Léogane Rural Transformation

Over the past three years, World Renew has supported the development efforts in 17 small villages on the hills of Léogane in Haiti.

We have helped the communities to become more resilient and to increase their ability to absorb change, to self-organize, to overcome traumatic and disaster events, and to innovate and learn for the future.

Through a financial partnership with RA-GG, a Dutch church organization, World Renew implemented this development project in the communities of Palmiste à Vin and Fond des Boudins.

The project was a response to a series of recommendations made by evaluators of a previously implemented World Renew livelihoods project, designed as a transition intervention to assist the two earthquake-affected communities.

The Léogane Rural Transformation Project started in January 2014 and ended in December 2016.

The project consisted of a series of activities including training and seed and small-credit distribution designed to enhance food security in Palmiste à Vin and Fond des Boudins. In order to increase local assets and take advantage of opportunities offered by the existing local market, we have provided the community with training and assistance in grafting to help them obtain the skills necessary to improve the quality of their mango crops. World Renew’s resilience-building activities in the area included reforestation, training, distribution, and adoption of new crop varieties and farming practices.

Along with the activities, FOTADEL, a federation of 17 associations and two credit unions/co-ops, was created.

The project helped to continue the progress that World Renew and ZOA, a Dutch NGO, had fostered in Léogane through the previous transition livelihoods project.

The goal was to reinforce the contribution to food security/sustainable agriculture, community organization, and improvement of resilience in the area by 2016.

The activities of the project helped local farming families to face the climate change and environmental degradation crisis. We assisted local farming families who had become unable to purchase inputs within the unstable planting window caused by environmental degradation—and as a result, we helped to reduce poverty in the area. The credits allowed farmers to purchase agricultural equipment and establish micro-businesses that sell goods not locally available.

The project was co-designed by the World Renew team and the target community; its implementation was supported by the active participation of the community. Both World Renew and the community leaders were motivated by a project that offered a great opportunity to work closely with the target population on a daily basis. Both teams have experienced how rewarding it can be to implement a project in which beneficiaries have a high level of responsibility. The project reinforced the capacity of farmers who were affected by economic hardships that reduced their resilience. In the project evaluation, poor households reported better assets or livestock, greater production capacity, and more food to eat or sell until the next harvest.

Blessings,