An Integrated Food Security Approach in Bolivia
Highlights
- Bolivia’s remote areas have difficulty ensuring food security.
- Abt improved food security through the Integrated Food Security Project.
- The project measurably improved rural incomes and access to markets.
Many remote areas of Bolivia suffer from chronic malnutrition and low levels of food security. The U.S. Agency for International Development sought a way to empower municipal organizations, local organizations, the private sector and communities to find solutions to achieve food security.
Through the Integrated Food Security Project, Abt Associates worked in some of the most remote areas of Bolivia. Goals were to increase the availability and production of high-nutrition foods and reduce chronic malnutrition while promoting natural-resources management, climate resilience and environmental conservation. Our efforts focused on technologically appropriate solutions to environmental, economic, cultural and sociopolitical constraints to achieving food security.
Results from the project included:
- Trained 80 honey producers and helped them improve access to markets
- Supported sustainable harvest of vicuna wool, doubling sales and tripling incomes of hundreds of families
- Trained more than 2,000 women to build ecological kitchens, improving their and their families’ health
- Trained 540 municipal public servants in creating and managing a sustainable food security strategy
- Worked with more than 350 milk producers on value-added products such as cheese and yoghurt