Documentary RESIFA project (Women's Empowerment and Nutrition)

Pathways to Women’s Empowerment and Resilience in Sissili Province (RESIFA): A multisectoral intervention enhancing women’s empowerment, climate-resilient agrifood systems, income and nutrition in Burkina Faso

Background and objectives: Rural populations, particularly women in Burkina Faso, face daily challenges from poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition, worsened by insecurity, climate change, environmental degradation and limited agricultural resources. To address this, Helen Keller Intl and partners launched the multi-sectoral RESIFA project, aiming to sustainably empower women socially and economically to improve food and nutritional security.
Methods: The RESIFA project supported 1) nutrition and climate smart agriculture, 2) village savings and loans groups (VSLA), 3) income generating activities (IGA), 4) gender and women’s empowerment activities and 5) promotion of good nutrition practices. For baseline and endline evaluation, we used multistage cluster random sampling techniques to recruit 1075 households with women in reproductive age and children aged 6-23 months in the 100 project villages. We conducted a baseline and endline cross-sectional study, complemented with annual monitoring surveys to collect data on key indicators for agricultural production, savings, income generation, women’s empowerment, and dietary diversity. 
Results: Agricultural production of women diversified and increased over 3 consecutive years and the percentage of women who produced orange-fleshed sweet potato roots and leaves increased from 8.9% [6.5-11.9] at baseline to 61.5% [58.2 - 64.6] at endline. The project established 378 VSLAs with 9939 members, accumulating over ~487K USD in savings, with 73% of participants re-investing savings into agriculture, livestock and other income generating activities. In addition, minimum dietary diversity of children 6-23 months increased from 27.5% [22.8-32.8] at baseline, to 60.2 [56.9 - 63.3] at endline. The percentage of women who contribute to household decision-making on income management increased from 37.5% [33-42.1] to 57.46 [54.9-60.2].
Conclusions: The results support findings from previous work by Helen Keller, IFPRI and others, showing that a combination of improved and diversified crop production, income generation, financial services and promotion of good nutrition practices, combined with women's empowerment positively impact child and maternal nutrition. Future research should focus on longer-term impact and the cost-efficiency of multi-sectoral interventions, as well as assessing simplified models, adapting to specific contexts.