Program

USAID Vikina Resilience Food Security Activity

Madagascar

Overview

The five-year USAID Vikina Resilience Food Security Activity (2024-2029) is designed to increase the resilience and food security of economically vulnerable and marginalized households in the Southeast of Madagascar. The Activity works in rural communities in the Farafangana and Vangaindrano districts of Atsimo Atsinanana, a remote region prone to recurrent cyclones and facing deep challenges to food security. The Activity’s name, which translates to “jump” or “take a big step” in Malagasy, symbolizes the transformative journey of participating households out of poverty and toward food security and resilience.

Expected Impact

34,000 households with:

  • income/revenues increased by an average of at least 32 percent
  • savings increased by at least 150 percent
  • household assets increased by at least 46 percent
  • consumption increased by 13 percent
  • food security increased by 0.2 standard deviations

Vikina is designed to be locally grounded, leveraging local resources, knowledge, and capacity to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of interventions. Through an adaptive management approach, the Activity will continuously learn and adapt its interventions based on evidence, using data and feedback to optimize its interventions and achieve maximum impact. Vikina will directly support at least 34,000 households in their pursuit of resilience, utilizing a graduation approach that directly delivers a comprehensive set of interventions to each participating household to overcome poverty and achieve lasting food security and resilience.

Approach

  • Graduation Approach: This holistic approach allows impoverished households to access relevant livelihood opportunities and build their resilience to shocks and stresses. Implemented over a period of 18 months, the approach offers consumption support to participants (cash transfers and food during the lean season) to provide breathing room to pursue Vikina activities. Village savings and loan associations help promote financial inclusion, while coaching, mentorship, and training selected by participants, which includes related cash or an in-kind asset, strengthens skills, connections, and incomes. Together, these elements of will help families secure a pathway out of poverty.
  • Localization: The Activity prioritizes the needs and aspirations of participating communities, capitalizing on local resources, knowledge, and capacity. Vikina will actively coordinate with and layer its interventions with government social protection programs in Madagascar, including aligning its consumption support and asset transfers with national policies and approaches, as well as collaborating with relevant government bodies to ensure complementarity and maximize impact.
  • Adaptive Management: Continuously using evidence, data, and feedback, Vikina implements interventions in three sequential cohorts, applying lessons learned from each cohort to the next. It also includes a crisis modifier which can be activated to provide additional support to households following a shock such as a cyclone.

Partners

To implement Vikina, Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) collaborates with a diverse group of both international and local partner organizations, including ASOS (Action Socio-sanitaire Organisation Secours), a Malagasy NGO with expertise in health, social behavior change, and community mobilization, supporting activities at the community level; Haona Soa, a Malagasy NGO specializing in entrepreneurship, agriculture, and livestock, implementing the graduation approach at community level; Save the Children, a global leader in child rights and development, providing expertise in the graduation approach, cash transfers, and social inclusion, including women and youth development; and SAWBO (Scientific Animations Without Borders), based at Purdue University, working with local experts to develop and disseminate scientifically accurate, locally adapted digital animated training videos.