Strategic Support for Food Security and Nutrition Project - GAFSP funds

In Lao, undernutrition and food insecurity remain stubbornly high, with rates of stunting in children under five years of age as high as 61 per cent in some provinces. Improving women's nutrition is critical to breaking the intergenerational cycle.

The communities most prone to undernutrition live in upland areas where the dominant household economic activities – agriculture and non-timber forest product extraction – are increasingly constrained by unsustainable farming practices and natural resource use, large-scale land concessions, and limited adaptation to climate change.

The Strategic Support for Food Security and Nutrition Project (SSFSNP) aims to address these challenges while reducing extreme poverty and malnutrition for 34,000 poor rural households in Northern Laos.

The objective is to increase the quality of health and life by improving agricultural production and overall household nutrition and food security.

The project will address food and nutrition security needs and will include profitable investment in nutrient-sensitive, climate-adapted agricultural development.

Project activities include:

• Empowering women to improve family diets, particularly during the first 1,000 days of an infant's life
• Developing farmers' organisations and linking small-scale farmers to markets
• Supporting farmers as they develop personalised solutions to profitable agricultural production, which may include working directly with other farmers or private enterprises

The project will be implemented approximately 400 villages across 12 districts in Houaphan, Oudomxai, Phongsaly and Xieng Khouang provinces.

The total project costs are estimated at US$38.8 million. GAFSP funding will total US$30 million (77.3 per cent). Of this, US$24 million will be managed by IFAD and US$6 million by WFP. FAO will also be engaged to carry out selected technical support for the project.

The Government of Lao's contribution is estimated at US$5.4 million (13.8 per cent); private sector contributions are estimated at US$0.5 million (1.3 per cent); and beneficiary contributions at US$2.9 million (7.5 per cent).

This project is funded by a grant from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).

By request of the government, the project name has changed from Strategic Support for Food Security and Nutrition Project (SSFSNP) to Agriculture for Nutrition Programme (AFN).