• Reference: P-MZ-AZ0-001
• Approval date: 25/01/2006
• Start date: 29/05/2008
• Appraisal Date: 06/06/2005
• Status: OngoingOnGo
• Implementing Agency: MINISTRY OF WOMEN & SOCIAL ACTION
• Location: Manica and Sofala Provinces

Detailed Description of Project Components 1.The Project will comprise two components: I) Rural Livelihoods Promotion and Marketing Support; and II) Institutional Support. (A) Rural Livelihoods Promotion and Marketing Support 1.2.The main outcome of this component will be 4,500 women trained in basic business management and agro processing skills as alternative economic activities and to mitigate household food insecurity. Further, 900 women will be selected from the previous group and trained in advanced entrepreneurship and business-start up skills. This component seeks to achieve this through three sub-components: (a) entrepreneurship and technical skills development; (b) agro-processing technology, and (c) marketing support. Entrepreneurship and technical skills development1.3.This sub-component will provide training to rural women organised in groups in three areas:

(i) basic business management skills,

(ii) agro-processing skills training,

(iii) business start-up and entrepreneurship development training. The beneficiaries for the training will be selected as per the criteria mentioned above. Specialised service providers and NGOs will be recruited to deliver the training activities. The project coordinator together with the Provincial and District agriculture officer as well as the MMAS representatives will guide the process through regular participatory monitoring and evaluation visits and progress reports from the service provider.

(i) Basic business management training 1.4.This will include 350 training sessions, delivered to groups of women, in functional literacy, basic principles of business management, rural marketing strategies, basic book-keeping, human resource management, and leadership and communication skills. This activity will enable the women to practice basic business for village level trading and production activities. Other experiences in the country show that functional literacy training significantly improves women's livelihood strategies as well as serves to attract them for training.

(ii) Agro-processing skills training

(iii) Business start-up and entrepreneurship development training 1.8.Based on existing experience in the Country, it is expected that not all rural women will want to graduate to full-time entrepreneurs and business owners. This may be for reasons such as: they are risk averse, the women have other multiple household responsibilities at home, there is an ill member of the household who needs full time care, or they do not have adequate confidence in business management, etc. Therefore, it is expected that about 20% of the total beneficiaries may want to graduate to becoming micro-scale business women and entrepreneurs. Thus, experienced local service providers will be recruited to target at least 900 women as individuals or in groups to undertake advanced training in business start-up and entrepreneurship development. The training will include strategies for business start-up, registration, legal and institutional aspects for business start-up, product identification and development, market survey and identification, advanced marketing strategies, packaging, networ king, and accessing working capital from the financial market. After the training, the project will give technical guidance to the women entrepreneurs in identifying and accessing working capital from the locally available financial institutions. That is, the project will assist in linking the entrepreneurs to local banks and other micro-credit providers only.(b) Agro-processing Technology 1.10.This sub-component will include the procurement of agro-processing equipment such as small scale grain mills, traditional ovens, jams and fruit juice concentrate processors, cheese and butter processors, tomato paste processors, manual edible oil presses, peanut butter processors; fruit and vegetable dehydration equipment, cassava processors, and Soya milk processors. Due to the project being a pilot intervention, the agro-processing equipment will be provided to the women's groups on a matching grant basis. The group will be required to put up 20% of the cost and the project will contribute to the other 80% of the cost. (c) Marketing Support .Household food-security and rural trade promotion will be one of the main focuses for the development of rural enterprise. Therefore this sub-component will support promotion and marketing of rural processed foods through linking the most efficient 50 trained women's groups who meet quality standards to private sector agro-processing operators

(II)Institutional Support 1.12.No new project management unit will be created under this project. Thus, the Project Management Team will be located at the National Directorate for Women (DNM) within the Ministry of Women and Social Action (MMAS). The project will be managed through the existing structure of the DNM. Thus, the DNM will assign three staff members, whose qualifications and experience are acceptable to the Bank, for the positions of Gender and HIV/ AIDS Expert, Project Accountant and a secretary to comprise part of the Project Management Team. A full-time Project Coordinator will be recruited from project resources to head the Project Management Team due to the fact that DNM/ MMAS suffers from human resources capacity constraint for this position. The total ADF project cost including physical and price contingencies are estimated at UA 2.14 million or MZM 61.36 billion. The foreign exchange component of the project cost is estimated at about UA 1.12 million (52% of the total cost) while local cost will amount to about UA 1.02 million (48% of the total project cost). According to the projects assessment and experience in other on-going donor projects in the country, most of the services can be sourced locally especially the training in business management skills which will entail training women in rural areas. ..

1 The project objectives are to

(i) to reduce household food insecurity levels and duration,

(ii) to boost household nutritional status;

(iii) to provide entrepreneurship and technical skills in food processing;

(iv) to build the capacity at national, provincial and community level to recognize HIV/ AIDS as a national and economic threat and to understand the need to integrate gender issues for improving household livelihood. ..

1.The Project seeks to contribute to mitigating food insecurity amongst rural smallholder farmer households by reducing post-harvest losses and empowering them with entrepreneurial skills. The problem of food security is the result of low productivity on smallholder farms due to inadequate inputs as well as increasing burden of HIV/ AIDS. The pandemic has drastically affected labour productivity in rural Mozambique, as well as increased the burden on women and children in such households to care for the sick as well as provide household income. The accumulation of these factors, together with the inaccessibility of rural markets for primary agriculture produce, low prices, and increased waste and spoilage of fruits and vegetables, has affected the overall food security situation of rural household to the extent that they are reported to be under absolute food stress and vulnerable up to about three months per year.

2.The GOM has realized the situation and has emphasised the need to empower such households with skills to reduce the food insecure periods by at least half and enable rural smallholder households to engage in alternative sources of income to depend on during dry spells. Agro-processing has been identified in the National Gender Action Plan as well as the PARPA as being one of the mechanisms by which rural small holder farmers can be empowered to reduce food insecurity risks and vulnerabilities. Notwithstanding, the GOM has not been able to operationalise these activities until now due to its primary focus on increased agriculture production. The benefits of such interventions, while important, are slow to reach the most vulnerable and food-insecure households.

3.The Project will build on the successful experiences of UNIDO, Africare, Care International, and World Vision in intervening to provide capacity building to smallholder farmers, especially women in agro-processing and entrepreneurship development. While these interventions have been successful, they have covered only a small number of the vulnerable and food insecure group in the country. In the meantime, agriculture production and climatic conditions continue to be unpredictable, therebyincreasing the number of smallholder farmer households under food security risk for longer periods.

4.The Project is further built on the increasing demand by European markets on Mozambican agriculture produce and exotic fruits. GPSCA and IPEX are institutions that are promoting the networking of suppliers and buyers of such products. Thus, the project will tap into this growing market and empower some female entrepreneurs to supply quality products to private sector operators for regional marketing and possible exports.

5.In light of this, the components have been chosen to extend the benefits as efficiently as possible with well-targeted interventions to the food insecure and vulnerable households. These components have been selected after intensive consultation with representatives of the beneficiary communities, district and provincial authorities as well as representatives of the private sector. Furthermore, the technical training will be demand driven and beneficiaries will have an opportunity to select activities from a menu of agro-processing skills options. Moreover, in the interest of sustainability the Project will be managed within the existing structure of the MMAS including the district administration. However, the project coordinator (PC) will be recruited fro project resources in order to mitigate the lack of project management capacity at the MMAS. Training activities will be delivered by experienced and specialised local service providers further ensuring sustainability in that future needs (after the project) for training can be accessed by the women's groups themselves. A counter-part staff of the Ministry will be assigned to the PC in order to build the capacity o f MMAS staff in project management and implementation. Furthermore, an experienced technical assistant will be recruited to ensure timely implementation through district and provincial structures, which will further ensure sustainability.

1.The Project will intervene in the Province of Manica: specifically, in the districts of Sussundenga, Guru, Gondola, and Barue; and the Province of Sofala: specifically, in the districts of Dondo, Nhamatando, Caia, and Gorongoza. These Provinces and Districts have been identified by the National and Provincial Government representatives as ones needing priority attention for support to household food-security and increased skills for income generation.

2.The beneficiaries of this project will be mainly women in rural agriculture households whose food-security level is threatened during post-harvest dry periods, drought, and/ or other household crises. Project support will be delivered to existing women's groups as well as to new women's groups. In this regard the project will support approximately 200 existing groups and at least 150 new groups (in total in the two provinces); the support will reach approximately 4,500 women between 10 to 20 in each group).

3.Summary criteria for selection of target beneficiary existing groups will be: (a) the group has been engaged in household poverty reduction activities for at least the past three months; (b) at least two of the group members have some experience in trading and/ or entrepreneurship; (c) the group has the intention to carry out the activities under the project. Summary criteria for selection of new target beneficiary groups should include: (a) potential members should be from the same community and agree to form a group; (b) at least three potential members should have some experience in farming; (c) potential members have some experience in informal/ formal savings and credit management at the individual level. In addition to the criteria, the selection process will be guided by the MMAS Provincial Director as well as the Provincial Gender Focal Person; in collaboration with the District agriculture officer and the MMAS district director. These officers will be responsible for disseminating information on the project activities and sensitising communities and women's groups on joining the project. The sensitisation process will include information on the menu of training offered, specifically on the agro-processing skills development in order for the potential women beneficiaries to decide on the activities they would like to be trained and engaged in.

BARBOSA Yolanda Arcelina de Oliveira - OSHD1

Finance source	Amount
ADF	UAC 2,510,000
Government	UAC 297,300
Delta	UAC 2,700
Total	UAC 2,810,000