Livelihoods

Our work in livelihoods aims to ensure:

•  children are well nourished and free from hunger
•  families with children have adequate and resilient livelihoods, income and assets
•  families and children have reasons and resources to be in school
•  adolescents develop hope and skills for a productive future.

 How we do this

  a) Graduating the most vulnerable families out of extreme poverty

 World Vision focuses on an intensive two-year programme that equips the most vulnerable families to be self-reliant once World Vision has left. We provide access to temporary food and cash assistance, savings for transformation, training, and marketing expertise to help families’ kickstart a small business or access employment. Families are also taught about health, nutrition, and hygiene practices to ensure that economic gains are translated into better care for their children.

b) Building secure livelihoods and market access

Here, the focus is on strengthening families’ ability to produce more nutritious food and market the excess for a regular income. Disasters often push families backward so we encourage them to build resilience by saving and managing water and natural resources more effectively. We also offer access to small loans through VisionFund.

 c) Promoting sustainable employment opportunities

We work with adolescents to develop relevant skills for them to enter the workplace. This not only provides a potential livelihood for the future but also instils hope and aspirations for a better life. Our microfinance arm, VisionFund works with potential employers by providing small loans to promote market and employment opportunities.

 d) Women Economic Empowerment

In order for children to benefit from our productive and resilient livelihoods programs, we complement our programs with positive family/gender relations, women’s economic empowerment and policies that promote graduation out of extreme poverty.

Resources

• The additional social benefit of projects -a case study from Mongolia of the Social Return on Investment
• Integrating Extremely Poor Producers into Markets Field Guide
• Value chain development with the extremely poor: evidence and lessons from CARE, Save the Children, and World Vision
• Serving the Missing Middle-Growing Small Agricultural Businesses to Reduce Poverty and Increase Social Impact 
• Economic Strengthening, Resilient Livelihoods Approaches and Child Well-Being -Evidence and Knowledge Gaps
• A Typology of Market-Based Approaches to include the most marginalised-IDS, Coady Institute and the BEAM Exchange
• Livelihoods and Child Welfare among Poor Rural Farmers in East Africa

External Events

Global Savings Groups Conference (22nd-24th May, Kigali, Rwanda)

World Vision is attending the 2018 Global Savings Groups Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. The conference is held once every two years and engages diverse community of stakeholders, develops and promotes improved standards of practice, mobilizes knowledge, stregthens partnerships and alliances and creates opportunities for cross-organizational lerninf. The conference will be organized around four technical tracks:

• Systemic Approaches to Increase Scale, Sustainability and Impact
• Access to Formal Financial Services
• Expanding Outrech to More Vulnerable and Diverse Populations
• Savings Groups and Gender Transformative Initiatives

VisionFund Rwanda will host a peer exchange field visit on the 21st of May whilst World Vision Rwanda will be hosting an innovation station on the 24th of May 2018.

Key messages

• Savings for Transformation Groups are key to graduating families and their children out of extreme poverty
  
• Scale up Savings for Transformation to ensure financial inclusion of the most vulnerable children and their families
• Increase investments in Savings for Transformation to enable parents and caregivers to provide well for their children to end violence against children such as early marriages, neglect, child labor and trafficking
  

Learn more about Key Features of World Vision's Savings for Transformation

CoP 23

World Vision in collaboration with Save the Children, ChildFund, UNICEF and PLAN International have organised a side event at CoP 23, Bonn, Germany on child rights, climate change and climate action – focusing climate change action for and with children, with a specific focus on children’s rights in a changing climate. The event will be hosted by members of the Children in a Changing Climate Coalition. Read more HERE. 

News

Largest Non-Governmental Climate Insurance Programme Launches for African & Asian Smallholder Farmers VisionFund International, World Vision’s microfinance arm and Global Parametrics, a new venture funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and by the InsuResilience Investment Fund, set up by German development bank KfW and managed by Swiss-based impact investment manager BlueOrchard Finance. Financing for the initial preparation and assessment required to implement the programme came from the Rockefeller Foundation and FMO, the Dutch development bank.  

 For more information on our livelihoods work, contact: Richard Rumsey and follow @Rumsey_WVision