Africa
IRD provides conflict mitigation, health, nutrition, and emergency response programming in some of the most difficult places across Africa.
Countries
Burkina Faso
Active Presence Since: 2011
Programs: 2
IRD has worked in Burkina Faso since 2010 where it is improving agricultural value chains and promoting community resilience to extremism.
Programs
Enhancing the Value Chain Competitiveness of Sesame and Fonio in Mali and Burkina Faso
Peace through Development
Cameroon
Programs: 1
One of the most geographically and culturally diverse countries in Africa, Cameroon is also in a difficult neighborhood, bordering both Chad and Central African Republic. At various times, refugees from those countries have streamed across Cameroon's borders in search of safety. IRD's programs in Cameroon work with both these refugees and with native Cameroonians, helping them develop more economic opportunities and provide food for their families.
Programs
Chad
Active Presence Since: 2005
Programs: 2
Following France’s departure from the country in 1960, Chad endured over three decades of civil war and resistance from rebel and insurgent groups. In addition to the ongoing violence, 200,000 Sudanese refugees are living in eastern Chad — straining the already limited agricultural resources of the country.
In June 2005, IRD launched the Emergency Food-for-Work and Agricultural Assistance Initiative for Affected Villages in Eastern Chad program. This program provides emergency food security and agriculture improvement opportunities for villages in eastern Chad affected by the influx of Darfur refugees. The program is funded by the United States Agency for International Development’s Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) in conjunction with the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP), which provided 1,000 metric tons of food.
More recently, USAID's Peace through Development II (PDev II) program works directly with vulnerable young men and women to empower youth, promote moderate voices, and strengthen civil society and local government, directly benefiting 500,000 people in targeted communities in Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso.
Programs
Ethiopia
Active Presence Since: 2008
Programs: 3
With the second largest population in Africa – at 90 million, second only to Nigeria – the East African nation of Ethiopia is home to dozens of ethnic groups speaking dozens of languages. But they all share the challenges of recovering from drought and famine, reducing the high prevalence of communicable diseases, and seeking greater economic opportunity. Currently, IRD is helping to improve economic opportunity, strengthen health infrastructure, and providing emergency drought assistance.
Programs
Ethiopia Health Infrastructure Program
Addressing HIV and Poverty in Ethiopia
Building Resiliency in the Horn of Africa
Guinea-Bissau
Programs: 1
The former Portugese colony of Guinea-Bissau has had a turbulent recent history, with a civil war from 1998 to 1999 and a military coup in 2003. The tiny coastal country, slightly larger than the state of Maryland, now has an elected president and is trying to recover and improve life for the two-thirds of its population who live below the poverty line.
Cashews are one of Guinea-Bissau’s major exports, so IRD’s program there is expanding opportunities for cashew farmers to improve production and sales.
Programs
Liberia
Programs: 1
For many years, Liberia ranked near the bottom of every human development survey. The years between 1980 and 2003 were marked by prolonged civil conflict, much of it fought by child soldiers. In partnership with the United Nations and other donors, and under the leadership of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female president in Africa, Liberia has begun healing and providing basic services for its citizens. IRD is supporting this transition with projects to improve child nutrition and access to basic education.
Programs
Mali
Active Presence Since: 2009
Programs: 1
IRD has worked in Mali since 2009, where it is using proceeds from the monetization of 4,500 metric tons of wheat and vegetable oil over three years to enhance the value chain and market competitiveness of fonio and sesame. The $4.0 million Food for Progress program is working in the Koulikoro, Segou, and Mopti regions to increase farm production and productivity, improve processing and transformation opportunities through the introduction of appropriate technologies, and provide management training and organizational capacity building to farmers’ organizations, women’s groups, and small scale-businesses.
Programs
Enhancing the Value Chain Competitiveness of Sesame and Fonio in Mali and Burkina Faso
Mauritania
Programs: 2
As a country straddling the divide between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritania has long been challenged by ethnic tension between Moorish northerners and black Africans, with one group frequently enslaving the other. In the late 1980s, tensions were so high that 70,000 black Mauritanians were expelled from their country and settled in Senegal and other neighboring countries. With the passage of another in a series of anti-slavery laws in 2007, these families have begun to return. IRD is helping them re-establish themselves.
Programs
Mozambique
Active Presence Since: 2004
Programs: 6
IRD has been working in Mozambique since 2004 on water, sanitation, and hygiene, HIV/AIDS, and women’s entrepreneuprograms. In addition to a national office in Maputo, IRD has three provincial offices Inhambane, Sofala, and Zambezia, with 90 people on staff.
In water and sanitation, IRD in Mozambique implements programs that range from emergency water supply to water harvesting infrastructure developmental projects, with funding from such partners as USAID, UNICEF, Americares, the United MethodisChurch, and the Swiss Federal Institute forEnvironmental Science and Technology. IRD has rehabilitated/installed more than 100 water sources to date while also training water committees and mobilizing communities for improved hygiene. IRD is at the forefront of water and hygiene at schools in Mozambique, introducing the solar water disinfection (SODIS) method and installing 27 rooftop water harvesting systems.
IRD also helps community-based organizations learn to implement HIV prevention, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) care, and home-based care (HBC) activities, and implements WomenFirst, which combines health and HIV/AIDS activities with entrepreneurial training and the creation of sustainable business for rural women.
Programs
Preventing Cholera in Coastal Mozambique
Reducing Vulnerability to Drought, Cyclones & Climate Change in Mozambique
Community-Based Solar Disinfection Program
SCIP Program in Southern Mozambique
Strengthening Health Services through Community Mobilization
Women First
Niger
Programs: 2
Niger, located in the heart of the Sahel region of Africa, is racked by periodic drought. Since the government does not have the ability to develop the country’s resources, the economy remains agrarian and subsistence-based — and thus prone to widespread food insecurity following even moderate climate change.
In 2005, IRD conducted an assessment of the relief and development needs in Niger and found immediate needs for further development of the potable water supply and famine relief. In the long-term, the goal is to improve the economic resources of the country to lessen their dependence on the difficult farming conditions in the region.
More recently, the Peace through Development II (PDev II) program works directly with vulnerable young men and women to empower youth, promote moderate voices, and strengthen civil society and local government, directly benefiting 500,000 people in targeted communities in Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso. IRD is also working to strengthen the onion value chain to improve the amount and quality of onions produced, improve access to basic financial services, and create jobs and increase incomes of smallholder producers.
Programs
Strengthening the Onion Value Chain in Niger
Peace through Development
Senegal
Programs: 1
Although considered one of Africa’s political and economic leaders, Senegal still struggles with crushing poverty. The southern Casamance region, while no longer trying to break away from the rest of the country, still lags behind in terms of development.
IRD’s program in Senegal is expanding opportunities for cashew farmers to improve production and sales.
Programs
Somalia
Active Presence Since: 2011
Programs: 1
Somalia, devastated by 30 years of civil war, faced one of the Horn of Africa's most crippling droughts in years in 2011. IRD conducted an immediate relief effort in 2012, trucking water daily to dozens of villages in Somalia and Ethiopia; built birkeds (concrete-lined rainwater catchment and storage pools), and shipped millions of dollars worth of pharmaceuticals and relief supplies to the region. To build better community resiliency to drought, IRD is continuing to work with local community leadership on developing and managing water resources, practicing conservation agriculture, and promoting solar water disinfection.
Programs
South Sudan
Active Presence Since: 2011
Programs: 1
In January 2011, South Sudan was finally able to vote yes on a referendum for independence from Sudan after almost two decades of civil war. To help facilitate its transition to the world's newest democracy, IRD has implemented demobilization and reintegration programs for ex-combatants, worked with local communities to inform them of the democratic process, and partnered with the John Bul Dau Foundation and Artists for Human Rights to build or equip schools and clinics in the country.
Programs
Sudan
Programs: 3
Sudan has long struggled with conflict, famine, and poverty. North Sudan consists primarily of Arab-speaking Muslims, who control the military-led government as well. Their domination of non-Arab-speaking, non-Muslim southern Sudanese over the past half-century and resulting ethnic conflict, rebel militia fighting, and genocide have resulted in an estimated 2 million deaths and 4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). IRD is provide grants designed to kick start income generation, build the capacity of local NGOs, and improve basic infrastructure in urban areas.
Programs
Restoring Peace through Social and Economic Reintegration
Rapid Infrastructure Emergency Project
Community Health Education Services in Southern Sudan
Swaziland
Active Presence Since: 2007
Programs: 1
The last absolute monarchy in Africa, Swaziland is home to more than 1 million people, who are mostly rural and rely on subsistence agriculture. Over the last decade, erratic weather, the high price of food, inputs, and fuel, a decline in the use of improved agricultural practices, and the continuing impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic have made it more difficult for people to get enough to eat. With an unemployment rate of 40 percent, and 80 percent of the population relying on subsistence farming for survival, the lack of constant access to water has been one of the major obstacles to achieving sustained food production and the country’s overall development.
IRD started operations in Swaziland in 2007, in response to the ongoing drought emergency in the country. IRD’s programs have focused on water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH), and food security and agriculture.
Programs
The Gambia
Programs: 1
Less than 30 miles wide, Africa’s smallest country follows the contours of the Gambia River and most of its 1.7 million people make their living through subsistence agriculture. IRD's Gambia River Basin Cashew Value Chain Enhancement Project (CEP) is a Food for Progress initiative that aims to strengthen the cashew value chain and increase the incomes of 10,000 smallholder cashew farmers and processors in The Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea Bissau. The project improves food security by providing training to cashew farmers, seeds for higher yielding varieties, new cultivation techniques, nutrition education, land management practices, and small-scale machinery to process and use all parts of the cashew fruit and nut.
Programs
Zimbabwe
Active Presence Since: 2009
Programs: 3
IRD has worked in Zimbabwe since 2009 to catalyze the transition of the country from a complex humanitarian emergency to development. IRD programs sustainably increase food security, strengthen markets, and improve access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Programs
Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting in Zimbabwe
Restoring Livelihoods and Strengthening Value Chains in Zimbabwe
Improving Agricultural Income and Employment in Zimbabwe
