Our new project: She Leads in Food Security
The year has begun with many exciting developments for us, including a brand new project we’ve just launched called ‘She Leads in Food Security’ (SLIFS).
This dynamic project is in partnership with CARE Iraq, and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
The project objective is to enhance the food security and economic status of IDPs, refugees and returnees in the Sinjar district of KRI through climate-smart agriculture and income-generating initiatives.
To kick off the project, we recently identified and organised ‘training of trainers’ (ToT) sessions for five days, which will see 10 Female Community Food Security Ambassadors become local champions to raise women’s knowledge on ways they can improve their food security.
As you can see in these photos, the specialist training covered nutrition, food preservation, food wastage and environmental issues, and was delivered to the 10 ambassadors from Domiz 2 and Essyan camps.
The issue of food insecurity is becoming increasingly alarming in Iraq. With the population growing by around 66% since 2000, food supply, both locally and imported, is struggling to catch up. Meanwhile, political uncertainty and conflict make the problems even more hard to manage.
The pandemic piled more pressures onto the fragile food system, disrupting supply chains, increasing costs, and seeing ever more Iraqi households dip into poverty.
The country is also fifth most susceptible to climate change in the world, with decreasing water, food availability and extreme temperatures all proving a major concern. Years of environmental degradation mean that IDP communities continue to experience a critical loss of crop production, as well as increased livestock deaths and reduced fishing yields.
As a result, we believe these kinds of environmental projects are not only important, but absolutely vital to safeguard livelihoods and the survival of communities for generations to come.
We’ll keep you posted about the various project activities and impact once they are formally underway…
