Background
Promoting a Sustainable and Food Secure World II (PROSPER II) was a three-year phase (2019 – 2022) of the CARE-Cargill partnership. It amplified the success of previous programming, scaled proven approaches, and explored new opportunities to promote a sustainable and food secure world. PROSPER II aligned with and contributed to She Feeds the World (SFtW) and aimed to increase the food and nutrition security and climate change resilience of 2 million people.
Intervention
PROSPER II facilitated better food and nutrition security, increased incomes, and reduced poverty of participants globally, reaching more than 2 million people, more than half of whom were women.
In West Africa, the program supported 180 cocoa-producing communities and reached 134,615 people directly resulting in an overall 31% decrease in poverty, and a 27% reduction in food insecurity. Through gender sensitization approaches, women’s empowerment to equally participate in household financial decision-making increased by 17%.
In Central America, Nourishing the Future worked to ensure food security with equal access to markets, control of productive resources, and increased resilience to climate change across Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. CARE’s community-centric approach focused on women, smallholder producers, and their families to facilitate access to resources, support, information, skills, and confidence needed to invest in their farms, businesses, families, and communities reaching more than 1.4 million people. As a result, producers’ annual incomes tripled, and access to productive resources increased by nearly 17%.
In Indonesia, PROSPER II enhanced the well-being of children in 10 elementary schools through the reduction of infectious diseases and access to nutritious food reaching over 17,000 people. Today, children in these schools have 100% functioning toilets, handwashing has increased by 8% and as a direct result, school absenteeism fell by more than 6%.
At the global level, food insecurity decreased by 16%, health and nutrition behaviors improved, and poverty rates fell by 19 percentage points across West Africa and Central America. Across the program, 41% more women now hold leadership positions in community groups or associations.
In our next phase of partnership, PROSPER III, a three-year program (2022-2025) across ten countries, will build on lessons learned and focus our efforts on three areas of change, 1) access to women’s productive agricultural resources, 2) enable women’s access to markets and 3) to multiply impact through strategic partnerships and advocacy, all with the goal to increase food and nutrition security and resilience for 1.6 million people (over 900,000 women).
Results
Since 2008, CARE and Cargill have partnered with origin communities and local institutions to promote gender equity, food security, and support women’s inclusive participation in food systems and markets. Together, we have reached more than 4.6 million people through 34 projects in 13 countries. Of those reached, more than 2.4 million were women.
Our work has tackled complex issues spanning smallholder agriculture, market access, women’s economic empowerment, nutrition, child labor, education, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Beyond the tremendous impact of our efforts on the ground, our partnership has contributed greatly to CARE’s global food and nutrition security approach, informing our signature initiative, SFtW.
The importance of PROSPER II
With Cargill’s position as a connector of the food system and their unique expertise and technical support paired with CARE’s on-the-ground experience and network, together we seek to drive greater impact and scale in our efforts to support rural communities around the globe.