Our programmes

Our Participatory Forest Management project (PFM) aimed to improve forest conservation in two communities, Harena Buluk and Dello Mena woredas, in Ethiopia that have experienced high population growth.

We supported forest community-based organisations (CBOs) to produce and sell more high-quality coffee, improve livestock productivity in a sustainable way and generate knowledge that could guide further livelihood and conservation activity.

Building on past interventions in Ethiopia, the project provided training in forest-friendly farming techniques, fodder production, business skills, biodiversity monitoring and biogas technology to over 1,900 people, who went on to train and assist at least 5,300 more people.

Farm Africa, along with nine partners, is implementing the four-year Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable and Inclusive Development (NSSID) programme in Ethiopia to reduce poverty, build communities’ resilience to climate change and protect the environment.

Rural women often have a deep understanding of local resource challenges, so there’s a lot to be gained from involving them more fully in natural resource decision-making. The Climate Resilience through Gender Equality project aims to help rural communities in the Afar and Oromia Regional States of Ethiopia adapt to climate change by strengthening the role women can play in the management of natural resources for their communities.

The project aims to unlock that leadership potential by reshaping gender-biased social norms. On the ground, that means championing the inclusion of women within predominantly male organisations, such as farming or forest cooperatives, involving women in promoting climate-smart agriculture and sustainable enterprises, and creating opportunities for women and men to work side-by-side in addressing the development needs of their communities.

This work is being undertaken in partnership with the Union of Ethiopia Women and Children Association (UEWCA) and Population Health and the Environment Ethiopia Consortium (PHE-EC).

This programme aims to help 130,450 smallholder wheat farmers in Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia, overcome challenges that are undermining their livelihoods. We’re working together to improve access to advisory services and supplies, improve crop productivity and grain storage methods and increase opportunities to share knowledge. Along the way, we’re aiming to improve opportunities for women and young people, from providing technical training to improving access to finance to creating job and entrepreneurial business opportunities.

Key activities include rolling out training on climate-smart methods for wheat production, modernising post-harvest and storage technologies, supporting local women to start their own agricultural supply and advisory businesses, and supporting women to establish and effectively run their own village savings and loan associations.

The 20-month programme, which launched in October 2024, is funded by AGRA. It draws experience from Farm Africa’s successful regenerative agriculture work in Embu, Kenya, also funded by AGRA.

Farm Africa is implementing Forests for Sustainable Development, a four-year programme in the Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia to build on the success of previous programmes in reducing deforestation, cutting carbon emissions, increasing the incomes of forest-dependent communities and addressing sustainability limitations.

The project will work to benefit both people and planet by developing sustainable livelihoods, reducing biodiversity loss, while also improving the resilience of the local community, and improving governance for integrated landscape management.

Despite being seen as the preserve of the poor, forest products, such as honey, gum and incense, are a potentially profitable source of income for farmers. Women, young people, refugees and displaced people are the main groups that harvest wild forest products.

Along with the Assosa Environmental Protection Association, Farm Africa worked with forest management committees, which empower farmers to set up sustainable enterprises producing and selling products like honey and incense.

The committees helped farmers build better markets, access finance for their businesses and incentivise them to conserve forests. This project helped broker agreements between forest users and the government on using the area’s natural resources sustainably.

The project aimed to contribute to sustainable food security and livelihood improvement for rural families by making sure smallholder farmers had access to the buyers and suppliers they needed to build thriving farming businesses.

Access to agricultural supplies was improved by facilitating the start-up of independent agro-dealer businesses, with these new local suppliers reporting a total of 70,000 customers by the end of the project. Crop productivity and profit was improved through improvements in post harvest technology, the introduction of cluster farming systems, and the creation of a digital market prices App, which enabled 1,300 farmers to track local market prices digitally. Access to finance was improved through the development of inclusive, low-capital intensive financing solutions which enabled 7,943 smallholder farmers to access finance for the first time.

Farm Africa worked with pastoralist women living in South Omo and Karamoja in Ethiopia and Uganda, supporting them to set up sustainable, small-scale goat-rearing enterprises to help them generate an income and provide their families with a more nutritious diet.

We established Women’s Livestock Groups, through which we provided training in goat rearing and fodder and rangeland management.

We improved women’s access to livestock by setting up a revolving goat scheme, which required each woman who received two goats from Farm Africa to give two does (female goats) to another vulnerable woman once her herd had grown, creating a cycle of improved prosperity.

Farm Africa worked with a consortium of NGO partners, authorities and communities in Ethiopia to sustainably manage the Bale Eco-Region, a biodiversity hotspot, and enhance the livelihoods of local people, helping to reduce poverty and the current reliance on unsustainable practices.

The programme involved supporting communities to increase forest-friendly businesses and sustainably manage livestock and rangelands. The consortium partners helped promote sustainable timber harvesting and strengthened forest coffee, honey, gum and resin value chains.

We supported women and young people to increase their incomes by developing businesses in rearing goats and producing milk, energy-efficient cook stoves and eco-charcoal.

Since 2006, Farm Africa and a consortium of partners have been working in Ethiopia’s Bale Eco-region on a participatory forest management scheme. This scheme supports local forests users and the government to manage the responsibilities and benefits of the region’s forests together.

During this project, we increased local communities’ ability to earn money from the forests while protecting its resources by piloting sustainable timber production and marketing and improving the inclusivity of forest management organisations. We engaged women and underrepresented groups to participate in project activities and helped communities reinvest their capital from the sale of carbon credits in local eco-friendly businesses.

Farm Africa partnered with Mercy Corps to equip groups dependent on aid with the knowledge, resources and access to markets they needed to become self-sufficient.

Part of the UK Government funded BRACED (Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters) programme, Market Approaches to Resilience (MAR) was an innovative three-year programme that tested market-based approaches to improve the resilience of vulnerable pastoralist and agro-pastoralist households to climate change in the Afar, SNNP and Somali regions. It was implemented by a consortium led by Farm Africa, with Mercy Corps, Lion’s Head Global Partners and LTS International Limited as partners.

A particular focus of the programme was to improve the economic participation and independence of women, who are particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate shocks and trends. The MAR programme supported households, businesses and communities in better managing their resources and everyday risks. It worked with private investors to address climate risks by promoting appropriate economic opportunities, and designing financial models that help smooth risk.

Other approaches included strengthening climate information by funding weather station infrastructure and supporting participatory rangeland and natural resource management. It also supported microfinance institutions to incorporate climate risk into their risk management portfolios and help them develop innovative credit products. MAR supported financial institutions to expand mobile banking to remote areas. Overall, the MAR project directly benefited an estimated 178,620 people in Ethiopia.

Between 2012 and 2017, Farm Africa ran a project based in the central zone of the Tigray region where 80% of the population live in rural areas and levels of poverty and malnutrition are very high. This project worked directly with nearly 6,400 women and landless young people, providing them with crops, livestock and training.

With financial support from the Vitol Foundation, Cultivate provided businesses in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia with tailored business development support and training using scalable online delivery mechanisms. Drawing on Farm Africa’s experience of analysing value chains and supporting first-mile agribusinesses, Cultivate worked with start-up and early-stage businesses with a $20,000 – $1million turnover.

Based in Kenya, Cultivate aimed to increase demand and facilitate the supply of business development services to rural small and growing agribusinesses (SGBs) across eastern Africa. We helped businesses develop and implement effective business strategies, boost their productivity and production, meet commodity standards and improve marketing operations and market access.

Through Cultivate’s online business skills training sessions and technical advisory support, SGBs identified risks and opportunities, conducted market and opportunities analysis, fostered business resilience and improved their pricing, costing and profitability for sustainable growth.

In many regions in Ethiopia, soil degradation and damage to natural resources caused by climate change is threatening farmers’ livelihoods and affecting long-term food security.