Donor Involvement

As part of a multi donor response to food insecurity in Southern Africa, SDC’s regional Cooperation Office (COOF) in Pretoria developed a Food Security Strategy (FSS) to address the chronic food insecurity facing the SADC region. This strategy identified ‘seed security’ as a particular problem area which is to be addressed through a series of macro-, meso- and micro-level interventions.  At the macro-level, SDC has been supporting the Food and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and the SADC Seed Security Network (SSSN) in particular for policy dialogue and harmonization of seed policies to encourage the free movement of quality seeds throughout the region.  At the meso-level, SDC has been supporting agricultural research organizations such as CIMMYT to produce new varieties of seeds which are higher yielding and adapted to the areas where food security persists.  Complementary to these interventions, SDC recognizes a need to find ways of improving access to quality seed at the household level by linking the different components of the seed economy together. However, at the current time, very little progress has been in this area in Southern Africa from which lessons can be derived, good practice replicated and policies informed. To address this, the SAMP has been designed to contribute towards the specific objectives of SDC’s Regional Programme for Southern Africa (RPSA):

• Specific Objective 1: Enabling policies at regional levels aimed at reducing seed insecurity are implemented;
• Specific Objective 2: Availability of and accessibility to seeds and food is improved for targeted populations; and,
• Specific Objective 3: Food production and quality seeds use are enhanced to increase resilience of farmers.

By implementing a range of different pilot approaches across different countries, SAMP will contribute directly to Specific Objectives 1 and 2 by improving the seed security and resilience of the target populations, while at the same time generating ‘knowledge’ on a range of different ways of tackling seed insecurity. This knowledge will inform SDC in pursuing Specific Objective 1