Self Help Africa Five Year Strategy (abridged) - 2023-2027

SELF HELP AFRICA STRATEGY

2023 – 2027 SYNOPSIS

Sustainability and resilience in a changing climate

Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose in 2021. The strategy is a shared plan for the next five years, as the organisations move to becoming one team with a shared mission and vision. Part of this process will be rebranding to Self Help Africa.

OUR VISION

Sustainable livelihoods and healthy lives for all in a changing climate.

OUR MISSION

We aim to alleviate hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impact of climate change through community-led, market-based and enterprise-focused approaches, so that people have access to nutritious food, clean water, decent employment and incomes, while sustaining natural resources.

OUR VALUES IMPACT

We are accountable, ambitious & committed to systemic change.

INNOVATION

OUR COLOURS

We are agile, creative and enterprising in an ever changing world.

COMMUNITY

We are inclusive, honest and have integrity in our relationships.

Mission:

2023-2027 Strategy:

What we will do

OUR WORK

We alleviate hunger and poverty through economic and social change to create sustainable livelihoods and healthy lives. This is underpinned by a commitment to

localisation, and community-led and market-based approaches. We ensure people have access to safe nutritious food, water, decent employment and incomes, without degrading their natural resources. We do this from fragile

We aim to alleviate hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impact of climate change through community-led, market-based and enterprise-focused approaches, so that people have access to nutritious food, clean water, decent employment and incomes, while sustaining natural resources

1. Agriculture and food systems

We consider agriculture key to reducing hunger poverty in rural areas and to driving growth that prioritises the poorest. It is fundamental to the sustainable food systems we promote, which are required to address chronic undernutrition and deliver healthy, safe and affordable diets in rural and urban areas.

Sustainable landscapes, resilient food systems and healthy communities

contexts through to emerging economies. We also seek to drive social change through policy and advocacy work that engages institutions and the wider public in our countries of operation and globally.

Crisis response and resilience

System strengthening and an enabling policy environment

MARKET SYSTEMS, BUSINESS SUPPORTS AND SERVICES

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SYSTEMS

People, especially women, must also have the resources and agency to make positive decisions about their diet and lives. To ensure food systems are sustainable, those involved in producing and processing food must enjoy decent and safe employment and incomes. Communities must be able to address their own development needs through bottom-up, decentralised community-led planning.

2. Sustainable landscapes

OUR EXPERTISE OUR APPROACH

SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

WASH AND WASTE MANAGEMENT

CORE EXPERTISE

CLIMATE ADAPTATION

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

WIDER EXPERTISE

GREEN ENERGY, CARBON AND CLIMATE FINANCE

3. Climate adaptation

COMMUNITY-LED

Where we work, land is primarily used for agriculture and its success is dependent on a healthy ecosystem.

Economies highly reliant on natural resources, such as many in sub-Saharan Africa, are effectively trapped in a vicious cycle in which increasing demand on natural resources contributes to poor and unsustainable management of the same, leading to their further depletion. We will continue to build resilient ecosystems and landscapes for sustainable livelihoods and job creation.

Financing models and funding

MARKET-BASED AND ENTERPRISE-FOCUSED

GENDER AND SOCIAL INCLUSION, AND COHESION

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

PARTNERSHIP

EVIDENCE AND RESEARCH-BASED OUR

All of our work is designed and implemented through an environmental, sustainability and climate adaptation lens as we believe this is essential to achieving the global UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Climate Smart Agriculture and agro-ecology approaches are central to all our work supporting sustainable agricultural development. Our agriculture interventions are designed to achieve ecological intensification of production systems while increasing the climate resilience of farmers and food systems at large.

This serves to promote the sequestration of carbon in soils and biomass. An increase in climate finance and opportunities for funding and investment from a range of actors will help ensure landscapes remain a public good.

Synergies, organisation development and alignment

Community-led approach

Culture, people and resourcing

We are passionate about supporting communities to determine their own lives, enabled by strong and accountable government services, and effective local markets and value chains. We do this through a community-led systems approach, which is further bolstered by Partner Africa’s work to improve the lives of vulnerable workers and producers engaged in international supply chains.

Demonstrating impact

Transplanting of agroforestry and fruit trees, Hamukaka, Lake Bunyoni, Uganda