Mehari, drought is the enemy—unpredictable and deadly. It’s the hardest part about farming, he says. And it’s one of the reasons that Mehari has joined more than 13,000 others in the Tigray region to buy weather insurance for their crops.
The insurance is part of a rapidly expanding program designed to help some of Ethiopia’s poorest farmers reduce the risk they face from disaster. When rainfall drops below a predetermined threshold, farmers who have bought the insurance receive a payout. Those too poor to pay with cash can trade their labor on community projects in exchange for the insurance. Launched by Oxfam in 2008 with the help of a host of partners including the Relief Society of Tigray, the program, now called the Rural Resilience Initiative, or R4, is set to expand into Senegal and two other countries in partnership with the World Food Programme.
Mehari has participated in the initiative for two years, swapping work—he has been planting tree seedlings in his community—for insurance. The first year he traded 16 days of labor for a premium worth 192 birr, or just over $11. That would have provided him with a payout of 600 birr, or nearly $35. Last year, Mehari invested 25 days of labor for coverage that would have given him a payout worth 800 birr, or more than $46.
That’s not enough to cover all his costs if he loses a harvest, but it’s enough of a buffer, perhaps, to prevent him from sinking deeper into poverty.
"It helps," he says, noting that if drought wiped out his harvest, the insurance would allow him to recover two-thirds of the 1,200 birr he invested in planting.
Divorced and the father of one daughter, Mehari says he had a basic understanding of how insurance works so when the opportunity arose to purchase some, he jumped at it. In his 38 years, he and his family had already experienced far more than their fair share of loss: Of the eight children to whom Mehari's mother gave birth, only two were still alive.
"I knew what insurance was. But the community members were confused and skeptical. How can it work?" he recalls them asking. "I accepted it (the insurance) without hesitation because if the crop fails, for me--it's like a parent's support in a bad situation."
As rain from the roof pooled into fat drops over the door, Mehari contemplated what the future would bring. He had already sowed more than an acre of land with teff seed and planned to plant the rest very soon.
"If the rain continues--like now--it won't be serious," he says of the hardship farmers face because of the lost sorghum season. "But if there is an early exit (of the rain), that will be disastrous."
For Mehari, insurance would soften the blow. But for countless other farmers tilling the rocky soil of Tigray, uncertainty sits heavily on their minds, its weight growing as increasingly erratic weather changes the age-old rules of agriculture.
]]>The pair of oxen alone puts him ahead of many poor farmers in this northern part of the country. Harnessed as a team, the animals give Tadesse the power he needs to plow his fields in a timely manner and to be ready for the rains when they fall. But if they don’t come, he’s now experimenting with a tool that will soften the blow: weather insurance.
Tadesse, who lives in the village of Hade Alga, is one of the more than 13,000 small farmers who are participating in a new insurance initiative launched by Oxfam and a host of partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST. The program allows those too poor to have cash on hand to pay for the insurance by working on environmental improvement projects that benefit the whole community—like planting trees. Tadesse is among the small percent of farmers able to pay with money.
When rainfall drops below a predetermined threshold, insured farmers receive a payout helping them to recover some of their losses from a failed or severely curtailed harvest.
“Everyone in this community is starting to understand the rationale of the insurance, so we want to continue this practice,” said Tadesse, sitting with his wife and two young children in their one-room home on a rainy morning in August. But he admitted that the idea took a little getting used to. “We were skeptical when we heard (about )it. We were even confused. How can you cover the loss of crops? It’s god’s work.”
After a great deal of discussion among community members, and many questions for REST, the idea began to click with people, Tadesse said. The local belief system holds that if you expect good things to happen, they will, and farmers are beginning to embrace insurance as part of that thinking, he added.
In 2010, Tadesse spent 60 birr—or about $3.50—on insurance for his teff, a staple grain in Ethiopia. As it turned out, the rains were plentiful that year and his harvest was very good, negating the need for a payout. But that didn’t stop him from doubling his investment in insurance the next year, paying 120 birr for a premium that would provide him with 400 birr—or $23,17—to cover his potential losses. The expense felt like a smart move.
“Anything can happen,” said Tadesse. “As security for me, I decided to double it. Even in the future I may double it again. You wish for better (rain), but you also have to accommodate the worst. In the future I don’t know what will happen, so that’s why I’m paying. But if the rain is good, I don’t regret paying that amount of money.”
The insurance has given him a sense of greater security, too, Tadesse said, so much so that he now has the confidence to take out a loan for livestock production. Once the rainy season ended, he planned to borrow money to buy a small herd of sheep and goats.
“If you buy four or eight sheep, they’ll reproduce in a short period of time,” said Tadesse. “It’s a good source of income for my family. It makes our life comfortable.”
With the stability he is striving to create for his family—in an environment made increasingly uncertain by changing weather patterns—Tadesse said he hopes his children will go far in school, an opportunity that stopped for him after fifth grade when he had to quit to work on his family’s farm and help care for his aging parents.
“I’m very confident my children will go further—up to where they can reach,” Tadesse said. “Education helps you use your capacity, not only in farming but in trading—in every part of life. If you’re educated you introduce new ideas into your agricultural practices. You analyze the future. It all needs education.”
And with the bit of security insurance is now providing, the dreams Tadesse has for his family have moved a little closer. Soon, other small farmers in Africa will have a chance at greater security, too: The weather insurance program, now called the Rural Resilience Initiative, or R4, is set to expand into Senegal and two other countries in partnership with the World Food Programme.
]]>In a country where most farmers depend on rain to feed their crops and guarantee their harvests, that question is omnipresent: It's about survival. And there's no sure way to answer it.
But there is a way to manage the uncertainty it breeds, and Biru, with steady steps, is slowly freeing herself from the constraints of an increasingly erratic climate. Her tools? An entrepreneurial drive and—now—weather insurance for her crops through a program that has grown to reach more than 13,000 farmers in Tigray since its launch in Adi Ha in 2009.
Biru, a 50-year-old mother of six children, was among the first farmers in this rocky northern region to invest in the insurance when Oxfam America, together with the Relief Society of Tigray and a host of partners, began offering it as a way to help families build resilience in the face of repeated drought. If there is insufficient rain during a critical period of the growing cycle, farmers will receive a payout for the crop they have insured.
And even those too poor to have cash on hand can get insurance: They can pay for their premiums in exchange for working on projects that help their communities reduce the risk of future disasters , such as by planting trees to preserve the topsoil. Of the 13,195 farmers now insured, 91 percent of them, or 12,064, are trading their labor for their premiums. And many of the households that have bought insurance are headed by women—3,610 of them.
Biru has been able to pay for her insurance with cash. This year, she bought a package for 200 birr, or about $11.75. It will cover her teff, a tiny grain and a staple of the Ethiopian diet used to make a bread called injera.
In Adi Ha, the weather has not been severe enough—yet—to trigger a payout. But Biru is convinced that investing in insurance is a smart move and that the program should be scaled up to reach farmers in other parts of Ethiopia. Without the cushion insurance provides, families who lose their harvests and have nothing to fall back on could be forced to migrate far from their homes or to sell precious household resources—like a cow—to buy food.
"This insurance is very good," said Biru. "It's saving our assets in a bad year."
And perhaps it's that confidence that is also helping her take other well-considered risks that are allowing her to build a more secure future for her family.
In 2009, the first year weather insurance was available, Biru joined a group of 10 farmers and together they bought a pump to irrigate some of their crops. Her contribution was 4,000 birr—or about $235. In 2010, with the proceeds from an abundant harvest of peppers, Biru was able to pay off the loan for her share of the pump.
Soon after, she took an even bigger plunge: With a new loan, she invested 14,000 birr, or about $823, in her own pump, available to use whenever she needs it. In August, she had already reaped 2,000 birr-worth of peppers from her field, and was looking forward to continuous harvests in the future.
"This is more productive compared to maize," said Biru. "Maize you harvest once. This you harvest every week."
Peppers won't be her only cash crop from this newly irrigated land. Scattered amidst the plants are 60 orange tree seedlings and 30 mango tree seedlings.
"If we manage it very well, we can start the first harvest (from the trees) after four years," Biru said.
For all Biru's progress, farming in Tigray is not an easy undertaking. And one of the biggest challenges, she said, is the cost of fertilizer. The price keeps climbing.
"It's 1,000 birr per quintal (or about $58 for 220 pounds)," said Biru, recalling when it was a fraction of that price two decades ago. "Our land can't perform well without fertilizer, but fertilizer is very expensive…Most of our money is invested in fertilizer."
But most of her pride is invested in her children: all six of them have been able to attend school. Her oldest son has a degree in accounting and a daughter has a degree in engineering. Three of the others are still making their way through, while a middle son has decided to stop his education and assume—eventually—responsibility for his parents and the land they have worked so hard to cultivate.
Weather insurance may make his job, and the job of countless farmers like him, easier in the years ahead. The initiative is now set to expand into three new countries with the help of the World Food Programme. And its focus has broadened to promote a variety of tools that will help rural families build their resilience including access to credit, the encouragement to save, and steps to reduce the risks of disaster.
]]>The mega floods of last year would have challenged any government, but the emergency response led by Pakistani authorities saved thousands of lives. However, Oxfam has expressed concern about the pace of recovery and reconstruction, which has left millions of people unnecessarily exposed to another disaster.
Husna La Shari is one survivor who is struggling to rebuild her life in Khawand La Shari in Shikapur, Sindh. Her family and community were hit hard by the flooding last July. Husna has 7 children and an elderly husband. She is responsible for providing for her entire family as her husband is too old to work. Before the floods last July, she worked on fields farming and harvesting. But after the floods, the fields are no longer fertile and Husna is struggling to feed her family. Oxfam is working in Husna’s village providing latrines and rehabilitating water pumps. Husna took part in Oxfam’s Cash for Work program in her village, clearing rubble and cleaning irrigation channels in the fields.
“It was difficult for me before the flood and it is now more difficult for me as there is no farming or harvesting. We cannot cultivate the land here this year… PDI (Oxfam’s partner) came and gave us money for doing labor. We collected whatever remained of our houses and we put it all in one place and together we cleaned the village. My husband was not capable, so I did it, I earned the money. PDI gave us kitchen pots, blankets, quilts and buckets and we are thankful as they helped us a lot. I am still in trouble to get food. How will I feed my family?”
Around 37,000 people affected by the 2010 floods are still living in camps in Sindh alone; and across the country, many of those who have returned to their villages have inadequate housing, with some still living in tents. More than 800,000 families are still without proper homes and many flood defenses, such as river embankments, destroyed in last year’s floods, have not yet been properly repaired. This increases the likelihood of breaches in future floods. For example, embankments in Sindh province have reportedly been increased by only two or three feet rather than the recommended six feet.
Neva Khan, Head of Oxfam in Pakistan, said:
“Pakistan needs to act now. Investing in measures today that reduce the impact of disasters is essential to save lives and safeguard development gains in the future. It will ensure schools built with aid funds are not washed away and that farmers can keep the crops they have toiled over. A year after Pakistan’s mega floods it’s time we learned this lesson.”
For children in the Shikapur district of Sindh, playing an interactive game is one way to avoid the risk of illness which often comes in the wake of a natural disaster. Julia Moore, a hygiene promotor for Oxfam, teaches children basic hygiene activities such as washing their hands and faces and showing them how to use a latrine.
“Pakistan is a disaster-prone country and has been flooded 67 times since 1947. Climate change will only increase the threat of floods. But while floods and earthquakes are inevitable, widespread devastation is not. For years, not enough has been done to protect ordinary Pakistani men, women, and children from disasters before they strike.” Says Kahn.
Lives and scarce resources could be saved in the future if the Pakistan government, with support from international donors, invests more in measures to reduce the impact of disasters. This could include flood resistant housing, and effective early warning systems – especially at the village level. In order to implement these programs, more funding is needed for local authorities and organizations that play a frontline role in preparing for and responding to emergencies.
]]>For natural disasters, this assessment of risk is based on detailed modeling and analysis of historical data on the frequency and severity of all manner of disasters. In this report, we examine how homeland security policy could be revised to accommodate climate change impacts on socially vulnerable populations in the Mississippi Delta region and the Gulf Coast, building on the 2009 Oxfam America report, "Exposed: Social vulnerability and climate change in the US Southeast."
]]>More than 6 million farmers across the country grow teff, but it’s here, in rugged Adi Ha, where rocks litter the fields like confetti, that this new kind of insurance may take root and spread. An initiative coordinated by Oxfam America and supported by more than a dozen partners, its goal is to help some of the world’s poorest farmers bounce back when drought destroys their crops. And the payout isn’t only in cash. It’s in confidence—the kind that may help propel people out of poverty.
“Without insurance, poor farmers who experience drought might run through all their savings, fall into debt, or sell their livestock and other valuables—often to ruinous results,” says Mengesha Gebremichael, the micro-insurance officer at the Relief Society of Tigray and one of the project’s managers. “In contrast, insured farmers will be more resilient to those shocks. They’ll be in a better position to take out small loans that could help them make big improvements in their next harvest—loans for things like high-yield seeds. They’ll be more confident that they can pay the money back knowing they have insurance to support them if trouble strikes.”
June to October marks the main rainy season in Adi Ha, a critical time for local farmers who depend on the skies to water their teff fields. For poor families living close to the edge, where even a $20 or $30 loss can push them over, there is no room for mishap. Without rain, they face disaster. That’s where the weather insurance comes in. If a certain amount of rain fails to fall at a certain time, farmers who have purchased the insurance can receive a payout to help cover their losses.
In Ethiopia, families have always had traditional ways of coping with extraordinary expenses. If they lose their livestock in a disaster, such as drought, those who are better off will contribute an animal or two to help them rebuild their herds, for instance. Families may also share seeds for planting, or food when it’s in terribly short supply.
But with climate change—and the erratic weather that it brings—the traditional means of surviving bad times may no longer be enough.
“Climate change is dramatically increasing agricultural risk across the planet,” says Marjorie Victor Brans, a senior policy advisor at Oxfam America. “The frequency of droughts and other shocks in Adi Ha is likely to increase, and poor farmers will be among the hardest hit. It’s a hugely challenging phenomenon.”
With 85 percent of Ethiopians employed in farming, much of it rain-fed, the need for new tools to manage the risks is huge. But the market for insurance is miniscule: only about 300,000 people in a country of nearly 80 million now have it. Extending the option to rural areas is loaded with challenges, not the least of them being the concern that poor farmers simply don’t have the money to pay for premiums—even the smallest one.
This new program has solved that problem with a simple solution: It has arranged for the poorest farmers to use their labor to buy insurance, tapping into a new social security initiative the Ethiopian government launched a few years ago. Called the Productive Safety Net Program, or PSNP, it helps about 8 million of the country’s most vulnerable residents by providing them with food or cash in exchange for work. Through the PSNP, 130 Adi Ha farmers are now working extra days on community projects, such as planting trees and grasses to promote soil and water conservation, to pay for their premiums. In this pilot year, Oxfam provided funds to the PSNP to cover this part of the project.
The option to trade labor for insurance has substantially boosted the number of farmers able to participate in the program, nearly doubling the enrollment that was expected.
“It’s good for me to have the insurance as long as I can work and pay with labor,” says Medhin Reda, a single mother who will be working 24 days for her premium. “That is the only asset I have.”
For Selas Samson Biru, who is spending 192 birr on insurance, it will help address the uncertainties that have always been part of farming, especially now that global warming may be altering familiar weather patterns.
“Our season is changing. We don’t know when there will be a bad year and when there will be a good year,” she says. “I believe, after taking the training, this insurance will be helpful during the bad season. This will pay me.”
And the insurance may be extra helpful because it was tailored specifically for farmers like Biru. In fact, she was one of five community members chosen by villagers to join the insurance design team. Twenty-one other farmers participated in a series of test workshops on climate change and financial literacy. Focus group discussions and economic risk simulations carried out in the community helped the design team understand what kind of insurance product would work best in Adi Ha. And on the day of enrollment, about 600 farmers showed up for a host of activities explaining the offerings, including musical performances, a play, peer-to-peer outreach, and financial training.
“Today is a historic day for the farmers of Adi Ha,” said Brans as the activities wound to a close that day and organizers counted the final tally of takers. Among the 200 were 75 women, which represents about 22 percent of all female-headed households in Adi Ha—one of the most vulnerable groups the project is aiming to help. On average, farmers are paying 138 birr for their premiums—or a little more than $12 each. Some chose packages that allowed them to pay as little as 76 birr, or about $6.75. The maximum premium was 288 birr, or just over $23.
“We are experimenting,” said Gebru Kahsay a few months after investing 192 birr into an insurance package. “We started with teff. If we find the insurance is good, we’ll continue. If we fail, we will take a lesson from it.”
Lots of learning has already taken place during the 18 months Oxfam and its partners spent in preparation for the launch of this project. And each of those partners has been contributing its own expertise. Besides the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST, one of the largest aid groups in Africa which has worked closely with the people of Adi Ha, other partners include the Nyala Insurance Company, an Ethiopian firm that is providing the insurance; Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurers which has helped fund the launch and is providing technical expertise; and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, which is providing research on climate data. Additionally, the Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution, or DECSI, the primary provider of loans to families in Adi Ha, helped both to design the pilot and to educate farmers about the pros and cons of insurance.
“We had to work very hard to design a risk management package that was affordable and attractive to farmers, while still being potentially profitable to the insurance industry,” says Bekabil Fufa, an agricultural expert in Oxfam America’s Horn of Africa regional office. “And we had to make it compelling to government and donors who feel it will address the threat of climate change.”
With a solid model now in place, Oxfam is planning in the coming year to expand the initiative into four new villages in Tigray--the region where Adi Ha is located—and into one village in Amhara, another drought-prone region to the south. Eventually, the project partners would like to see weather insurance offered to poor farmers throughout Ethiopia.
It will require a leap of faith by farmers across the country as well as support from the government, donors, NGOs, and the private sector,” says Gebremichael. “But given the long lead times required to build resiliency to climate change, we can’t afford to wait until tomorrow to try.”
]]>That was 15 years ago. Today, clean water in the small communities of El Recuerdo and Agua Zarca is as precious as ever—and still hard to get. There's no turning on the tap over a kitchen sink and letting the gallons gush. Here, many people trudge to a communal source, fill their jugs, and lug the heavy load home again. But seasonal flooding—sometimes hugely destructive and, with climate change, possibly becoming more severe—contaminates many of the area's hand-dug wells, exposing people to waterborne illnesses.
But now, with the help of Oxfam America and its local partner, PROVIDA, the well that Cruz worked so hard to dig on the school grounds in El Recuerdo is pumping enough clean water to satisfy the drinking needs not only of the students but of about 80 families in the surrounding area. The well is one of five "healthy wells" in southern Zacatecoluca province PROVIDA lined, surrounded with a filter, capped to ensure its cleanliness, and outfitted with a pump that sends water to a large tank for chlorination and storage.
"The families in this area are living in extreme poverty, living as subsistence farmers or low paid day laborers in the nearby sugar cane plantations," says Karina Copen, an Oxfam humanitarian program officer. "They face numerous challenges in having to adapt to the increased frequency and intensity of the flooding in their area. With access to a healthy well, they can at least know that in the next flood, they will have a safe source of water for their families and the good health that comes along with it."
Adaptations, such as these healthy wells, are essential for Salvadoran families living in the department of La Paz in the lower region of the Lempa River where seasonal rains, tropical depressions, and hurricanes, make it one of the country's most flood-prone areas.
Coupled with those natural hazards is the fact that communities in the region have significantly less access to improved water sources and sanitation than other parts of the country. The "healthy wells" along with 27 new composting latrines have been a boon to families in the area.
"Kids are getting sick less; families are healthier," says Santos Efrain Coto, one of the local leaders in El Recuerdo. "When they drank contaminated water they got diarrhea and parasites."
The improved wells are based on a model that's new to El Salvador and designed by an organization called Swiss Labour Assistance. Besides having their tops sealed with cement to prevent polluted flood waters from slopping in, the wells are lined with a type of plastic pipe, known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, that extends down into the aquifer. Packed around the outside of the lining is a filter of volcanic rock that prevents contamination from seeping through underground.
At the El Recuerdo school one day recently, teacher Ana Elsa Cubias describes how students used to bring their own water from home to drink during the school day. Now, the refurbished well guarantees them a clean supply right on the spot.
"They're drinking water from a protected source and the kids have water right in the classroom," says Cubias.
A short distance from the classrooms sits a large plastic tank, sky blue and able to hold 1,100 liters of water pumped fresh from the well. Chlorinated, the water from the tank flows to two taps standing just outside the gates to the school. They're accessible to whoever is driving or walking by. And to ensure the stored water stays safe for drinking, the water committee arranges to have the tank cleaned every couple of weeks—a task that falls to a child small enough to wiggle inside and scrub the interior walls with a brush and bleach.
"We make sure he bathes before he gets in the tank," adds Coto, the local leader.
In Agua Zarca, a few communities over, Jose Luis Funes Cruze says that before PROVIDA and Oxfam installed the new well, most of the local residents depended on their own backyard wells for drinking water—and that was a problem.
"The household wells take on a lot of rain water and a lot of filthy water when there's flooding," says Cruz, pointing in the direction of the polluted San Antonio River, which spills its banks during big storms. "The things people throw in—there are pigs up river. And the cheese factory is up river."
In the past, when their drinking supply has been contaminated, families in Agua Zarca have had to rely on the government or aid groups to truck in drinking water for them.
But now, with a new communal well their supply of drinking water is much improved.
"We're very grateful—the whole community is—to have that water," says Blanca Lidia Jiménez, who lives close to the well makes about six trips a day to fetch enough water for the seven people in her house. "We don't get sick so much when we drink the water from this well. The little kids would get swollen bellies, but with the new well that problem has been solved."
Still, the situation in Agua Zarca points to the challenges of providing clean water in this area. The community's new well was built on the only land available: next to a cow pasture—an arrangement that could be problematic during the wet season when rain sloshes manure about and allows it to seep into the groundwater.
The deep plastic lining on the well and its volcanic-rock filter help, though, says Guillermo Morán, a professor and researcher at the University of El Salvador's Earth Sciences Institute. He worked with Oxfam America and another of its partners, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), to evaluate the effectiveness of the wells while studying the health practices of families who use them.
The study is an important component of Oxfam's public health work: It promotes accountability and offers a different model for aid groups by linking their work with that of universities.
"We have the field experience and they have the technical expertise," says Miriam Aschkenasy, Oxfam America's public health specialist. "Together we're able to evaluate programs at a higher standard and at one that increases accountability."
In its draft report, HHI said that individuals who live in communities with "healthy wells" were less likely to have diarrhea and reported fewer cases of the illness during the time of the study. But the draft report also revealed that in two of those communities, some people were still using hand-dug wells for their drinking water while other people from places without "healthy wells" were making the trek to a community that had one to fetch their water.
"The study gives us insight in a way we couldn't have anticipated," says Aschkenasy. "It gives us an idea of where to focus in the future. We now know we need to find a way to encourage people who are still relying on the hand-dug wells to use the healthy ones instead. And it gives us great incentive to build more of them."
]]>— Padmanaban, farmer of Sengapadai
The farmers of the village of Sengapadai, India, make it their business to know what's coming. They are fortune-tellers of sorts, who look deep into history in order to forecast the future. Using methods that have evolved over thousands of years, they watch the movement of the stars, notice the feel of the wind on a given day of the month or year, and carefully observe the behavior of plants and animals. At the heart of the mysteries they set out to unravel each year is this: When will the rains come?
If they miscalculate, the consequences can be grave. In years past, it has meant families postponed not only weddings but also medical care. Sons and daughters have dropped out of school, ending their formal education. They've pawned their jewelry, which represents their savings—even the necklaces that symbolize their marriages. And, says 51-year-old Jakkammal, "In a bad year, there's only one meal a day."
The specter of bad harvests looms larger than ever these days because, as one farmer put it, "We are not getting proper rain."
Rains are coming when they shouldn't and not coming when they should, and the traditional forecasting methods, unable to adapt to the speed of change, are losing their power to predict.
"There's been a vast difference in rainfall patterns in the last 10 years," says Jeeva Rathinam, another farmer. "Before that, we used to plan properly and plant one kind of seed in the fields. Now we have to mix them together and see what comes up."
"The rainfall variations these farmers are seeing now are defeating their knowledge of the way nature functions," says Hari Krishna, Oxfam's research program manager in India.
Climate change, in other words, has come to Sengapadai.
The DHAN Foundation's ACEDRR, an Oxfam partner, has set out to help communities adjust to the changing climate landscape. Researcher B. Arthirani, herself the daughter of farmers, gathered and analyzed 40 years' worth of local rainfall data, and on a sweltering day in May 2008, the farmers of Sengapadai came together to learn the results.
Rains that once fell here predictably in July, she told them, can now be expected to arrive in late August. Then she made a proposal: delay sowing peanuts until between Aug. 10 and 16.
A heated discussion followed. Shifting to accommodate the rains could make some crops more vulnerable to infestations of weeds and pests, and the farmers argued pros and cons of various plans. But an hour later, everyone had come to agreement: the best way to balance all the factors would probably be to plant corn in September.
This is not research as it's conducted at universities, where academics carry out studies at a comfortable distance from actual farmers, and where recommendations are conveyed to the villagers in top-down fashion. That day's discussion, which began with Arthirani's educated guess about what to sow when, ended with a practical plan that drew on knowledge from both inside and outside the community. The ACEDRR study, says Arthirani, "is not a one-way process."
Community members are not simply considered beneficiaries of the study, explained Hari Krishna. "Here, they are partners in the research. They know best about their soil, their sky, their water, and what crops suit their needs."
Outside the meeting place, a heifer nosed along the roadside looking for something to graze on, and a bullock cart passed by with a load of fodder. Women headloading firewood and water walked along the dusty main street in the fierce midday sun, and in the distance, a man stood knee-deep in a pond, splashing water on his team of bullocks after what had probably been a morning of hard labor in the fields.
Fossil fuels and all their labor-saving pleasures seem to have bypassed this village entirely. There were no cars or tractors in sight, and despite the scorching temperature, no one was heading home to air conditioning or refrigerated drinks. It is a painful irony that many of those who have done least to bring about climate change are the most vulnerable to its effects.
DHAN is tackling that vulnerability on two fronts: the disaster-oriented research of ACEDRR is helping ensure that changing rainfall patterns don't lead to catastrophic crop losses, while DHAN's development programs are building resilience in other ways—helping those same farmers organize themselves into self-help groups that enable savings and investment; creating federations that have clout in the marketplace; and helping farmers gain access to high-quality seed, affordable insurance, and lenders that charge two percent interest instead of ten.
It is an approach that is working. By November it was clear that the shift from peanuts to corn was a big success. But there are signs everywhere of the growing security of this community—most convincingly in the confident smile of Jakkammal. The days of one bad harvest plunging the community into debt and hunger, it seems, are over. "After joining DHAN," she says, "we are able to have three meals."
]]>But it has—four times already this year, sloshing mud through homes, polluting wells, and forcing families in this hilly Sri Lankan district of Ratnapura to flee to higher ground until the water recedes. And while they're gone, their lives are on hold: Men can't get to work, children miss school, and women labor doubly hard over household tasks in temporary quarters.
"We're sick of the floods—going here and there, cleaning, interrupting children's education and livelihoods," said Renuka Damayanthi, a 35-year-old mother. "We have to re-organize and rebuild again and again."
There may be no worthier a place for developing a plan to reduce the risk of disasters than here in the small villages tucked into the undergrowth along the Kalu River. And there may be no women more able to help with that task than those who have evacuated their homes as many times as these women have, scurrying to gather the few household goods they know their families will need to survive. And now, with the increased frequency of those floods hinting at climate change, the need to find ways to cut down on the trouble they cause is more urgent than ever.
How involved have women become in efforts to reduce the chance their families and neighbors will run into serious difficulties from floods and landslides? And what might be holding the women back?
Those are among the central questions in a new piece of research aimed at influencing how governments think about long-lasting ways for keeping people, their assets, and their means of earning a living safe—especially in places prone to beatings from Mother Nature. In the language of the experts, that safe-keeping is known as disaster risk reduction, or DRR. Carried out by the Institute for Participatory Interaction Development and funded by Oxfam, the research is directed at promoting equal participation of both men and women in these new disaster-related initiatives.
"Women are the ones mostly affected by disaster—and the most vulnerable—and the response system isn't sensitive to looking into women's needs," said Indira Aryaratne, the lead researcher for the study, which focuses on six areas within two districts of Sri Lanka.
The research was spurred by the 2004 tsunami, as was a new countrywide focus on disaster management. But around the communities of Muwagama and Haldolla, that effort has been slow to materialize—as Aryaratne discovered in the course of meeting with scores of villagers. In Haldolla, for instance, officials called a meeting in 2006 to begin organizing a local disaster management program and to appoint people to a variety of subcommittees, but that's as far as it went. Villagers haven't met since to discuss the initiative.
"It will take a long time to internalize a strong community role in disaster risk reduction," said D. Wicramaarachi, the government official in charge of a small division of four villages. The concept is new, he said, and people have not yet embraced the idea that they can form committees that will play an important part in their futures.
And committees are just the beginning of the process, added Aryaratne. Disaster risk reduction has to become a way of thinking that should be reflected across the decisions a community makes for itself.
"DRR is a way of life," said Aryaratne. "It's not a one-off activity. Just forming a committee is not going to serve any purpose."
Slow as communities may be to organize formally around the concept, women—and men—in water-logged communities have plenty of ideas about what steps need to be taken to improve the safety and security of their families. Encouraging their direct participation in her research, Aryaratne has gathered a host of suggestions from villagers. She intends to share them with government officials and other stakeholders at a workshop.
On a hot afternoon in Haldolla, villagers came to participate in one of Aryaratne's focus groups. From large sheets of brown paper taped to the wall in the Haldolla community center, they took turns reading off their ideas for coping with the floods. Among the proposals the women had was the creation of a communal farm on land above flood level where they could grow vegetables to ensure their families had food. They asked to receive first-aid training that would focus specifically on medical problems related to floods, such as water-borne diseases. And they suggested constructing a bridge over a section of the river that would allow everyone easy access out of the area.
A short distance away, in Muwagama, women have also been thinking a lot about the flooding and how to better manage their lives around it. A group of them recently petitioned the local authorities for a boat to use during emergencies. They have also formed their own women's committee and have asked the government to authorize the committee to distribute relief food to flood victims, thereby ensuring that all local families in need get help.
Figuring out ways to cope with the inevitable is just one part of ensuring safety in areas like Muwagama. Being aware of the risks in living there is another. And whether villagers call it disaster risk reduction or not, knowing when rains will fall is key to preparing for them. The Singhalese New Year, which comes in April, is part of their calculation: a month and a half later the monsoon arrives.
"They know that after 45 days, there will be a flood," said Wicramaarachi, the local government official. "That's the traditional knowledge."
But traditional knowledge may now be butting up against climate change, demanding new ways of dealing with old problems.
"There have been changes in climate in the last five years. Massive floods used to happen every five years, but now it's 2008 and we've already faced four major floods," said Wicramaarachi.
Some also suspect that an increase in sand mining along river banks and on steep slopes surrounding the area could be adding to the flooding problem.
There have been so many floods lately that Damayanthi, the young mother from Muwagama, now no longer bothers to unpack the household goods she usually takes with her during evacuations. She has left them in satchels, ready to grab for the next time.
But so far, none of those times have been as bad as the terrible flood of 2003. One man in Haldolla said the water during that disaster reached as high as the electrical wires strung high overhead on poles along the road.
That was the flood that washed away K.G. Kandawathie's home next to the river—the one she had built with 12 years worth of savings from her job as house maid for a Korean family. She built a second home in the same location but now, with the recent series of floods, Kandawathie, 60, is feeling the strain.
"The best thing is to move away," she said.
For many people that won't be possible, and that's why embracing the concept of disaster risk reduction may be the smartest alternative for the Kalu River communities.
"If you can do something about the flooding that's the best idea," said Damayanthi, who is already sold on the concept. "Even if it's out of our control, we can reduce the damage."
]]>Watching her in action, in her long orange tunic, it's clear that Aryarathne has found her calling—far from where she began in a Sri Lankan architectural firm working on designs for multi-national companies.
How did she wind up here, near the Kalu River in the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka, helping women think about how to keep their families safe and ease the constant hardship that flooding brings?
"I always had a passion to do something for people who are less privileged than me," says Aryarathne. During her university years—as she was working toward her goal of becoming an architect—she couldn't help but think about the community outside the institution's walls: It was impoverished and yet the development of the university had done little to address that poverty. That fact bothered her deeply.
But it wasn't until Aryarathne landed her first architectural job that she got the chance to tackle that kind of injustice herself. Her firm won a contract to develop a Colombo laundry facility—a place where scores of people manually wash clothes and linens on a large scale for clients such as hotels and hospitals. The laundry sat on prime property that a multi-national company wanted to develop—and the city had agreed to let it go ahead in exchange for the corporation's commitment to build a replacement facility.
The design of that new facility fell to Aryarathne. And right from the beginning she followed the instincts that led her to where she is now: a consultant and trainer working with poor and marginalized people who have a great deal to say about how to improve their lives, but little opportunity to be heard.
Warned that the washers could become unruly and that she should be careful, Aryarathne visited the old laundry facility. Instead of being afraid, she found herself deep in conversation with the people there—after telling them the truth about the construction proposal. If it happens, she asked, what would they like a new facility to include?
The floodgates opened, and though she didn't know it then, Aryarathne had her first exhilarating experience with participatory action research—a method of working with communities on problems whose solutions they will own. At that first laundry meeting, she learned everything about their work, from soaking and soaping, to boiling and hammering.
"That was my first exposure to a community—and it was really good," said Aryarathne. "I knew they had a lot to tell me and all that my boss had said was not true."
Soon after followed other participatory architectural projects, and gradually Aryarathne came to see where her real interests lay: With people working on initiatives that will improve their lives.
Fourteen years ago—leaving behind years of training and a budding architectural career—she made the shift from the private sector into the development world. And she hasn't looked back.
"This is more satisfying than architecture," says Aryarathne.
In the small community building in Ratnapura, the session with community members comes to an end. Aryarathne looks thoughtful as she folds up the charts she has just made with their help—charts that list the problems associated with flooding and some of the solutions villagers have proposed. She will compile the findings for an Oxfam-supported study aimed at promoting equal participation of both men and women in programs to reduce their risk of disaster.
"Architects are at the service of rich people," said Aryarathne later. "Just as you cater to multi-millionaires, villagers need our services, too."
]]>The first of the schools is scheduled to open this month in the city of Pengzhou. The building is constructed out of strong, lightweight materials, and it's designed to last for ten years or until it can be replaced by a permanent structure. Its outer walls are made of Styrofoam encased in thin steel sheets, and inside are classrooms, offices, and a cafeteria. It is a primary school that will serve 932 students, and it's supplied with desks, blackboards, and other supplies—all purchased as close as possible to the earthquake-affected areas in order to boost the economy of the stricken region.
A central feature of the Pengzhou school is that, like the others to come, it is earthquake resistant.
"It will be able to withstand a quake of up to 7.0 on the Richter scale," says Howard Liu, Director of Oxfam Hong Kong's China Unit.
After a disaster, it's crucial for aid providers to do whatever possible to ensure that the affected communities won't have to relive the terrible episode one or two or ten years down the road.
"We can't prevent earthquakes," says Oxfam risk reduction specialist Jacobo Ocharan, "but we can try to prevent future earthquakes from causing so much suffering."
]]>It's these experiences that have helped convince us that our current system of international food aid needs to be reformed. It needs to be faster, more flexible and cheaper. Instead of dumping surplus domestic production as "in kind" food aid, donors should provide cash for governments and aid agencies to buy food locally. This is usually more efficient and better for local agriculture.
Here are some examples of how this kind of aid can work during humanitarian crises.
In the North Bank Division of Gambia food shortages are a constant threat as people struggle to manage the delicate balance between their needs and what the environment can provide. Will there be enough rain to allow crops to grow? Will locusts devour whatever villagers manage to coax from their fields?
A simple solution promoted by Oxfam's local partner, Agency for the Development of Women and Children, or ADWAC, takes the edge off those questions: If villagers had a way to save some of their food and seeds at the end of each harvest, they could have a reserve to fall back on during times of shortage. The trick was to get started.
ADWAC's plan called for building and stocking four cereal "banks"—tidy white structures the size of small houses which can hold up to 30 metric tons of cereals—located at strategic points around the communities. Villagers then formed committees to manage the stored supplies. Those who borrow from the storehouse during a food shortage are obliged to repay the loan and tack on a little extra, too, so that the project can grow.
Now, if drought should shrivel their crops or pests consume them, villagers can turn to that bank of grain, avoiding the need to eke what they can from an overstrained environment. The bank will help them weather tough times.
Inside the Dasilami storehouse one day last year, the sweetness of harvested grains filled the hot dry air. Heavy sacks—they weigh just under 200 pounds—stuffed with corn and millet were stacked nearly to the ceiling. Outside, in the shade of a tree laden with mangoes, Nyima Filly Fofana, a mother of nine children and an organizer for one of the cereal bank management committees, talked about what it was like one year recently when both locusts and drought hit the area.
"We experienced a very bitter time," she said. "The family was hungry." In times of food shortages, Fofana's family manages by selling the salt she harvests from mud flats near her home and by eating whatever vegetables they can grow in their garden. But if such trouble should strike again, this time Dasilami has the seeds of a solution—one that can now spread to other villages, too.
"Our worries will be temporarily solved," said Fofana, clapping her hands at the thought of the white building gleaming there in the sun, stocked with grain. "We'll have food. Therefore our families will not cry. Our stomachs will no longer go empty."
When a catastrophic earthquake hit northern Pakistan in the fall of 2005, it left three million people homeless and more than two million people needing food aid to survive the winter.
Around the devastated town of Balakot in the Northwest Frontier province, Oxfam organized a program that provided families with vouchers to use among a selected group of merchants. Not only did the vouchers offer earthquake survivors the chance to make their own choices about which goods would best meet their needs, they helped to revitalize local markets by boosting commerce and allowing traders to rebuild their businesses.
For one young boy, the program helped restore a sliver of normalcy to his life by allowing him to buy familiar goods.
"My father was killed," he told an Oxfam staffer at a general store in Balakot. "My mother is very ill. She has asked me to buy flour, black tea, and sugar."
The program, which also included the distribution of some cash and building materials, reached more than 48,000 people, giving them a real say in the kind of help they received.
Before a lack of rain shriveled the pastureland in Niger and swarms of migratory grasshoppers stripped it clean, Koumba Yacouba's family owned a magnificent herd of cows that was 200 head strong. But drought and pest infestation wiped them out in 2005—a story repeated across Niger where untold numbers of herders all depend on their animals for food. The shortage of fodder was the worst in Niger's history.
High cereal prices and decimated herds combined to create a food crisis for 3.6 million people—nearly one-third of Niger's population.
In response, Oxfam and one of its local partners, the Association de Revigoration d'Élevage au Niger, or AREN, set up a $2 million program in southeastern Niger to help nearly 131,000 people. Their weakened herds figured prominently in the effort. The goal was to help reinvigorate the local economy by stimulating area markets.
For a fair price, Oxfam bought cattle that were too emaciated for herders to sell. Cattle prices had plummeted, falling to 90 percent lower than they had been before the crisis. Even healthy animals were fetching only a fraction of their former value: Strong bulls that once went for $500 were being sold off for as little as $18.
Oxfam began purchasing cows from local breeders for $53 a head. That money allowed people to buy food from local traders to feed both their families and their remaining animals.
In addition, Oxfam had the cows it purchased slaughtered in the villages and the meat inspected by vets to make sure it was fit for consumption. In exchange for some of the meat, village women worked to dry or fry the beef which was then made available to hungry families who traded their vouchers for it. People earned the vouchers by working on community improvement projects such as the construction of small reservoirs to catch and store rainfall.
"Oxfam's response is stimulating the economy by trying to use local markets," said Mike Delaney, Oxfam America's director of humanitarian response.
"We cannot believe that we are now able to eat meat," said Khadydiatou Labarang, whose daily diet had been a single meal of millet before Oxfam initiated the program.
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