Resilience Enhancing and Capacity Strengthening on Food Security in
Eastern African Countries (RECS)
The RECS program was inaugurated in April 2018 in a joint inaugural workshop held in Nairobi with other food security initiatives in the region specifically the PARCAP project (Caritas Africa Mobilization Enhancement Support Project in Advocacy for the Promotion of the Right to Food). The Resilience Enhancing and Capacity Strengthening on Food Security program (RECS) is in four East African Countries composed of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. The Caritas Africa advocacy strategies on food security are anchored on the Catholic Social Teachings, Caritas Africa core values and commitment towards combating the dehumanizing poverty in the region.
The overall goal of the project is to address food security, improve nutrition and build resilience of vulnerable communities at household level particularly female-headed households and the most vulnerable communities in Eastern Africa.
Food security is at the heart of Caritas. In 2013, Caritas Internationalis launched a Global Caritas campaign dubbed – “One Human Family, Food for All”, aimed at ending hunger by 2025. The right to food protects the right of all human beings to live in dignity, free from hunger, and free from food insecurity and malnutrition.
One of the challenges facing Eastern Africa today is food insecurity, exacerbated by Climate change, natural disasters like floods and droughts; poverty and poor governance and insecurity. The RECS program focuses on addressing food security, improving nutrition and building resilience of vulnerable communities at household level in the four Eastern Africa countries. This project aims at enhancing information sharing through consultative forums among Caritas members in this region on food security, knowledge sharing on best practices and learning to strengthen members capacity in enhancing food security at household level in Eastern Africa.
Caritas Africa will also engage on global and regional advocacy and policy dialogue to influence and shape policy practice on food security and nutrition in the Eastern Africa Region, through development of periodical position papers and engagement with other international actors on food security. To enhance resilience and capacity strengthening on food security, Caritas Africa will consolidate a community of practice (COPS) at community level to learn from one another and engage on practices that enhance food security at household level.