J.15 SPC Final Factsheet.pdf

Mexico

SUSTAINABLE PROSPEROUS COMMUNITIES (SPC)

2021 – 2026/ $30,000,000 USD

The Sustainable Prosperous Communities (SPC) Activity seeks to increase the number of hectares under sustainable and profitable productive systems with access to markets, contributing to reduce deforestation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while improving livelihoods of smallholder producers.

Lack of economic opportunities from sustainable land use incentivizes environmentally detrimental sources of rural income and jobs. Harmful practices include expansive monoculture agriculture and low productivity ranching the main drivers of forest conversion-significantly increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and threatening biodiversity in Southern Mexico. Unsustainable land management practices, combined with depressed incomes and few economic opportunities for rural communities, extreme weather events, and contradictory public policies are expected to increase pressure on Mexico’s natural landscapes and harm the region’s environmental, social, cultural, and economic wellbeing. To stop these negative trends, local communities need access to economic opportunities built to value standing forest and incentivize sustainable practices that contribute to protect and restore Mexico’s natural capital.

OUR GOAL

USAID, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and a consortium of partners, will strengthen the capacity of smallholder producers to transition to sustainable and profitable productive practices, and to access markets along selected value chains. In addition, the Activity will develop financial products tailored to smallholder producer needs and build their capacity to access finance to drive sustainability, innovation, and scale to reach markets.

WHO WILL BENEFIT

● Smallholder producers of Southern Mexico: farmers and foresters who are currently operating under structural constraints, such as access to sub-optimal amounts of resources, technology, and market capacity/access.

● Ethical market actors: private sector buyers of Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land-Use products with commitments to improve sustainability along their value chains.

KEY EXPECTED RESULTS

● 40,000 people with improved livelihoods

● 350,000 hectares under improved management equivalent to 2.4 times the area of Mexico City

● 750,000 tons of CO2 equivalent reduced or avoided during the lifetime of the activity, equivalent to the emissions generated by driving 160,000 cars in one year 1

● $60,000,000 USD resources mobilized

Assuming that a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Source:

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle

GEOGRAPHICAL AND VALUE CHAIN

FOCUS:

The Activity will focus on four landscapes: Calakmul (states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatan), Sierra Madre de Chiapas (Chiapas), Selva Lacandona (Chiapas), and Sierra Sur (Oaxaca); and six anchor value chains:

timber, cattle ranching (for dairy and beef), coffee, cocoa, honey, and ecotourism. The Activity will also develop opportunities to diversify income around these anchor value chains.

HOW WE WORK:

● Strengthening the social capital and technical capacities to adopt sustainable practices: Through learning communities, we will connect smallholders’ producers through the encounter and dialogue of traditional knowledge in spaces for innovation where exchanges and dissemination of knowledge, good practices, technology, and information occur. A trainer-to-trainer program will be implemented to promote smallholder producer capacity-building to adopt sustainable productive practices oriented to markets at scale.

● Promoting access to ethical access to markets: We will work to build smallholder organizations’ skills and capacities in leadership, management, marketing, quality, and logistics to participate in business models, as well as facilitate access to markets by engaging directly with buyers. This work will be facilitated by digital solutions offering access to markets, data-sharing, and analysis among market stakeholders.

● Improving access to financial services for smallholder producers and mobilizing additional resources to the landscapes: The Activity will develop new financial products and services tailored to smallholder producers needs and design incentives for financial institutions to attend underserved populations.

Financial education and technical assistance will facilitate access to financial services. Access to financial services will be key to enable access to markets. In addition, the Activity will mobilize resources from different sources to catalyze impact at scale.

● Alignment of activities at landscape scale: The activity components integration at territorial scale is fundamental, for which the strengthening of alliances with key partners, ejidos, communities, producer groups and community enterprises is one of the cross-cutting actions of the project that will allow differentiated activities for each area of intervention.

● Articulation between strategies and at landscape level: The activity will combine the generation of capacities of small producers to produce in an environmentally sustainable and market-oriented manner, articulating the needs and interests of buyers and sellers, as well as facilitating access to financing.