Harvesting hope: our Ethiopian coffee project

By Solen Dessalegn, Programme Funding Manager at Ripple Effect Ethiopia, and Anna Borsboom, Digital Marketing Manager

The project, funded by The Starbucks Foundation, focused on smallholder coffee farmers in the Bensa district, primarily targeting women (representing over 70% of participants directly involved). The aim was to improve these communities’ livelihoods through sustainable farming methods and upskilling, as well as encouraging female leadership by addressing gender inequalities.

The Ripple Effect research team assessed some key community challenges ahead of project implementation. They found that many people in Bonbe, Shantawene and Huro-Tibiro villages (also referred to as kebeles) lived below the poverty line, and were facing food insecurity, poor nutrition, gender inequality, low income, lack of access to finance, lack of savings and credit schemes and high youth unemployment. By relying on traditional growing methods, these coffee-growing communities were limiting their agricultural successes.

These hard-working communities just weren’t reaping the rewards of their efforts – but they had huge potential to transform their livelihoods with appropriate support and training. We envisioned four main goals to achieve by the end of this project:

• families are well fed and nourished (food secure);
• women and marginalized groups are economically and socially empowered;
• children have access to education;
• families earn diversified and increased incomes.

We worked directly with 1,350 farming families who attended events and training sessions to build their land and harvest management knowledge. All training involved locally available and affordable resources, an approach we use that enables participants to continue making improvements for the long-term, rather than relying on external inputs.

But our work reaches far beyond the 1,350 families we directly worked with. Communities in rural Africa are generous and social – they share their newly learned skills and resources with each other, so all can benefit. We encourage fast learners to become peer-farmers, so they can train others in their community and start a ‘ripple effect’. That is how our training reached 49,950 people in the community.

We’ve achieved remarkable results in just three years:

• 93% of project participants’ families now eat at least six types of food per day (compared to 0.6% when the project started);
• 94% have access to safe drinking water, up from 45%;
• 100% now have access to sanitation and hygiene facilities;
• 63% are financially secure, earning at least $1.90 per day, up from 1.15%;
• 100% of participants are engaging in savings and credit to support their enterprises and income levels, up from 3%;
• 65% of women in self-help groups are exercising leadership, compared to just 7% at the start of the project;
• 47% of women are involved in decision-making processes at the household and community levels, up from 16%. We recognise that given the deep-rooted cultural norms, attitudes and behaviors this will take time to change. We expect further improvements as female role models start to inspire others and shift long-held perceptions around gender and female leadership.

The project staff and farmers have also faced many challenges over the last three years, not least due to the climate crisis and inflation, and it was how they responded to those challenges that defined their success.

The delayed rainy season and prolonged dry season disrupted project activities such as providing families with forage cuttings, splits and seeds. Despite these interventions being delayed, when the rainy season finally came farmers worked hard to catch up and saw amazing improvements. Crop and animal yields improved quickly and families’ food security and nutrition followed.

Power cuts at the project office also hampered delivery, so a hybrid power back-up with a solar element was purchased and installed. Internet connectivity was an unavoidable issue in the rural office location, meaning that project staff sometimes had to make a 520 mile round trip to the head office in Addis Ababa, or the regional capital Hawassa, to meet reporting deadlines.

Most ordinary Ethiopians have felt the pinch of inflation over the last few years, and the project certainly felt the pressure too. The purchase of key assets were monitored very closely to ensure the team had enough funding to last until the end of the three year period.

Our integrated approach to development helped us to address multiple challenges at once – such as improving income through training in financial literacy, whilst also addressing harmful perceptions around the roles of women and marginalised groups, allowing people to flourish.

During the project lifetime, 45 self-help groups (SHGs) were established and strengthened. These have been organised into six cluster-level associations (CLAs), which now represent a resilient framework of empowered local institutions, that can continue improving livelihoods once the formal project has ended.

We know from research conducted in our projects that somewhere between 51% and 87% of farmers will continue to access support of peer farmers in their community via these groups, at least five years after the project has ended.

We also have a few other projects running in that region - find out more about our work in Ethiopia.

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