Latest Projects

Every region of the world generates an economic system that only characterizes the lives of a certain proportion of the population. Beyond that segment of population, millions live in rural communities and marginal urban areas far removed from the economic life of thriving city centers. CODESPA's projects seek to reach out to these communities, ensure they can feed themselves and create opportunities for them to participate in their local and regional economic networks.

Check out our projects

Angola Vietnam Columbia
Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru Dominican Republic Peru
 

CODESPA in Angola

Need

After 27 years of civil war in Angola, 50% of the rural population live in absolute poverty, having lost access to quality seed and food storage systems.

Solution

To alleviate this poverty, CODESPA America, is supporting a highly successful project to:

  • Establish farming cooperatives and field schools, work with local farmers to teach them how to produce high quality seed.
  • Enable producers cooperatives to operate a seed bank where farmers can borrow and return seed to ensure community access to improved agricultural inputs.
  • Promote use of locally, affordably produced low-cost micro-silos for grain storage.
  • Ensure that local businesses can source, sell and distribute the micro-silos at affordable and sustainable prices.

Outcome

4000 small farmers achieve food security by raising production 30% and safely storing 100% more of their food and grain.

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CODESPA in Guatemala

Need

With nearly 58% of its population living in extreme poverty, hundreds of thousands of families in rural areas make local low-skilled artisan products or have farms that yield small harvests of low-quality produce and cannot invest in their enterprises.

Solution

  • Foster the creation of community savings and credit groups and train locals to pool their savings and lend their capital out to select members each month.
  • Track the growth and development of these groups’ credit operations and provide members with professional formation to improve the quality and quantity of their products.
  • Encourage community members to work together to sell their products in local markets.
  • Enable groups to maintain their credit operations and increase their capital as well as access external lines of credit and receive formal professional education.

Outcome

Nearly 1100 families participating in the forty-four distinct community savings and credit groups currently in operation, with an average of 40% increases in savings, mobilizing credits of nearly $100,000 to member microenterprises, average income increases of 25% and zero indebtedness.

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CODESPA in Vietnam

Need

56% of Vietnam's poverty is concentrated in its mountainous, northern provinces. Rural farmers spread inefficient powdered fertilizers over the soil surface, leading to low yields, soil degradation and high water pollution due to run off.

Solution

To alleviate this poverty, CODESPA America, is supporting a highly successful project to:

  • Promote use of compacted fertilizer pellets placed deep at the root of rice plants to reduce of fertilizer use, lower run off and ensure continuous fertilization.
  • Train local farm enterprises in the use of new fertilizers.
  • Develop the manufacturers and supply chain to provide new fertilizer pellets.
  • Work with local microfinance institutions to provide the micro-credits for farmers and manufacturers to add production and packaging of new pellets to their business.

Outcome

Over 100,000 families raise the crop yields and income by 23%, saving time and workload, and reducing environmental impact to the water, soil and air by 80%.

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CODESPA in Colombia

Need

After years of violent conflict in the Valley of Cauca, over 60% of Colombian farmers in the area are deeply impoverished. Suspicion between ethnic groups remains strong. They need socio-economic institutions to unite them and improve farming methods.

Solution

  • Work with farmers of all ethnicities to deepen their participation in local and regional producers' cooperatives.
  • Train cooperatives to function as credit unions for financing crop diversification, drip-irrigation, product processing and certification according market standards.
  • Ensure professional formation of entrepreneurs creating businesses capable of supplying low cost irrigation technology and processing machinery to cooperatives.
  • Develop regional cooperative led business unit for marketing and sale of produce to urban supermarkets and to food export industry.

Outcome

Over 1800 farmers improve their family incomes by 20% when cooperatives improve production by 55.7% and sales of produce by 73%.

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CODESPA in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru

Need

In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, thousands of tourists visit the ruins of the ancient Incan empire and the majestic natural surroundings while hundreds of impoverished rural communities offer little in the way of hospitality and tourism industry services.

Solution

  • Creation and training of tourism and hospitality industry enterprises meeting a marketing brand standard of quality in each of the 3 countries.
  • Designing 3 rural tourism destination routes that incorporate local community cultural activities and crafts and are made available to tourists through travel agencies and websites operated by local business cooperatives:
  • Establish public-private partnerships with governmental institutions and travel business consortia responsible for encouraging tourism in each country.

Outcome

Over 3500 Aymara, Quichua and Quechua speaking persons, 55% of them women entreprenuers, living in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru receive 20% increase in family incomes through the creation of 130 restaurants, 45 associations of tour guides, 108 hostels, 34 artesan shops, 17 transport businesses, 21 adventure tourism businesses.

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CODESPA in Dominican Republic

Need

Tens of thousands of immigrants from Dominican Republic to Spain send money back to support their families. This flow of funds represents an opportunity for impoverished recipients to improve family economic security and develop local business initiatives.

Solution

  • Establish a relationship with Banco ADOPEM to gather data on the needs of their clients and families with diaspora members in Spain.
  • Work with Banco ADOPEM to create new micro-financial products, savings accounts, micro-insurance products and business creation loans, enabling women to use remittance money for productive investments and reduction of economic insecurity.
  • Design financial education services to be offered by Banco ADOPEM to help clients understand the benefits and uses of new products.
  • Accompany business micro-credit clients in the formation of new initiatives and offer technical assistance to them to guarantee improvement of incomes.

Outcome

Over 30,000 obtain newly designed savings accounts, purchase innovative micro-insurance and receive micro-credits for business development.

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CODESPA in Peru

Need

Innumerable rural communities in the Peruvian Andes and the Amazon lack access to quality education at schools that are often located at great distances over difficult terrain. Student drop-out rates are high and education is poorly adapted to rural life.

Solution

  • Convert schools into boarding schools, improving attendance and grades by reducing the distance factor and freeing students for intensive focus on their studies.
  • Adapt academic curricula to rural needs, adding farm management techniques and rural agro-business planning to official studies, improving parent commitment.
  • Train teachers in new material, in-practice methodology, and general qualifications to improve their professional capacity and future, increasing faculty retention rates.
  • Harmonize content and schedules with agricultural calendar, formalize programs for inclusion in national education system, allowing students access to higher education.

Outcome

5,625 students receiving education in Alternate Rural School system approved and supported by the Peruvian Ministry of Education. 18 percentage point reduction in school drop-out rate.

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CODESPA in Nicaragua

Need

Young people in marginal urban neighborhoods in Nicaraguan cities face widespread lack of opportunity that puts them at-risk of induction into drug-trafficking gangs.

Solution

  • Partner with Centros Juvenil Don Bosco (CJDB) to create new weekend vocational training programs at centers in the cities of Managua, Granada and Mayasa.
  • Establish market analysis process at centers and information exchange with local governments for planning of vocational training programs.
  • Forge agreements with private businesses for integration of trained youth.
  • Run courses to provide youth with professional skills and employment opportunities.

Outcome

Nearly 1000 young men and women aged 18-31 placed in electronics, automotive mechanic, call center service, hotel industry and other jobs.

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