Graduation with Resilience to Achieve Sustainable Development (GRAD) aims to improve food security for 65,000 chronically food insecure households.

The programme, active in 16 woredas of rural Ethiopia, will achieve this through enhanced livelihood options of chronically food insecure households in project areas; improved community and household resilience; and strengthened enabling environment to promote scale and sustainability.

A USAID funded project, GRAD, is implemented by a consortium of partners led by CARE to graduate 375, 000 Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) beneficiaries. SNV provides technical support on value chain development, agricultural extension, and strategic leadership on input and output marketing.

GRAD builds on the lessons learned from PSNP Plus and the extensive food security programme experience of consortium members.

The project:

• Is facilitating private sector participation to integrate smallholder farmers into long-term sustainable markets;

• Has assisted with a climate screening of selected value chains and income generating activities and recommended specific strategies and actions to enhance resilience to the effects of climate change;

• Is providing technical expertise to GRAD in the development of selected value chains: honey, livestock, pulses, red peppers, onions, potatoes and malt barley;

• Works closely with the private sector in the provision of services, input supply and market opportunities for GRAD farmers, promoting technologies, disseminating market information and facilitating business-to-business relationships and market linkages;

• Provides training, coaching and mentoring of extension workers on market oriented extension services;

• Reinforces the input supply chain through agro-dealers;

• Builds the capacity of agro-dealers in entrepreneurship, business skills, record keeping, customer handling and financial management training, as well as financial support from the GRAD/SNV private sector development fund;

• Facilitates information, experience and knowledge sharing in Multi-Stakeholder Processes (MSPs).