The Hunger Project’s Epicentre Strategy
In Africa, The Hunger Project’s methodology is implemented through epicentres: clusters of rural villages where women and men are mobilised to create and run their own programmes to meet basic needs. After several phases over a eight-year period, an epicentre becomes self-reliant, meaning it is able to fund its own activities and no longer requires further investment from The Hunger Project.
We have mobilised more than 100 epicentre communities in eight countries in Africa. Twenty of those epicentres are self-reliant.
The Epicentre Strategy is integrated and holistic. It achieves synergy among programmes in health (including HIV/AIDS prevention), education, adult literacy, nutrition, improved farming and food security, microfinance, water and sanitation, and building community spirit with a momentum of accomplishment involving the entire population.
It is economically sustainable. The primary resources for the strategy come from the local people themselves and by making existing local government resources more effective. Income generation is built into the strategy from the start. Within five years, our epicentres require no further financial support from The Hunger Project. They are entirely self-reliant.
The Epicentre Strategy is environmentally sustainable. People at our epicentres learn composting and small-scale, environmentally sound irrigation technologies such as drip irrigation.
At the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2005, The Hunger Project announced one of its most ambitious initiatives: to demonstrate that the Epicentre Strategy can be taken to full national scale. We have undertaken our first scale up programme in Ghana.
The results of the Epicentre Strategy are displayed in the below table:
| Before launching the epicentre strategy |
After the epicentre reaches self-reliance |
| People often live in dependency and resignation, with almost no hope for a better future. |
People are successful agents of their own development: motivated, confident, improving life every day. |
| People live in isolated small villages, divided by rivalries. |
People work together as a community that is large enough to be a viable economic unit. Leadership is established. |
| Women are the poorest, work the hardest, and have no voice in society. |
Women have equal leadership with men, and are key economic players in society. Many women run for local office and are elected. |
| There is no opportunity for women to become literate. |
All women participating in the credit programme must enroll in literacy and numeracy courses. |
| Government programmes never reach the people living in remote, isolated villages. |
The community has the confidence and strength in numbers to successfully demand services, such as roads and electricity. |
| People are poorly nourished, eating one meal per day and suffering seasonal hunger. |
People are adequately and well-nourished, and successfully manage their own food security through the community food bank. |
| Farmers raise a staple subsistence crop. |
Farming is diversified, improved and successful in the marketplace. People are cultivating vegetables and fish, and raising poultry and livestock. |
| The majority of children are not in school, particularly girls. |
Both girls and boys attend pre- and primary schools near their homes. There is a library filled with books. |
| People have no health care. Infant and maternal mortality rates (IMR and MMR) are tragically high. |
People have reliable health care. The MMR and IMR drop dramatically. |
| Fueled by gender inequality, HIV/AIDS is out of control. |
Both women and men are halting dangerous practices that spread HIV/AIDS. |
| Any cash that people have is idle. |
Through the bank, savings are mobilised as investment capital for community enterprises. |
| Men often migrate to the cities to find cash employment. |
There is a vibrant rural economy. Men begin returning to the community. |
