Akosaa

Enhancing and building capacity for increased food security in Haiti

Laval University, with the collaboration of CCISD as well as several Canadian and Haitian partners, is implementing a multidisciplinary project focusing on food security. This initiative, known as Enhancing and Building Capacity for Increased Food Security in Haiti, or AKOSAA (from the Creole Amelyorasyon kapasite pou ogmante sekirite alimantè an Ayiti), will improve the lives of around 8 000 Haitians over a five-year period.

The AKOSAA project, which began in 2013, relies on a coordinated action in the fields of agriculture and public health aiming at increaed food security and nutritional health in Saint-Marc, a commune of the Artibonite region, in western Haiti.

While Laval University is leading the implementation, CCISD provides support for the project management, both at a local level in Haiti and in Canada. Under the AKOSAA project, Laval University, and its partners, including CCISD, are working towards achieving three specific objectives, which are to:

• Provide support to the State University of Haiti in its efforts to better adjust its academic programs to societal needs in relation to food security and nutritional health;
• Contribute to intensifying and diversifying agricultural production as well as increasing households incomes, including by strengthening value chains and community businesses;
• Contribute to improving food security and nutritional health, in particular among women and children, in partnership with health facilities and community-based organizations.

The AKOSAA project benefits from support by experts from different fields, such as agriculture, nutrition, medicine, administration, geography and ethnology. It is how it provides support to agricultural development and innovation, economic growth and nutritional health in the Saint-Marc Commune. All in all, project activities are carried out in the hopes of preventing malnutrition through local resources valorisation (human, natural or economic resources).