A multi-layered approach targeted expansion of food production and access to food, household dietary diversity, and women’s access to land and credit. Funded activities included cash transfers for food security, input vouchers to support farmers, credit for improved access to markets, and macro-level credits for agricultural expansion to the commercial level. These activities in turn drove lower food insecurity, better household diets, helped families send their children back to school, and built livelihoods in the region.

USAID’s support to rice cooperatives in Guinea allowed women farmers to obtain higher prices in a declining commodity market through the cooperative’s collective bargaining. As the market price of rice dropped from 9,000 GNF per kilo in 2015 to 7,000 GNF in 2017, the farmers negotiated a 25 percent increase in the amount they received from producers over the same period, rising from 4,000 GNF to 5,000 GNF per kilo. Farming cooperative programs varied by country.

Reduced food insecurity graphic showing the average proportions of targeted populations suffering moderate to severe hunger and populations with higher dietary diversity