by Sadunishvili Giorgi, Mercy Corps
Aspects of fragility in Georgia: a) Environmental b) Governance c) Financial d) Animal disease d) Food safety and hygiene.
Target group: Small Scale Livestock Producers (SSLP’s); the poor, as identified in our Focus Group Survey as people owning 5 or fewer female cattle and/or 40 or fewer female sheep and generally earning under 200CHF/month.
Reducing poverty makes our target group less fragile. For example: a) increased access to vet drugs and information makes farmers more resilient to animal diseases; b) improved access to finance makes farmers more sustainable; c) access to information about FS+H standards and new laws makes our target group less fragile. The Alliances KK programme has a good knowledge of the agricultural sector and fragile points of the market system we are working with. We do not try to fix all problems, but we can implement the best practice and find the entry points for systemic change to have less fragile markets. Sustainability is one of the main objectives of the programme, which gives us the opportunity to have a significant impact on our target and vulnerable group.
The discussion and feedback was more about the practical examples how the programme implements the M4P approach and the tools we are using during the implementation of our interventions. Furthermore, questions were raised about how to find where fragility is and analysing of the fragile points.
