SAFE+ Adressera bränslebehov, miljöförstöring och matsäkerhet Cox's Bazar

The SAFE Plus programme was conceived to mitigate the environmental, protection, health, and socioeconomic impacts of the Rohingya crisis. The programme aimed to support 100,000 Rohingya households and 25,000 host community households with cooking fuel (Liquified Petroleum Gas LPG), on and offfarm livelihoods support, reforestation of 2,000 hectares of land in host communities, and stabilizing 500 hectares of vulnerable land terrains in the camps. Three UN agencies FAO, IOM and WFP implemented the programme leveraging their comparative advantages in an integrated programming approach. The first phase of the SAFE Plus programme was implemented from January 2019 to June 2022, and achieved the following results: Objective 1: Targeted households, especially women headed and vulnerable households have monthly decreased expenditures related to firewood purchase Targeted households, especially women-headed and vulnerable households, have monthly decreased expenditures related to firewood purchases and increased nutritional intake for household members. To address cooking fuel needs, SAFE Plus consistently distributed LPG refills to 124,550 Rohingya and host community (host community was phased out in 2022) households where 67,175 households with extremely vulnerable individuals were supported with porter support. The end evaluation indicated that expenditure linked to cooking fuel was decreased with 100% in all targeted Rohingya households and with 80% in the vulnerable host community households. Throughout the project period, a sustainable provision of cooking fuel greatly reduced the need for foraging for firewood by the Rohingya and host community. The move from firewood to LPG as cooking fuel has had a range of positive impacts, including for the environment and decreased emission of CO2, but also the health of users who no longer need to breathe in smoke when cooking indoors, and decreasing SGBV risks for women and girls as they no longer need to collect firewood. Using the CO2 emission factor firewood in Bangladesh and LPG, a reduction of 586% of CO2 emission was visible among the Rohingya households and 111% reduction of CO2 emission in the host communities thanks to the distribution and use of LPG rather than firewood as cooking fuel. Objective 2: Vulnerable households in host communities, especially women and girls, are more resilient through increased income 1,440 farmers (506 women) received training on innovative climate-sensitive agriculture, high-value crop production, postharvest processing, and value addition, and received input support. 16,000 farmers comprised of 798 producer groups were capacitated through training on technology, financial literacy, market-linkage, and 40 local service providers were trained and equipped to extend their support to the farmers on improved farming practices. 6,352 vulnerable host community households were provided livelihood training (tailoring, vegetable production, dry fish production, fish farming, wall painting, mobile servicing, small business, poultry rearing, livestock rearing, handicraft) and given input to perform the income generation. The end evaluation identified the average income of the host community households participating in the project activities increased to BDT 16,320 per month, which is 23% more than the baseline figure. Once the host community beneficiaries started producing additional food commodities as a result of the skills training, provision of inputs and other support, linkages were made between facilities of these beneficiaries with the suppliers of WFP food shops. The WFP food shops started procuring commodities from host communities and made these available in fresh food corners of the Rohingya camps. This indirectly supported social cohesion efforts. Objective 3: Rohingya households have basic knowing in homestead gardening, tailoring, baking and basket weaving 7,042 Rohingya women were provided mentoring and self-reliance support on a number of skills, including homestead vegetable gardening, aquaculture and tailoring. Mentoring activities had significant influence on the beneficiaries' ability and resilience. Training on vegetable gardening helped the Rohingya households grow fresh vegetables which they could then consume. The end evaluation found that around 90% of the Rohingya beneficiaries reported having gained knowledge from the mentoring activities. Mentoring activities enhanced Rohingya women's confidence and income generating skills. However, the self-reliance activities faced a long-term delay in the implementation due to the government restrictions on such activities in the camps as well as suspensions of activities during the Covid19 pandemic. During this period, beneficiaries engaged in mask-making and 700,000 masks were produced by 84 Rohingya beneficiaries through the SAFE Plus programme. Objective 4: Negative environmental impacts are mitigated through land/forest rehabilitation The environment was restored through land stabilization, restoration and erosion control, slope stabilisation, and reforestation of damaged areas. A total of 2,000 Ha of land were planted in 1,016 sites in the host communities and 313 Ha of land was stabilized in the camps using 2.9 million seedlings. The average survival percentage of the seedlings was 81%. While 100% of the target was restored outside the camps, only 63% of the target was successfully restored inside the camps. Challenges to achieve the target inside the camps were mainly due to Covid19 restrictions and a decrease in the available areas for plantation due to the closure of two camps. Despite these challenges, the activities contributed to increasing the vegetative coverage and reduced landslide vulnerability. 20 Government nurseries and 64 private nurseries were supported, enabling them to produce three million high-quality indigenous seedlings per year. This has increased profits, contributing to ecosystem restoration, mitigating the impacts of climate change and protecting the livelihoods of forest-dependent host communities. For the first time in Cox's Bazar, a floral biodiversity assessment was conducted. This has supported the Forest Department in determining the list of species for the rehabilitation of degraded forest land, inside and outside the camps, and the established nurseries are now producing the selected seedlings. With the support of the Forest Department and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the project also developed guidelines for spatial monitoring and reporting tools for hill and plain land forest areas. The land stabilisation, forest rehabilitation and nursery activities also provided Cash for Work opportunities, even exceeding the target, and thereby improving environmental friendly livelihoods opportunities.

Goal: Contribute to the overall food and nutrition security, empowerment and resilience of 125,000 refugee and host community households in Cox's Bazar Objective 1: Targeted households, especially women headed and vulnerable households have monthly decreased expenditures related to firewood purchase Objective 2: Vulnerable households in host communities, especially women and girls, are more resilient through increased income  Objective 3: Rohingya households have basic knowing in homestead gardening, tailoring, baking and basket weaving Objective 4: Negative environmental impacts are mitigated through land/forest rehabilitation