The Kellogg Foundation is strengthening rural communities in southern Africa through its support of institutions and organizations at the national and regional level that create social, economic, and policy environment for rural communities to thrive. Special initiatives include support to partnerships and networks that increase the voices of rural communities at the provincial, national, and regional levels for more relevant development policies and programs.
Over the next several years, the program will build on its previous developmental work by supporting rural development institutions such as agricultural institutions and productions systems, as well as non-farm social and economic institutions and organizations, such as those that promote rural cultural industries. The broader range of “economic empowerment systems” and “social infrastructure and policy engagement systems” includes institutions and organizations that:
- Provide training and cultivation of essential business and entrepreneurial skills and leadership in rural areas.
- Enable rural communities to articulate and advocate their agenda before government and the private sector, as well as direct the work of nonprofits.
- Enable communities to organize and manage financial resources, community savings, and coordinate volunteer services.
- Support rural communities to access markets and finances.
- Enable communities to address the challenges of health and well-being, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
- Support institutions and mechanisms to enable access, dissemination, and production of knowledge and information relevant to rural communities.
Three principles guide the process to support the development and transformation of institutions and organizations. First, organizations and institutions at the national and regional level should not commit to or engage in activities that can be undertaken at lower levels. Second, organizations and institutions at national and regional levels need to be committed to the values and principles of responding to local development needs and building their own capacity. And, third, the Kellogg Foundation will need to be satisfied that the substance and content of the business, institutions, and organizations are responsive and relevant to the needs of rural communities before it invests in them. In that way, investments will contribute to the development and greater sustainability of responsive institutions and systems.
Beneficiaries include farms and rural citizens (particularly youth, women, and families) actively engaged in a self-driving process of development, and institutions and organizations in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, that support civic responsibility and engagement, skills and leadership development, economic opportunities, and the health and well-being of rural communities. In each of these four main areas, the program is identifying and establishing partnerships in each country to ensure that implementation, follow-up, and assessment occur in ways that build sound knowledge and experiences.