Project

Developing a food security strategy to create sustainable livelihoods

The overall goal of the research was to support Village of Peace in evaluating an intervention which they call High Diversity Gardening (HDG). The Village of Peace is a Dutch NGO that wants to break the negative spiral of poverty, violence, and injustice in Afghanistan. To do so, they invest in the Afghan people, helping them in their economic and social recovery focusing on the most vulnerable population groups in Afghan society: widows, orphans, and war victims.

Description

Village of Peace is interested in understanding impact that their High Diversity Gardens project has on participating household’s food security and dietary diversity.

The project was piloted for five years, and Village of Peace had anecdotal evidence of the positive impact of the high diversity gardening. However, Village of Peace wanted a more robust evaluation of the project, which could be used to approach potential funding organisations, improve delivery, or scale up their current intervention.

The key research questions the project addressed included:

  1. What effect has the project had on increasing the dietary diversity of those who participate?
  2. What effect has the project had on increasing the consumption of specific foods, for example vegetables?
  3. What has been the effect of the project on reducing participants engagement in negative coping strategies? (Negative coping strategies include selling of productive assets, with the goal of reducing household needs to engage in such strategies).
  4. Are Village of Peace approaches and materials in-line with the best practices promoted by other organisations in Afghanistan and internationally? How can their activities around home gardening and nutrition be improved?

Results

The first three research questions were addressed by two interns, who designed, managed, and analysed a survey of HDG project participants. They also provided training on how to use the tool and analyse the data, with the aim of enabling Afghan program staff to independently manage this process in the future. The products and tools developed in this project were paired with capacity-building efforts, ensuring their sustainability beyond the end of this Science Shop collaboration. The guides they generated are available for download on this page.

The first round of data collection has been completed as part of the collaboration. They show that most participants (70%) believe the home garden intervention has improved their livelihood, with only 3% feeling their livelihood remained the same, and 1% perceiving no improvement or slight worsening. The greatest perceived impact of home gardening was helping participants find a sense of purpose, followed by improvements in health, support for children's education, healthcare costs, household necessities, and reduced financial stress. A second round of data collection is needed to make comparisons over time and draw firmer conclusions on the HDG project's effects on food security. After this collaboration, Village of Peace possesses the tools and skills to manage this process independently. The evidence that is generated can support Village of Peace in demonstrating their effectiveness, and be used to continue to improve the HDG project in the future.

The fourth research question was addressed by a group of students participating in the Academic Consultancy Training (ACT) course, where they work as consultants to solve real societal issues. Their objective was to align the Village of Peace nutrition training materials with existing (inter)national guidelines and scientific evidence. This collaboration brought added value, as accessing international networks and scientific resources can be challenging for smaller local initiatives. The team of eight students conducted interviews and a literature review. The result is a report with recommendations, available for download on this page, which can be used to improve the Village of Peace training materials.