LEARNING STUDY FOR RESILIENT ARID LANDS PARTNERSHIP FOR INTERGRATED DEVELOPMENT PLUS (RAPID+) PROGRAM Full Time

Background:
The Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development Plus (RAPID+) program is a five-year program running from November 2021 – September 2026 convened and led by Millennium Water Alliance (MWA). The program has primary funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation (SDC) and contributions and investment funds from private sector actors, four facilitating partners including CARE Kenya, the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Food for the Hungry (FH) and World Vision (WV) and five hosting county governments. The goal of RAPID+ is to improve access to safe and sustainably managed water and rangelands for 200,000 people in Garissa, Isiolo, Wajir, Marsabit and Turkana to contribute to resilient livelihoods for communities in these counties in a peaceful environment. The program is contributing to this goal through two outcomes: (1) Pastoralist communities have increased access to sustainable and safe water for multiple uses benefiting men, women, and youth, and (2) Pastoralist communities have improved access to safe and ecologically healthy rangeland resources that promote greater integrity, social cohesion, and gender equity.
RAPID+ concentrates heavily on the intersection of these two main issues of water and rangeland access and the intricate relationships involving shifting climatic circumstances and other context-related aspects. The program also provides a platform for institutional and systemic changes through incorporating gender transformative and system development approaches ensuring equitable and
sustainable access to and use of water and rangelands.

Purpose of the external evaluation:
To support generation of outcomes and learnings from the RAPID+ program, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) will be supporting an independent learning study on the
demand for fodder in the arid lands of Northern Kenya.
To build community resilience to cyclical droughts, a key strategy RAPID+ is promoting the growth and sale of fodder among the communities it is working with. This serves to provide pastoralists with alternative livestock feed sources particularly during droughts when range resources have been depleted. RAPID+ is cognizant that several initiatives have been undertaken in attempt to increase fodder production in the ASALs. Program team have observed that most of the fodder farmers have significant volumes of fodder bales stored with limited access to markets, signalling the need for a more nuanced understanding of fodder production, marketing, sale and use. Under RAPID+, the program team is particularly keen to understand the demand side of fodder market system in order to link producers to markets, minimize wastage of stored fodder, incentivize continuous production of fodder by agro-pastoralists, and to embed sustainability in fodder production.

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Tagged as: Government of Switzerland, Kenya