Community-Based Solution Providers: A Private Sector Solution to Building Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel - Enhanced Resilience Program

The network of CBSPs spans all seven regions in REGIS-ER's zone of intervention in Burkina Faso and Niger. CBSPs are identified by the community and focus on livelihood needs of their communities. They are social entrepreneurs who respond to social concerns of their communities but sustain themselves through a profit motive. CBSPs offer demand-driven solutions for a range of products and services, including agriculture, livestock, health, nutrition, and sanitation. REGIS-ER has a network of over 900 CBSPs, up from 400 at the start of FY17. Collectively, they deliver products to over 62,000 clients, with sales exceeding 90,000,000 CFA francs (over $160,000) in 2017. The CBSPs include community relays for agriculture, horticulture, and crop protection, village poultry vaccinators, and veterinary auxiliaries, nursery managers, and community agents for village savings and loan groups, and health, nutrition, and sanitation relays. REGIS-ER provides support to strengthen the networks of CBSPs in three ways: vertical links (clustering) between CBSPs at the commune level and suppliers at the regional or national level, horizontal links (networking) among CBSPs for complementarity and exchanges about innovations and new business opportunities, and diversification to address client needs effectively and to profit from it. The Community-Based Solution Provider model provides more than just economic benefits. For many CBSPs, the social capital and trust earned within their communities is as valuable as the economic returns. The social capital and emphasis on local solutions embodied by the CBSP model contribute to the adoption of more resilient behaviors and technologies. A robust CBSP network enables a community to adapt at scale and spurs the community's transformation toward a resilient system. For example, Saleye Bamba, REGIS-ER's first female Agriculture Relay in Tillabery, has trained 950 producers from 24 villages in conservation farming and farmer-managed natural regeneration. She sells her technical services for composting, ripping, conservation farming technology, management of saving and loan groups, and agriculture inputs. Rahiba Aboubacar, a successful Community-Based Solution Provider in Angoual Manda, sells ready-made micro-nutrient rich flour and provides guidance to other mothers so that they can produce their own flour at home. Her clientele continues to grow because her reputation has spread far beyond the Mother-to-Mother group in her village. Rahiba's income is small, but in cash-poor rural Zinder, especially among women, she receives up to 30 clients a day and her daily revenue is around 1,250 CFA francs ($2.25) with a net profit of 7,500 CFA francs ($13.50) a month. This is an important cash flow that enables Rahiba to meet daily needs and save a little to cope with emergencies.