Zimbabwe Joint Response ZIM JR (for El Nino) SUMMARY 
This project took place from July 1st till December 31st, 2016. In response to the El Niño induced drought, Plan addressed the severe food insecurity among the vulnerable households in the Kwekwe district, Midlands province, in Zimbabwe. Community resilience was strengthened by unconditional cash transfers, school feeding and provision of seeds. This project was part of the Dutch Relief Alliance program in Zimbabwe. The key objective of the project was to provide humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable people affected by the drought and food security crisis in Zimbabwe, while at the same time promoting early recovery strategies to avoid dependencies and ensure that humanitarian assistance can be scaled down at the time of the next harvest. The project focused on activities in the sectors that had been identified in the Humanitarian Response Plan 2016 for Zimbabwe as having the highest need. In response to the El Niño induced drought, this program will address the severe food insecurity among the vulnerable households in Kwekwe district, Midlands province. According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) rapid assessment of January 2016 , 44.370 people (24%) of Kwekwe district’s population are severely food insecure. As stated in the 2016 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Zimbabwe “child-headed households, the elderly, households affected by HIV and households with no livestock or access to remittances are the most vulnerable ”. Children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating women living with HIV  have as well very limited access to cash for food, despite the availability of food on the local markets. As a result vulnerable households rely on cost-saving mechanisms, like skipping/reducing daily size meals and drastically limiting expenditures considered as non-life-saving, putting children at higher risk of malnutrition and starvation, developmental problems and abuse (resulting in child marriage and pregnancies, gender based violence, transactional sex and prostitution, child labor and school drop-out) . According to the Food and Nutrition Council, 62% of children who deserve school feeding assistance are currently not covered . This undermines the results of long term development multi-sectoral programming and the potentialities for early recovery. Another harmful coping mechanism is the sale of productive agricultural assets, such as seeds, while most households rely on agriculture for their income and food. As a consequence, the current drought is also jeopardizing next harvests and exacerbating the chronic poverty Zimbabwe has been facing for long, resurging its dependency on humanitarian food assistance and threatening the gains of long term efforts to build resilience in Zimbabwe. Food Security: 
Vulnerable households will be supported through unconditional cash transfers through Mobile Cash Transfer, as it is cheaper, reliable and adapted to the context. Every household will receive monthly remittances for 6 months, for an amount of 11 USD per month, per person. This amount is envisaged to be enough to cover purchase of cereal, cooking oil and pulses and other life-saving requirements.  Beneficiaries will be selected through a community participatory process, facilitated by Plan staff and the members of the District Drought Relief Committee. Plan will support in the  provision of lines with the mobile network supplier for those without. Post-disbursement monitoring will be done two weeks after every disbursement to ascertain utilization of the money and support in proper decision making on the funds to disburse.

School Feeding program: 
Identified schools will be provided one time with sufficient Corn Soya Blend, based on the number of children enrolled, for a period of 6 months. Volunteer parents will be trained in each school to prepare the porridge in an hygienic way, under the leadership of the School Development Committees and the Ministry. 

Provision of seeds and strengthening of community resilience: 
Identified small scale farming livelihoods will be regularly trained in resilience building and Disaster Risks Mitigation sessions by the Ministry of Agriculture. The same households will be assisted with agricultural inputs in the form of drought resistant seeds of high yielding short season varieties of sorghum, pearl millet and cow peas, These are open pollinated varieties of seeds, whose cereals can be planted as seed for more than 3 years. Furthermore, seed multiplication among the farmers will be promoted with the support of the Crop Breeding Institute, providing extra income to the farmers. The project will target the 788 most food insecure households in Kwekwe district, Midlands province,  like child and female headed families, elderly, people living with disability, people living with HIV/AIDS, single parents or widowed. Those beneficiaries are mostly challenged in accessing cash, food or jobs. The 2399 children, aged 3 to 10 years, benefitting from school feeding are 1026 boys and 1373 girls enrolled in the 6 most affected schools in Kwekwe district, mostly in ECD, grade 1 or grade 2 classes. To strengthen community resilience and climate smart agriculture 42 members of community based Disaster Risk Management committees, 48 members of School Development Committees, 60 parents and 1030 farmers will be trained.