Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa
Mali
Overview
The five-year Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa activity (2021-2026) aims to strengthen market systems, sustainably improve household incomes, and improve the nutritional status of women and children in Mali. Sugu Yiriwa, prosperous markets in Bambara, empowers actors across the market system to affect sustainable, systemic change, with a strategic focus on vulnerable and gender- and nutrition-sensitive value chains in 46 communes in the Sikasso sub-zone.
Expected Impact
- 13,104 individuals applying improved agricultural management practices or technologies with U.S. assistance
- 20,368 individuals directly participating in Sugu Yiriwa activities
- 152 marketplaces with increased sales of nutritious, safe foods
Approach
Sugu Yiriwa engages and strengthens market actors to achieve results across three mutually reinforcing objectives:
- Enhanced Market Access and Business Linkages: Sugu Yiriwa multiplies business linkages to facilitate the development of more inclusive, dynamic, and functional markets. Building the capacity of market actors will increase market preparedness and ensure producer organizations can meet quality and quantity buyer requirements.
- Improved Access to and Use of Quality and Affordable Inputs and Services: Sugu Yiriwa works at the input supply system level to reduce costs, improve quality, increase access, and raise awareness among producers on the effective and efficient use of inputs and agricultural services at the farm and firm levels. Sugu Yiriwa also builds the capacity of agrodealers to promote enhanced technologies for improved access to information related to weather and prices. It also promotes improved labor-saving technologies to improve post-harvest management techniques and support the establishment of input retailer networks.
- Increased Market Demand for Consumption of Nutritious and Safe Foods: Sugu Yiriwa conducted a nutrition and market pathways assessment to understand the factors that drive consumer food choices and diets in the Sugu Yiriwa zone of influence (ZOI). With these results, it identifies opportunities at the market and household levels to fill nutrient gaps by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and consumption of safe and nutritious foods, especially among pregnant and lactating women and children under two.
Partners
To implement Sugu Yiriwa, Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) collaborates with a diverse group of both international and local partner organizations, including Mali Agricultural Market Trust (MALIMARK) is a Malian nongovernmental organization established in 2010 with the support of CNFA under the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)-funded Agrodealer Strengthening Program. A leader in strengthening agricultural input and service systems in Mali, and with a presence in the Sikasso sub-zone, MALIMARK will design strategies and lead implementation under Objective 2: Improved Access to and Use of Quality and Affordable Inputs and Services, facilitating the development of a more dynamic input and service sector by building the capacity of agrodealers, increasing market linkages, and improving marketing of inputs, technologies, and services.
The activity also works with Helen Keller International (HKI), leveraging its 20 years of experience in Mali building local capacity to prevent malnutrition by promoting the resilience of market actors and vulnerable groups through social and behavior change (SBC) interventions. HKI, which also partners with CNFA on USAID Yalwa, implemented in Niger, will lead Objective 3: Increased Market Demand for Consumption of Nutritious and Safe Foods.
