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Zambia: Evaluation of WFP’s Rural Resilience Initiative 2014–2025

https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000174985/download/
The evaluation finds that WFP’s R4 Rural Resilience Initiative - which reached 17,835 smallholder farmers in drought-prone southern Zambia – remained highly relevant over the 2014-2025 period, delivering meaningful resilience gains despite severe shocks, including COVID-19 and the 2023–2024 El Niño drought.

The strongest results came from Savings for Change groups and climate information services, which improved financial inclusion, income diversification, women’s empowerment and household resilience. Food consumption recovered to 92.8 percent by endline, conservation agriculture adoption reached 99 percent, and income diversification exceeded targets. R4’s most significant legacy was supporting the integration of crop insurance into Zambia’s Farmer Input Support Programme, extending coverage to over one million farmers. However, insurance literacy, commercial credit, market aggregation and operational integration across programme components remained weak. Recommendations focus on prioritizing savings groups, strengthening programme integration and knowledge management, adopting multi-year partner agreements, improving gender-transformative approaches, enhancing shock-responsive monitoring, and maintaining WFP’s policy role in insurance while phasing out premium subsidies.