The Livelihoods and Food Security Fund – LIFT – refreshes its strategy every four years, with LIFT’s programming then designed through the lens of this strategy. The current strategy 2014-2018 can be found here in English and here in Myanmar.
In 2018, LIFT’s Fund Management Office and Fund Board have been working on refreshing the strategy for the next five-year period beginning in 2019. The work has involved broad engagement with our partners, advisers, donors, government, civil society, private sector and other actors in the sectors in which LIFT works – rural development, agriculture, nutrition and social protection, migration, skills development and financial inclusion.
LIFT’s refreshed strategy will continue to focus on assisting:
- Households with land, labour or commercial potential to ‘step up’ through increases in labour and land productivity and enhanced capacity to market production,
- Rural households or individuals to ‘step out’ of agriculture into the local non-farm economy or to take advantage of opportunities further afield,
- Highly vulnerable households to ‘hang in’ and use agriculture as a safety net, improve their food security and nutrition outcomes while building their capacity to move out over time
The next phase for LIFT has at its heart ‘leaving no one behind’ in Myanmar’s rural transition with a greater focus on inclusion and social cohesion, increased support to areas affected by conflict, bringing displaced people into LIFT’s development programmes and working with Government at all levels on targeted policies that achieve gains in these areas.
LIFT’s programmes will increasingly focus on strengthening the resilience and sustainable livelihoods of women, people with disabilities, smallholders and landless, internally displaced people and migrants, those vulnerable to trafficking and forced labour and those living in conflict-affected areas and border states.
LIFT’s large body of evidence and experience since 2010 has informed decisions about the thematic focus of LIFT’s programming moving forward; LIFT will prioritise improving nutrition for women, children and vulnerable groups, promoting decent work and safe and productive labour mobility, supporting agriculture and market development and increasing access to financial services.
LIFT’s Fund Board has recently approved costed extensions of projects with existing partners where performance has been high and whose current work fits well with the future programme priorities. New calls for proposals will be made in October and November 2018 to assist the design of programmes that fit the refreshed focus and transition into the next phase of LIFT, with a particular focus on increasing access to financial services and supporting vulnerable groups in areas affected by conflict and peri-urban areas. New partners will be sought, as will continued relationships with existing partners, including civil society and the private sector.
