The Kore Lavi program
The Kore Lavi program has developed and launched an effective and affordable system for making staple and fresh food products available to selected household-based beneficiaries according to their ranking on the Haitian Deprivation and Vulnerability Index (HDVI). The purpose of this system is to put in place a voucher-based social safety net model; so that the extremely targeted vulnerable households can have access to – at least – a diversified meal, consequently reduce health care costs, and even save lives in certain circumstances. In addition to providing staple foods, access to fresh foods is being promoted by the program to improve nutrition and promote local production, involving small vendors, especially women.
Under the leadership of CARE Haiti, the program is currently using both paper and electronic vouchers. The latter is used in locations, which have access to banking and wire transfer services with sufficient mobile phone coverage. Paper vouchers are used primarily to access fresh food markets and in remote areas when necessary. The program works toward the long-term vision that all the vouchers will eventually be electronic, and voucher recipients in remote areas will be able to redeem vouchers without unreasonable opportunity costs.
The changes
For staple food vendors
- Better income and capital: 4-5 times improvement in working capital (up to $4,500). 96% of vendors said that their incomes have gone up. More than half of vendors say their sales have at least doubled.
- Better business practices: Vendors are likely to have bank accounts, keep records, and use sound business practices. 80% of vendors have grown the amount of storage space they have for commodities.
- Better, more diverse food: 92% of vendors have increased the quantity of stock they keep, and 76% purchase food more often from local and regional markets. 44% of vendors are stocking more diverse commodities than before.
- More businesses: 56% of vendors see that they have seen new sellers enter the market to sell more diverse, local commodities.
For fresh food vendors
- More profitable businesses: 96% of fresh food vendors saw their profits increased, and 32% said that they doubled or higher.
- Better sales: 91% of vendors say that their sales have grown significantly, especially in the areas of vegetables and meat (74% saw growth here).
- Better food stocks: 85% of vendors said that they diversified their food stocks, and 70% said they’re using better hygiene conditions.
- More jobs: 43% of fresh food vendors have hired additional labor to help with their businesses—creating needed jobs in the community.
- Healthier families: 72% of vendors use their extra resources to feed their families, and 24% are using the profits to send their kids to school.
For food producers
- More, better production: 43% of food producers said they have increased their production to respond to market demand. 57% have diversified their crops to cover items in the food basket.
- Better sales: 66% of farmers say that it’s easier to sell their produce than it was before the program.
- Improved inputs: 56% of farmers use the money they are earning to buy better seeds. And 62% said they have acquired new/better tools. Many farmers have also invested in new land to grow diverse crops.
- More farmers: 55% of farmers say that they’ve seen more people investing in farming, or in new crops so they can source to Kore Lavi vendors.
- More jobs: 61% of farmers have now hired labor to meet demand, getting jobs into the economy.
The approaches
- Increase demand: Kore Lavi provides vouchers to the most vulnerable households so they can meet 20% of their monthly food needs.
- Promoting local products: The vouchers can only be used for local foods, so this promotes production. 58% of staple vendors and 96% of fresh food vendors buy in their local markets. 50% of staple food vendors sometimes buy in regional markets when products are less accessible.
- Using VSLAs to access credit: 38% of fresh food vendors and 50% of staple vendors are using credit from VSLAs to expand their business.
What we’ve learned
- Fresh and staple vendors are very different: Fresh food vendors have roughly 1% of the working capital compared to staple food vendors. They have less access to regional markets, and are much more likely to use their profits to feed their families. This implies that fresh food vendors are poorer and more vulnerable than the staple vendors.
- Impact on non-beneficiaries: 93% of vendors sell to non-Kore Lavi participants, as well as voucher recipients. Especially for fresh foods, there is a perception among government officials that the vouchers are allowing beneficiaries to crowd out non-beneficiaries during the first few weeks of each month as they use their vouchers. So while the overall impact may be negligible, the vouchers could be causing fluctuations in price and access for non-beneficiaries in a cyclical way.
- Payments are delayed, and the cost gets passed to beneficiaries: 15% of vendors admit to charging higher prices to voucher holders than to those who pay in cash. They say this is a way to compensate for the fact that their payments are often delayed and they have to take out credit to cover needs while waiting for payments from Kore Lavi.