Feed the Future Resilient Coastal Communities (RCC)

Overview
The resilience of coastal communities is intertwined with the health of their terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Communities south of Pemba in Cabo Delgado and north of Maganja da Costa in Zambezia face significant problems. The escalating threats to the natural systems upon which they depend include unsustainable natural resource extraction (including, but not limited to fisheries and mining), agricultural expansion, and overall poor management of these natural resources. The drivers to these threats are many, such as reduced economic opportunities, insufficient employment, limited capital, inadequate inputs, limited education, extremist influences, poor mining practices, and climate change. The youth in these coastal communities are particularly at risk, and will help shape the future of these communities and the natural systems. There is both an urgent need and a great opportunity to increase youth’s leadership and participation in sustainable natural resource management, food systems, livelihoods, the local and regional economy, and society in general. 

Program Description

The RCC activity is a five year $24M activity and focuses on a subset of the coastal region south of Pemba and North of Maganja de Costa. The RCC activity will blend USAID Feed the Future and Biodiversity resources to improve the resilience of coastal communities where rich, yet fragile land and marine ecosystems are at risk of climatic shocks and human-inflicted degradation. The intent of the activity is to create high-quality, effective partnerships to pilot new and innovative ways to improve the resilience of coastal communities living in rich land and marine ecosystems that are vulnerable to climatic shocks and environmental degradation. Working with the public and private sector, civil society, and religious stakeholders, this activity will develop and pilot projects that will create a significant number of jobs and sustainable economic opportunities for youth and women, while having positive impacts on the long-term health and productivity of critical ecosystems, particularly the extraordinarily diverse marine ecosystems that are vital to food security.

Expected Results
Under this program a combination of approaches will cover an array of objectives and expectations. One of the objectives is to build on local capacity, working across a mix of public, private, civil society, and religious institution stakeholders, and focused on scalability and sustainability. In addition, at least part of the coastal and marine ecosystems activities should focus on reducing threats to the ecosystem in high biodiversity areas by leveraging the private sector and other sources of investment for employment and income generation through sustainable livelihood approaches.