holds a tub of shelled maize from his successful harvest. He is one of 7,500 participants in our Empowering Coffee Growing Communities project in Rwanda.
Inside cover: Our work in Wolayita region of Ethiopia was recognised by the Ethiopian government in 2023, with an award for ‘Outstanding Accomplishments’. We have been working there for 12 years and have supported thousands of people like Milkiyas (pictured) to build their own futures from the land.
3 Welcome, from the Chair and CEO
Programmes update 6 It starts on Florence’s farm
Our year in numbers
Climate: Building resilience in Kenya and Burundi
Where we work
Enterprise: young people’s ambitions 15 Farmer focus: Emelyne
16 Africa Forwards: the numbers behind our stories
17 Sustainable agriculture: climate resilience 18 Climate, gender and disability
19 Women in leadership
20 Our partnership with ZRDF 21 Farmer focus: Grace 22 Goals and achievements
Fundraising and influencing 26 Our donors 27 Financial summary 28 A day in the life of Emerance Bakankusi
vision: A confident, thriving and sustainable rural Africa
mission: To inspire and equip African communities to transform lives and protect the planet Our values: Integrity, Compassion, Accountability
Front cover: Alfred (29)
WELCOME FROM THE CHAIR AND CEO
Ripple Effect’s key priority is to build sustainable impact in Africa, so we have an ambitious mission and strategy to help us achieve this.
Over the last year we reached almost half of the five million new people we have pledged to reach by 2030, hitting that milestone one year early. We have started a total of 12 new projects in the six countries where we work and spent £110,000 more on projects this year.
We also stepped up our efforts to raise vital unrestricted income, which grew this year by a remarkable 23% (over £0.5 million) and overall income increased by 9% to £9 million. This flexible funding helps to future-proof the organisation and, in the short term, enables us to adapt our programmes to respond to shocks so that farming families can continue to transform their own lives.
However, delivering our work this year has not been easy. The brutal global cost of living crisis and unpredictable weather patterns continue to be tremendously disruptive for the farming families we work alongside, who rely on rain-fed agriculture to survive. Climate shocks are becoming more frequent and powerful so we are having to adapt our projects continuously to keep up with this changing environment.
In October 2023, Peter and I had the privilege of travelling to East Africa to meet communities taking part in Ripple Effect’s programmes. Among them was Phoebe, a truly inspiring entrepreneur from Uganda. Over several years, Phoebe’s fodder, food production and business skills have helped her to become more climate resilient and achieve food security for her family and the local people she supports. She is also proud to have built a new house which is a testament to her success.
Yet in stark contrast, when we arrived in Mwaro, Burundi, where the Heineken Africa Foundation’s new project had recently launched, we witnessed the desperate need that prevails in the community. The more experiences they shared of economic and climate shocks, the harder they became to hear. One remarkable woman who invited us into her home dreamed of a roof that didn’t leak. She said that she had no food, and even the mice had given up searching her house for crumbs.
So while African farmers can reap enormous benefits from our work, we can’t overlook the huge challenges they face or the external factors that can make their precarious situations even worse.
On p 17 Meshark Sikuku describes how floods and droughts have displaced whole
continued overleaf...
CEO Paul Stuart visits Juliane’s thriving farm with the Rwanda team, October 2023
communities and obliterated crops, and on p 5 Fred Ochieng gives an overview of the innovative solutions we’re using to meet these challenges head on.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to press deeper into our Africa Forward Together strategy. On p 16, Byrone Wayodi shares how we are improving our monitoring and evaluation systems to give greater confidence in our impact numbers.
Behind the numbers are precious, individual lives. Progress means giving everyone the same opportunities to develop social, economic and environmental resilience, and to thrive. Read about how we have worked with marginalised groups this year on p 18.
And behind the impact we create are our generous donors. Ripple Effect is competing for increasingly limited funds with other organisations so in 2023-24, we took the difficult decision to significantly cut our operating costs in the UK. At the same time, we stepped up our efforts to increase vital unrestricted funds (to use for any purpose in line with our objectives).
Royal Patron
His Majesty King Charles
Patrons
Toby Buckland
Baroness Lynda Chalker of Wallasey
Rosemary Conley CBE DL
Jonathan Dimbleby
Nick Park CBE RDI
David Suchet CBE
Guy Singh-Watson
Rt Revd Ruth Worsley
Trustees
Peter Jeffries, Chair
Simon Doherty, Vice-Chair
Andrew Gillam, Treasurer
Sarah Brunwin
Stephanie Dennison
Our work has never been more urgent, and we can’t do it alone. Each contribution, large or small, has played a part in the commendable impact presented in this report and the ripple effect that grows and grows.
Peter Jeffries, Chair of the Ripple Effect Group Board of Trustees
Paul Stuart, CEO of Ripple Effect
Simon Gill
Alison Griffith
Patricia Napier MBE
Shallin Chikoto
Karthik Dasari
Tim Passey
Prina Patel
David Kuwana (to October 2023)
Fiona Crisp - Safeguarding Officer (to December 2023)
Chief Executive Paul Stuart
Ripple Effect (UK)
The Old Estate Yard
Newton St Loe
Bath
BA2 9BR
+44 (0) 1225 874 222 info@rippleeffect.org
Ripple Effect (Africa)
2nd Floor Tulip House
Mombasa Road
Nairobi
Ripple Effect (US) PO Box 40730 Arlington VA 22204
Ripple Effect International is a charity registered in England and Wales (299717) and Scotland (SC049792), and is a company limited by guarantee (02290024). Send a Cow Inc. DBA Ripple Effect is a separate legal entity incorporated as a 501(c)3 and treated as a partner.
Registered office: The Old Estate Yard, Newton St Loe, Bath, BA2 9BR.
PROGRAMMES UPDATE RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
By Dr Fred Ochieng, Africa Director
Climate change has become a full-blown climate crisis for the farmers we work alongside. But together we are making progress.
Across the six countries where we work, heavy rainfall has caused flash floods and landslides, resulting in many deaths, entire farms being swept away, displaced families, loss of livestock and crop diseases due to excess water. This has been particularly severe in Kenya and Burundi this year, but has also affected Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
While most of our countries have experienced heavy rainfall, Ethiopia also faced drought, and in Zambia’s case, the drought lasted for months. Almost half the country’s staple maize crop was lost, and just under 50% of the country’s population was affected. The food shortage was declared a national disaster by President Hakainde Hichilema.
These extreme climate conditions have heavily impacted already vulnerable populations in East
Africa. Many have faced malnutrition and loss of income, putting their livelihoods under threat. It has even affected project delivery in some cases. How we’re adapting our programmes
Our Agroecological Climate Positive Approach (ACPA) drives our training in sustainable farming practises, including methods that build climate resilience.
This year we have pivoted to focus more on training communities to diversify their crops, livestock and enterprises to improve their food supply and generate different streams of income. This is an essential component of climate resilience.
We have also intensified our work on land regeneration to increase soil productivity and harvest yields, through practises like agroforestry, water harvesting and irrigation systems and by selecting indigenous crop varieties.
Our approach has been attracting positive attention. This culminated in an award from the Ethiopian government in the ‘Outstanding Accomplishments’ category for our work in Wolayita zone, an area affected by drought.
Collaborating closely with organisations that offer weather monitoring and prediction services is important for us too. With the right partnerships and investment, we are confident that we can support farming communities affected by the impacts of climate change, enabling them to sustainably achieve food and financial security against the odds.
Learn more about how to support our vital work in rural Africa or donate to us today at rippleeffect.org/about
IT STARTS ON MY AFRICAN FARM
Florence and her husband Samuel have transformed their farm in Migori, Kenya. From growing just two types of crops and eating one meal per day, they now grow nuts, beans, fruit and vegetables; keep goats, cows, chickens and fish; and eat three nutritious meals a day.
Before joining a Ripple Effect project, Florence and her husband Samuel, together with their six children, produced maize and sorghum on their farm. However, they struggled to grow enough food to have three meals a day or to find the money to buy extra food at the market. Her children were often sick due to malnutrition and hunger.
Cash crops
In Migori County, Kenya, most people grow cash crops like maize or tobacco, making them very
vulnerable to climate shocks. If the single crop you’re relying on fails, it can be disastrous. Tobacco also depletes the soil, making it harder to maintain yields year on year.
When Florence moved to the area six years ago, she believed that the land owned by her family was infertile, with low yields of just two sacks of maize per acre. Her children were missing school because the family couldn’t afford the fees.
The difference three years makes
Ripple Effect supported Florence with training in agroecology and provided seeds, seedlings and livestock. In just three years their farm is unrecognisable.
“The Ripple Effect trainings have helped me a lot, and even the entire community in this region.”
Today she is growing an impressive variety of food on her farm, including bananas and passion fruit, beans, amaranth and cassava, plus herbs like lemongrass. She now has goats, cattle, chickens and a fishpond (raised, so it won’t be washed away in floods).
With the income from selling her amaranth, a high-protein cereal alternative, she is secure in the knowledge that she can send her children to school.
Florence has dedicated herself to spreading the knowledge that she has gained so that other families can benefit too.
“Convincing somebody to leave tobacco and grow bananas, kale or amaranth was not easy. Somebody would ask you: This amaranth? Is this food? This is just the weed we’ve been seeing around.”
Ensuring the whole community benefits is essential to achieving lasting change. Florence’s family is happy and secure precisely because everyone in her village is participating and reaping the rewards.
Florence’s son can now go to school because her farm is thriving
“My wish is that in the future, my children won’t have to buy food that can be produced on the land.”
Florence
It’s not all rosy though. Earlier this year a hyena attacked Florence’s goats, killing two of them. Also, the climate has changed significantly. She remembers regular rainfall and predictable seasons as a young girl, contrasting with the reality now that you: “cannot predict whether this season it will rain or not.”
Florence’s family has achieved food security and built the life they want from the land, even under the most difficult circumstances. We know that other farmers can do it too, but we need your help.
Sign up to donate or volunteer at rippleeffect.org/giving
OUR YEAR IN NUMBERS
This year, Ripple Effect supported
846,000 people in rural Africa with life-changing farming skills, tools and support.
Jean D’Amour dries his plentiful maize harvest, Rwanda
46 % 57 % 6 % of the people we worked with this year were young people* were women live with a disability
9,409 donors from 27 countries supported our work
60 % of people achieved food security £7.21
For every £1 spent on fundraising, we raised an additional £7.21
Methodology:
These impact figures are an average of 15 active projects assessed between July 2023 to June 2024. 58% of households surveyed were in year 2 of implementation at the time of assessment, while most of our projects are 3+ years long. These numbers include direct and indirect households.
Farmers who work with Ripple Effect are now eating on average 5.5 diverse and nutritious food types daily
88 % of our staff are local, and based in Africa
2,948 new agri-businesses have been set up by young people in Uganda, earning £442,000 collectively (YIDAMS project)
68 % of project participants report high confidence and self-esteem after working with us
*We use the same metric as the African Union: between 18 - 35 years old.
BUILDING RESILIENCE IN
An interview with Beatrice Were, Project Manager (Kenya), and
Beatrice: I run the Enterprising Migori Project in Western Kenya which finished this year, and I’m proud to say that there is no ‘one’ thing that stands out as being successful.
Resilience to me means a holistic approach to development. In a Ripple Effect project, each of our three areas of expertise (sustainable farming, gender and social inclusion, and enterprise development) supports the others. For example, if we do not work on gender, farm yields will suffer.
Why? The women we work with are strong and resilient, but they are not superhuman. Unpaid care work can prevent women from focusing on productive work that earns the family income. When women’s unpaid work in the home and on the farm is shared amongst the family, everyone benefits.
I am proud of what we have achieved in the project: after 3 years, 86% of farmers are ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ that their farm can meet all their food and income needs, up from 46%. 87% of households are now eating 6 or more food types per day.
Gloria: I’m the Country Director for Burundi, and we recently completed a two-year project called ‘Food and Income Security’ in Mwaro province, Burundi.
Farmers in Mwaro were suffering from severe soil erosion and flooding as a result of the climate crisis. In many households the men are absent, meaning the burden of gathering the resources needed to protect their families falls solely to the mothers. 88% of people were food insecure, and only 4% were earning over $1.90 per day.
On a recent visit there I heard a harrowing story from a woman whose roof collapsed during a flood, and a rock landed on her baby’s head. Mercifully the child survived, but she was heartbroken by the close call. To support this community, we needed to implement an infrastructure project alongside our usual interventions to deal with this flood risk.
The local government identified an opportunity to install terracing on the hilly farmland, to reduce soil erosion and slow flood waters. We employed the community to do the work, contributing to short-term local employment, before providing our usual farm training that helps people to secure their own long-term income from the land.
KENYA AND BURUNDI
Gloria Nimpundu, Country Director (Burundi)
The mother whose roof collapsed used the money she earned from building terracing to buy a strong, timber roof, to protect her family. So to me, resilience looks like designing solutions that are locally appropriate and listening to the community’s needs.
87 % of people are now food secure or only mildly food insecure.
61 % of farmers are now practising at least four natural resource management techniques, contributing to their climate resilience. This is an increase of 53% after just two years.
Looking in more detail,
96 % of people are practising soil erosion control, 72% are practicing composting, two of the most impactful climate-positive farming interventions we teach.
63 % of project participants are saving more than $3 per month
LEAVING BEHIND RESILIENCE
Beatrice: Our work in Enterprising Migori (Kenya) achieved all of its milestones but after we had finished our evaluation, the community was hit by catastrophic flooding.
Thankfully, none of our participants died, but some farmers were badly affected. As the crisis progressed and flood waters receded, Ripple Effect families began to replant as soon as the soil would allow it. Although they had lost everything, there was a sense of purpose because they had a plan. Other households in the community who were not enrolled in the project were still in shock and waiting for someone to help them. This shows that the most important thing we leave behind is a resilient mindset: it is what ensures the project impact continues to ripple out long into the future
Leah (right) was part of the successful Enterprising Migori project, Kenya
Where we work
1. Climate Resilient and Thriving Smallholder Farmers (2023-2026) Bururi
2. Food & Income Security (2021-2023) Mwaro
3. Gender and Nutrition Centred Agriculture Phase II (2021-2024) Mwaro, Bujumbura
4. No Time to Waste (2023-2024) Mwaro, Muramvya
Ethiopia
5. Dairy for Nutrition & Income Phase II (2023-2027) Wolayita
6. Empowering Women in Coffee Communities (2021-2024) Bensa
7. Equine Welfare & Management Phase V and IV (2023-2025) Dawuro
32. Gender and Social Inclusion (2023-2025) Shaibila, Chikupili, Kaundula & Mulungwe
Learn more about our projects at rippleeffect.org/where-we-work
VALUE CHAINS ARE SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE’S AMBITIONS
By Deogratius Egeru, Enterprise Development Coordinator
Value chains might sound like a buzzword, but they’re the golden threads linking rural communities to better lives and greater resilience.
Through our enterprise development work, we aim to create sustainable and inclusive local food systems that empower people facing poverty in rural Africa, especially young people, women, refugees, and people with disabilities.
A value chain is simply the steps taken to get food from harvest to the dinner plate. By involving disadvantaged people in various stages of the value chain, we ensure that they benefit directly from economic activities outside of farming. This not only improves their livelihoods but also strengthens the resilience of the overall food system.
Youth empowerment for decent employment
Our Youth Inclusive Dairy Market Systems YIDAMS project in Uganda and our Low Hanging Fruit project in Kenya are specifically designed to create fair, full-time jobs for young people. They are equipped with the necessary skills to thrive in their respective value chains.
50,000 decent jobs for young people will be created in the YIDAMS project in the dairy value chain (Uganda)
1,000 youth jobs will be added through the Low Hanging Fruit project (Kenya)
Project focus : YIDAMS
609
saving groups have been set up with over 11,000 participants
£100,000 has been saved so far by these groups (UGX 500 million)
15
new milk collection centres have been set up, selling 150,000 litres of milk so far.
Our goal with enterprise is to touch more lives and empower communities. We often say that our work starts on an African farm, but it certainly does not end there. By working with farmers, artisans, businesses and sellers, we can build a confident, thriving and sustainable rural Africa.
Find out how your business could support young people in rural Africa to recognise their potential at rippleeffect.org/partner
“I have decided to make doughnuts and chapatis every day now to meet the high demand. My income [from selling] has significantly increased to 175,000 BIF (£42.25) per week.”
Emelyne
FARMER FOCUS: EMELYNE
Emelyne is taking part in our ‘Climate Resilient and Thriving Farmers’ project in Burundi. She is part of an all-female self-help group who were trained by Ripple Effect to grow sweet potatoes and substitute them into recipes traditionally requiring wheat.
Why sweet potatoes?
In Burundi these vegetables are now unpopular compared to cereals like wheat and maize. But with their plentiful harvests and resilience to very dry and very wet weather, they offer a reliable source of carbohydrates, plus high levels of B-Carotene and vitamins A and C. In Burundi 56% of children under five are malnourished, so the nutritious and productive sweet potato really is an effective crop to improve their health.
Sweet potatoes are also, crucially, easy to grow in a kitchen garden, which works well for women who need to stay close to home to look after children. Emelyne is a mother of four.
To increase demand for this easy-growing and productive potato crop, Ripple Effect ran training sessions in how to substitute them for wheat and maize in a range of traditional recipes.
Since the training, Emelyne has been making and selling sweet potato chapatis and doughnuts, and is now earning four times what she used to from selling wheat versions of the products.
For Emelyne, this new venture has quadrupled her income, contributed to her financial independence, and built her confidence. She’s got big plans to expand her business to sell at large market centres where she can earn a higher price.
AFRICA FORWARDS
THE NUMBERS BEHIND OUR STORIES
By Byrone Wayodi, Head of Monitoring and Evaluation
If we show our impact well, it means that our donors have confidence in where their money is being spent. Our project participants also get the best possible value projects, that are responsive to their needs in changing contexts such as conflict or the climate crisis. This year, we have made good progress towards improving the reliability and validity of our data reporting in our country programmes. Strengthening these processes has created a lag in reporting on some projects, as local teams get used to the new requirements. So this year we are reporting that we reached 846,000 people, which is only 58% of the 1.5 million people we had planned to support. However, we expect to see our reach reporting bounce back again next year as these new systems are embedded.
Our next step is digitisation of monitoring processes which will provide better access to historic data that can help with current project design and learning. It also enables faster responses to crises, such as the catastrophic flooding in Kenya in 2024, or persistent drought in Zambia.
Digitisation saves time, freeing up project staff to do what they do best – working directly with communities to help them transform their own lives and build resilience. We have identified a supplier and will be implementing a new system next year.
We can achieve so much together once we strengthen these systems. Over the next three years we have a firm plan to improve every aspect of our monitoring and evaluation (M&E).
Ultimately, good quality numbers will credibly demonstrate our strategic impact. This Africanled initiative will ensure we can tell persuasive stories that demonstrate who we are with confidence and heart.
Here’s how we’ll get there
1. Embedding M&E deeper into our project design
2. Ensuring our six country offices have enough M&E human resources, are innovating and advocating for M&E independently, and are sharing those innovations with other country programmes
3. Completely digitising our M&E so that it is more accessible and accurate
4. Using this knowledge to make the best possible decisions as we push towards our strategy to reach 5 million more people by 2030.
Tree planting in Rwanda
SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
JOIN THE MOVEMENT FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE
By Meshark Sikuku, Farm Systems Coordinator
Every ecosystem has a threshold to withstand disaster. In our work, we build climate resilience through sustainable farming methods that strengthen and regenerate these ecosystems. We support farmers to increase water availability through water harvesting, to use appropriate planting materials such as drought resistant crops, and to use soil health building techniques that enhance livelihoods and strengthen resilience.
But what happens when the ecosystem gets overwhelmed by a climate shock?
From 2023 and into 2024, we have seen climate disasters in two of the countries where we work. In Kenya, flooding washed away more than 63,000 houses, whilst in Zambia, farmers have lost 982,765 hectares of maize to drought: the worst in 20 years. Stronger disasters than we’ve ever seen before are overwhelming the resilience of the ecosystems that support food production with unprecedented intensity. This calls for exceptional and collective actions to strengthen adaptation on a much larger scale.
A key solution is bringing down greenhouse gas emissions. It is time for the emitters to listen to the global majority who are crying out loud and clear the climate: emissions need to be drastically reduced to keep our global temperature increase below two degrees Celsius by 2030, as per the Paris agreement. We have stepped up our advocacy this year to help realise this goal (more on p 24).
And in the meantime, farmers need to be supported to continue producing food at a time of unprecedented chaos. Our work supports the most vulnerable of those farmers: those with small plots of land less than 1.5 hectares in size, who live in relative rural isolation. These families don’t have access to global food supply chains, solely relying on what they grow to eat or sell in local markets.
Our work supports farmers not only to learn more, grow more and sell more, but it also strengthens positive mindsets and skill sets that create community resilience. The key thing is to make sure each disaster doesn’t erase progress for good, and that farmers can build back again, and better.
Read more about our approach to regenerative agriculture at rippleeffect.org/regen-agri
OUR WORK SUPPORTED CLIMATE
THIS YEAR 1 , 206 60 %
of project participants across the six countries where we work are now food secure hectares land reforested in Burundi to reduce soil erosion and improve livelihoods. (FISM project)
CLIMATE, GENDER AND DISABILITY
By Sofanit Mesfin, Gender and Social Inclusion Coordinator
Whilst speaking at the third international conference on environmental peacebuilding at the Hague, I was surprised to discover that not all organisations take gender & social inclusion as seriously as we do.
We can look at our gender work as empowering families through women. Every member of the household is involved in our training, and benefits from increased equality. By empowering women, we create empowered families and societies.
OUR IMPACT THIS YEAR
We do this through very good participatory tools such as THM (Transformative Household Methodology), EASE (Economic and Social Empowerment) and ACAP (Attitude, Communication, Participation and Access) that are simple to understand, improve women’s decision-making within their own households and community, and increase their access to and control over resources.
This multiplies the impact of our food security, farming and income interventions, meaning that the change we create lasts longer and is more robust in the face of crises, for everyone.
Through working with partners such as Light for the World, we are also mainstreaming our disability work so that we ensure nobody is left behind. In our projects we work with refugees, widows, young people and people with disabilities, specifically seeking out these marginalised groups to encourage opportunities and growth.
Inspired? Donate or volunteer at rippleeffect.org/giving
57 % 68 % 22 ,601 people with disabilities were directly supported by our work this year
of participants now report high levels of confidence and self-esteem of our project participants this year were women
“Since Ripple Effect’s training, my husband is helping me with household activities including fetching water and even washing clothes!
“We discuss everything now, and my husband no longer takes decisions alone.”
Ildegonde, Burundi
WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
By Pamela Ebanyat and Gloria Nimpundu, Country Directors for Uganda and Burundi
If “you have to see it to be it” there is nowhere that visible women’s leadership is more important than at Ripple Effect, where we aim to empower the 57% of our project participants who are women. McKinsey research projects a 27% increase in GDP in Sub Saharan Africa when the gender gap in employment is closed.
Across the INGO sector,
67 % of staff are women, but monitoring by Fair Share shows men are still twice as likely to reach the top of their organisation. Within Ripple Effect, two of the six country directors leading our work are women. Uganda director Pamela Ebanyat and Burundi’s Gloria Nimpundu highlight what more needs to be done.
PAMELA: “In Ugandan tradition women don’t appear in public: their place is in the kitchen, at the back of the house.”
GLORIA: “In Burundi girls are told to lower their voices – don’t speak up. A professional woman might make her point in a workplace discussion, but she’s unlikely to continue to argue her case.”
PAMELA: “If we sit back on this, women lose out. We must support women in coming to the front.”
GLORIA: “We are talking about gender equity rather than gender equality. Equality is treating us as though we are all the same, with the same advantages. Equity is doing what we can to ensure that women have the same chances as men.”
OVERCOMING
THE BARRIERS TO WOMEN
PAMELA: “A young female national director at World Vision Uganda first inspired me: she managed much older senior leaders in her team so admirably. She said she saw potential in me, and that encouraged me to dream bigger.”
GLORIA: “We need more female project staff. Many women in communities might be more comfortable working with them and encouraged to become leaders themselves if they saw women in such roles. We have broadened our recruitment criteria and look for social science as well as agronomist qualifications.”
PAMELA: “Age can also count against young women going for promotion if managers fear they will be taking maternity leave. I say: ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Women learn to mentor a deputy to stand in for them when they are on leave, which creates valuable succession plans. None of us are irreplaceable.”
GLORIA: “For myself, three months after I returned from maternity leave, there was a conference for all Ripple Effect’s country directors. Our CEO and Africa Director encouraged me to attend and gave me the practical support I needed to make it possible. That commitment to support me was so powerful.”
OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH ZAMBIA RAINBOW
DEVELOPMENT
Our partnership with ZRDF is two years old. What have we learned?
Delivering projects through local development organisations is a tried and tested model that we are using to scale our work in locally appropriate ways. We will be embracing more partnerships to help us achieve our 2030 strategy, to strengthen our programmes and share learnings across organisations.
Our shared vision
ZRDF has brought a deep understanding of the role of schools and education in building hope and purpose in farming communities in rural Zambia, plus a fast-developing understanding of the social enterprise model for generating regular charity income.
At the same time, for over 30 years Ripple Effect has been developing climate-resilient sustainable agriculture techniques which can be applied to the farms that are established alongside each
FOUNDATION
Ripple Effect’s commitment to gender and social inclusion, the practical tools we use to support it, and initiatives such as agri-businesses have also inspired our partners. ZRDF have now taken on Ripple Effect’s Transformative Household Methodology training and this is shaping their approach to gender equality.
Worked with 1,823 families in rural Zambia this year
Including
22 schools
446 girls have received menstrual hygiene training, helping to keep them in school
47 % of farmers have adopted sustainable farming practises
FARMER FOCUS: GRACE
Beekeeping in Zambia helped to bridge the gap when drought struck.
Grace lives in Kalubula community, Zambia. She is a mother of five children and heard about the beekeeping initiative from our delivery partner, Zambian Rainbow Development Foundation (ZRDF), through her friends. She has a farm but has struggled to earn enough from it to keep her children healthy, clothed and in school. With an increasingly unpredictable climate, she was in desperate need of some new income streams to keep her family afloat.
ZRDF introduced beekeeping to a handful of women in five communities in the area, and Grace took part in the training. She was given four beehives, and now harvests an average of 21kg of desirable, sweet honey from each hive every six months, which adds up to 160kg per year. This gives her an additional income of K4,000 (£118.63) per year which allows her to
buy essentials like clothes and medicines when needed.
The recent devastating drought, which was declared a national disaster by the Zambian government, was incredibly tough for her family. Half of the country’s maize crop decimated, including her own.
Beekeeping is a relatively low cost initiative to maintain, as well as being environmentally sustainable. Despite the drought, through beekeeping Grace was able to secure seeds for the next farming season, keeping her family going.
Through diversifying her income streams, Grace has built her resilience and is hopeful for the future. Support more mothers like Grace by buying a ‘brilliant beehive’ gift at rippleeffect.org/gifts
“I was inspired by my friends to start the beekeeping business, and I’m really grateful I did. Hopefully, going forward, they can help with more skills and empowerment.” Grace
1
GROWTH
Objectives
· Reach 1.5 million people with our work.
· Start at least one new project in each of the (six) countries where we work.
· Increase our spend in Africa by 8% to £6.4 million.
· Build our unrestricted income.
2
FOCUS
Objectives
· Design and resource at least two multicountry projects, to embed learning across geographies.
· Develop one pilot project exploring alternative financing models.
· Host a stakeholder forum to influence sector specific areas that promote our work.
· Create a net zero plan for 2040.
GOALS and ACHIEVEMENTS
Sustainably build our impact to reach 5 million more people by 2030.
Key results
Last year, our income grew to £9m and our unrestricted funds saw an impressive 23% increase. We also increased our spend on charitable activities to £7.2m. We exceeded our target by starting 12 new projects in five countries and in Zambia, where our partner ZRDF delivers longer-term projects, we aligned our programme more closely to our strategy.
In terms of recording the number of people we reached, we introduced a more detailed and robust system in 2023-24. The 846,000 people we recorded with this new system fell short of our forecast (1.5m) but we expect this number to increase over the next three years. We are pleased to report that we are still on track to reach 5 million more people by 2030.
Goals for 2024-25 : Reach 1.4 million people with our work, ensuring our sustainable growth by increasing our high-value income pipeline by 20%; and achieving full-cost recovery for 90% of restricted funding opportunities.
Develop our areas of expertise in sustainable agriculture, gender & social inclusion, and enterprise.
Key results
We started one multi-country project in Kenya and Ethiopia, designed another for Rwanda and Burundi, and are seeking lead funding for a social enterprise pilot project in Kenya.
The Africa Climate Summit, which was attended by approximately 30,000 government officials, business leaders, climate experts, and professionals in September 2023, was a great forum for us to host our agroecology event, which raised the visibility of Ripple Effect and our sustainable approach to farming and food security. And as part of our net zero plans, we have now trained environmental champions in each country and are evaluating our operations annually to make significant improvements year on year.
Goals for 2024-25 : Innovate by starting one more multi-country project and one social enterprise project. We will also continue working towards net zero carbon emissions by 2040, using recommendations from our Organisational Environmental Impact Assessment for 2023 to guide our approach.
3 Objectives
PARTNERING
· Accelerate progress on 50% partnership target by engaging with more implementing partners.
· Actively seek the right partner to take the Responsible Carbon Project forwards in new country programmes.
4 Objectives
Increase our work with partners to 50% by 2030, to maximise impact, influence and income.
Key results
Our consortium partners are involved in just over 20% of our current projects. One of those partners is Riverford, whose involvement with our innovative carbon offsetting pilot in Ethiopia continues to elevate our impact.
The regulatory landscape for community development partnerships in Africa is continually evolving. Governments are introducing frameworks to make sure that there is ethical conduct, transparency, local ownership, and long-term benefits for local communities. Given these changes, we are reviewing requirements in each country before forming new carbon offsetting partnerships.
Goals for 2024-25 : Support 30% of our project participants through collaborative partnerships; and work with partners to maintain and deliver high standards.
AFRICA FORWARD
Key results
· Build global governance and fundraising structures focusing on leadership.
· Develop more mandatory courses including leadership in country programmes.
· Digitise our Monitoring & Evaluation processes.
5 Objectives
Programme strategy, delivery, cross-team learning, and effectiveness will be driven by our Africa team.
We are delighted to have strengthened our Boards by recruiting new trustees with diverse skills and experience; arranging for some trustees to have first-hand experience of our work in Uganda and Burundi; and setting up our Ethiopian Advisory Committee.
In terms of developing of our people and processes, we have run in-country training courses on topics ranging from our three areas of expertise to leadership; and we are moving towards a user-friendly digital information system to streamline our monitoring and evaluation.
Goals for 2024-25 : Build a digital monitoring and evaluation system and pilot this with one project; recruit a Head of Africa Fundraising, to lead and innovate this area of growth.
INFLUENCE
· Train our project staff in ethical storytelling.
· Present our expertise at international forums and produce papers demonstrating our research and impact.
· Build our profile in Africa to invite new opportunities, and focus our communications to highlight our expertise.
We will position ourselves as an authoritative voice on effecting change in African rural development.
Key results
We continued to build on our work to increase Ripple Effect’s influence by enhancing our ethical storytelling, so that all project participants give their full consent when we gather their stories, and know that they can withdraw their consent at any time. As well as hosting an event at the Africa Climate Summit 2023, we attended and spoke at several other conferences during the year; produced and promoted two new position papers; hosted a media breakfast in Kenya; and ran COP28 campaigns in five of our country programmes.
Goals for 2024-25 : Develop a strategic plan to increase our global influence and host focused events and campaigns.
FLEXIBLE AND RESILIENT FUNDING
By Emma Watson, Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships
9 ,409 Ripple Effect supporters came together to go above and beyond for farming families in rural Africa, despite the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
We are enormously grateful to the fantastic network of supporters from 27 countries who have made this possible, whether they have been with us since the beginning or have recently made their first gift.
Building resilience
This year, we’ve worked alongside our supporters to increase our organisational resilience by growing our vital unrestricted funding. This money, which is not allocated to a specific project or country, allows us to invest where the need is greatest.
Unrestricted funding gives us the flexibility to adapt our projects when the unexpected happens, meaning we can continue to deliver on our promises to farming families. It is particularly crucial right now because climate change is causing increasingly unpredictable farming conditions, which present huge challenges for farmers, and require constant innovation to mitigate the effects.
Together, we have achieved an increase in unrestricted funding of 23%. This has allowed us to adjust our projects when needed, and to fund essential roles such as finance staff, fundraisers and thematic co-ordinators for our gender & social inclusion, sustainable agriculture and enterprise work, without whom the charity simply wouldn’t exist.
Our invaluable supporters
We would like to express our huge thanks to all of our donors for their generous support over the last year. And we’d particularly like to recognise the trust placed in us by members of our ‘Kebele’ giving circle, who allow us to plan for the future with an annual gift of £5,000 or above.
Interested in joining our Kebele giving circle or partnering with us?
Visit rippleeffect.org/partner
Jane and her grandson Louis, sitting in their pawpaw garden, Uganda
HIGHLIGHTS
855 people twinned their gardens last year and 10,247 life-changing virtual gifts were bought for loved ones.
Phoebe featured in a pro bono advert in the UK Financial Times this year under the heading “I am an investor”.
Our Radio 4 Charity Appeal with Toby Buckland raised almost £50,000 in donations and reached thousands of listeners.
We spoke at the third International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding at The Hague on the link between gender and climate.
Ripple Effect hosted an agroecology event at the Africa Climate Summit in September 2023.
We mobilised communities in rural Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Ethiopia around COP28.
27 Ambassadors delivered 54 talks this year to local communities, plus 322 places of worship, schools and Rotary clubs supported our work.
Thank you
On behalf of all of the project communities and staff at Ripple Effect, thank you to our brilliant donors including :
Beatrice Laing Trust
Bread for the World
Eddie Dinshaw Foundation
Guernsey Overseas Aid & Development Commission
The Haramead Trust
HEINEKEN Africa Foundation
iKhofi
International Center for Tropical Agriculture
International Development Research Council
International Labour Organization
Jamma International
Jersey Overseas Aid
Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization
Mastercard Foundation
Medicor Foundation
Natracare
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Royal Jersey Agricultural & Horticultural Society
Riverford Organic Farmers
Standard Bank
The Brooke
The Coles-Medlock Foundation
The Donkey Sanctuary
The Samworth Foundation
The Souter Charitable Trust
The Starbucks Foundation
UK Aid from the British People
UNICEF
World Food Programme
Zoetis
Financial Summary
£9m income
Income increased by 9% in 2023-24
£5.74m Grants (2022-23 £5.06m: restated). Grants from public and private institutions, corporate donors, trusts and foundations rose by 13% and accounted for 64% of total income. This is largely due to the significant grant from Mastercard Foundation for the second year funding for a project supporting youth employment and engagement in the dairy industry, received in Uganda.
£2.55m Donations (2022-23 £2.83m). Despite the continued fundraising challenges as experienced in the previous year, gifts from individual supporters were little changed and made up 28.3% of total income.
£0.6m Legacies (2022-23 £0.32m). Supporters' legacies provide very valuable unrestricted funds. We are grateful for all our supporters that remember us in their will.
£0.11m Other income (2022-23 £0.05m). Little change on previous years.
£8.6m expenditure
£6.99m Africa programmes (2022-23 £6.87m).
We completed 9 projects and started 12 new ones working with 625,512 new people.
£1.21m Raising funds (2022-23 £1.44m).
Fundraising costs reduced following a restructure during the year.
£0.27m Governance (2022-23 £0.29m). Governance costs relate to the overall management and control of the charity by its trustees (who are not paid) and senior management.
£0.16m Education and advocacy (2022-23 £0.20m).
Our advocacy work this year focused on raising awareness of the climate crisis affecting our farmers.
Surplus and reserves
We recognised an unrestricted deficit of £0.08m.
£0.37m surplus (2022-23 £0.53m deficit)
I get up at 5am to do chores and prepare breakfast: tea and fruits, maybe bananas, papaya and passion fruit. I wake the family at 7am. My husband Emmanuel is a vet, and our sons Delphin and Gianni are three and four. Our nanny looks after the boys during the day and I leave for work between 7am and 8.30am, depending on if I am working at our project office, or in the communities.
I studied rural development as an undergraduate and first joined Ripple Effect as an unpaid intern eight years ago.
The project communities are about 30km away up in the hills region. The journey is good by motorbike, about 45 minutes, but in the rainy season it is quite difficult.
When I first started arriving by motorbike people thought it was terrible! “You are just a small woman! Do you have tattoos? Do you have a husband?” Some of them came to meetings only to see me. Now it’s normal, and women are appreciating me. When I pass their way people say “Oh, it is Emerance on her motorbike: she works for Ripple Effect.”
I am responsible for training 923 project participants, working with 25 self-help groups as
A day in the LIFE Emerance Bakankusi
Emerance, 40, is a Project Facilitator for our Empowering Coffee Communities project in the Nyaruguru district of southern Rwanda. She is one of the few female project workers in Ripple Effect qualified to ride a motorbike.
well as local leaders, peer farmers and community animal health workers to deliver our training.
People are eager to come to training sessions because it is about their seasonal work. This week’s training at the coffee nursery beds will help the families to grow and earn more in a few years’ time.
I buy my lunch at a local shop, and if I am visiting families they will offer me tea.
The progress of families inspires me. When I first met Emeriana’s household they were very poor. I visited them maybe three times a week to encourage them to work hard together. Now when we come they show us the plans they have written in a book for what they will do in the next three and six months – they are thinking about the future.
I get home in the late afternoon and prepare our dinner for 7pm. When the children are in bed we might watch TV: I like the news but I also watch football with my husband. I may do some organising for work the next day, and then we go to bed about 8 or 9pm.
Find out more about our work in Rwanda: scan the QR code or visit rippleeffect.org/rwanda
