International Development Grant

Linking Initiatives Stakeholders and Knowledge for Livelihood Security

Project Number: CA-3-S065426001

Status: Closed

Country/Region:

Mali 23.35%
Bolivia 27.90%
Ethiopia 28.50%
Ghana 20.25%

Maximum Contribution: $6,187,474.00

Start Date: August 08, 2012

End Date: August 31, 2016

Duration: 4.1 years

Project Description

This project focuses on food security and nutrition and on enterprise and economic development. It aims to improve livelihood security and resilience of 246 216 vulnerable people with a special emphasis on women and girls. The program will work with government and local NGO partners using a variety of strategies to improve and augment the productive assets they have available to them in an environmentally sustainable way in order to reduce their vulnerability context and increase their ability to cope with inevitable set-backs and shocks. Key project activities include: 1) Identify and organize community based organisations to provide services and training; 2) Train service providers at local level in post-harvest storage preservation production; 3) Provide guidance to groups on village savings and loans associations; 4) Support most promising local products or services using value chain analysis; and 5) Share gained knowledge with wider network and link projects partners and countries to influence policy and practice.

Expected Results

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: 1) Increased quantity and quality food production and consumption by women girls men and boys; 2) Women men and male and female youth are better able to manage and control their economic enterprises;and 3) The policy and regulatory environment supports poor women’s and men’s more equal control of agricultural resources and market processes.

Progress & Results Achieved

The Linking Initiatives Stakeholders and Knowledge to Achieve Gender-Sensitive Livelihood Security (LINKAGES) program was a multi-country initiative designed to improve the livelihood security and resilience of vulnerable women girls men and boys in Bolivia Ethiopia Ghana and Mali. Each LINKAGES country implemented its own project based on the program’s outcomes and existing development plans and/or structures in the targeted regions. In Mali the Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Segou (IFONS) capitalized on the already established relations with community health centres . In Ghana the Promise project responded directly to one of the national development agenda’s strategy which calls for ‘promoting economic empowerment of women . In Ethiopia the Abdishe initiative was specifically designed to provide alternative pathways towards graduation from the Government’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP). In Bolivia Tukuy Yanapana (TY) responded to the identified needs and strategies laid out in CARE Bolivia’s Adaptation to Climate Change and Food Security program. The project is now completed. Results achieved at the completion of the project (August 2016) include: (1) women are producing more crops than four years ago (soybean cowpea millet sorghum groundnut and sesame) and diets are more diversified including the increase consumption of more nutritious foods (e.g. moringa) by 99% of households; (2) training on farming best practices and processing of soybean and cowpea has helped increase women’s incomes in Ghana on average by 47%; (3) women’s savings generated by participation in Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) and incomes from economic enterprises have increased by 44% in Ethiopia mainly due to the diversification of income generating activities; (4) the establishment of the women’s assets groups in Mali resulted in women having greater access and control of productive assets increasing women’s agricultural production and c

Key Information

Executing Agency:
CARE Canada

Reporting Organization:
Global Affairs Canada

Program:
YFMInternaAssistPartnershp&Programing Br

Last Modified:
September 19, 2025

Development Classifications

DAC Sector:

Basic nutrition 8.88%
Democratic participation and civil society 7.37%
Informal/semi-formal financial intermediaries 13.07%
Business support services and institutions 2.68%
Agricultural development 12.15%
Agricultural extension 3.33%
Agricultural education/training 13.09%
Agricultural services 3.91%
Agricultural co-operatives 3.91%
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) development 31.61%

Aid Type: Project-type interventions

Collaboration: Bilateral

Finance Type: Aid grant excluding debt reorganisation

Selection Mechanism:
Pre-APP

Policy Markers
Level 1 Gender equality
Level 1 Participatory development and good governance
Level 1 Trade development
Level 1 Climate Change Adaptation
Level 1 Children's issues
Major Funding (>$1M)
Budget Breakdown
2012-04-01 to 2013-03-31 $6,187,474 CAD
Geographic Information
105
Reference ID: 087