ZERS is a new program that implements a key component of FTF and will be a five year USAID poverty reduction initiative under the Zambia Country Development Cooperation Development Objective 2 (Reducing rural poverty in targeted areas) starting in 2011. The project will foster economic resilience that reduces poverty and food insecurity by improving the capacity of households to respond to shock, build assets, and improve nutritional and basic health practices. ZERS will enhance coping skills, build assets, and increase rural incomes for 50,000 vulnerable and poor households in Eastern Province, thereby significantly contributing to Millennium Development Goal 1 of halving the proportion of Zambians living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger by 2015. ZERS will be a core activity in implementing U.S. President Obama?s Feed the Future (FTF) global hunger and food security initiative in Zambia. ZERS will aim primarily to increase economic resilience by improving food security and nutrition in vulnerable households through implementing interventions that reduce the number of hunger months, improve nutrition and health practices, and increase the value of household assets and the ability of households to productively use those assets. The geographic focus is in Eastern Province, with the possibility of scaling up successful interventions to other provinces. The ZERS program indicates the need to consider HIV/AIDS as a cause of vulnerability and poverty, and to develop components to address actions consistent with AB guidelines.ZERS HIV/AIDS AB activities will be in several principal areas:

Dissemination of AB messaging materials in appropriate community entry points at ZERS project sites and Integration of AB and OP messaging with ZERS activities.

Orphans and Vulnerable Children (HKID) are defined as children who have lost a parent to HIV/AIDS, who are otherwise directly affected by the disease, or who live in areas of high HIV prevalence and may be vulnerable to the disease or its socioeconomic effectsas stated in the Hyde-Lantos Act that reauthorized PEPFAR in 2008. Support for orphans and vulnerable children and their households, is integral to the efforts of the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). To support vulnerable children, ZERS will prioritize family strengthening approaches that reinforce families long-term caring capacities as the basis of a sustainable response to children affected by HIV/AIDS. Included under the rubric of ?family strengthening are interventions that boost household economic and food security, improve child/family access to health care and schooling, and encourage healthy parent-child relationships. Families in turn rely on safe and supportive communities to thrive. Therefore HKID funds also support building the capacity of local community structures to respond to children and families in need.

ZERS seeks to increase and diversify agricultural production of targeted households by building essential skills such as sustainable production and innovation in order to provide foundation for increased income and market engagement and improved health and nutrition practices. One of the key activities will be the use of DiNERs - adapted from CRS seed fairs and vouchers approach to support private sector linkages between rural communities and commercial seed suppliers. 6,000 vulnerable households, specifically those with PLW and CU2, will receive vouchers to purchase diverse seeds, roots, tubers and livestock to diversify agricultural production for improved nutrition and increased resilience. Sustainable production and innovation trainings will be conducted for 20,000 households, supported by 500 lead farmers.

ZERS will improve health and nutritional status of targeted households, including women, men and youth, through adoption of the Care Group Model to promote adoption of positive health and nutrition behaviors and consumption of nutrient-dense, high-protein foods with focus on preventing malnutrition among PLW and children under two. Care Group Volunteers will support Essential Nutrition Actions at minimum for all households in targeted communities with PLW and children under 2. Community Agriculture and Nutrition Action Networks, comprised of neighborhood health committees, community leaders, agricultural field agents and health promoters, will review data collected by care group volunteers to discuss and identify community solutions for addressing food and nutrition gaps.

To increase income and productive assets, ZERS will build the financial assets of 20,000 households through participation in savings and internal lending communities (SILCs). Through participation in SILCs and introduction to business and marketing skills, 100 producer groups representing 10,000 households will engage with markets, specifically horticulture, legume and maize value chains.

The ZERSs HIV/AIDS prevention activities will be focusing in three areas: dissemination of Abstinence/Be Faithful messaging materials in appropriate community entry points, integration of Abstinence/Be Faithful messaging with male circumcision efforts and integration of Abstinence/Be Faithful messaging with couples counseling and testing efforts sensitization to the risk posed by HIV/AIDS; training of Awareness Educators (AE); dissemination of HIV/AIDS prevention messages and literature; and workplace Program design and implementation.

Sensitization involves working with private sector associations and firms to help company management understand and appreciate the risks posed by HIV/AIDS. This will include risks to the health of their workforce as well as the impact of HIV/AIDS on the companys productivity and competiveness. ZERS will build on the successes of MATEP that worked with Zambia Export Growers Association (ZEGA), the Hotel and Catering Association of Zambia (HCAZ) and the Zambia Chamber of Small and Medium Business Associations (ZCSMBA) in sensitizing staff and mobilizing companies for HIV/AIDS activities. Training of Trainers (TOT) and training of Awareness Educators (AE) among the workplace of participating companies will focus on providing the information and skills necessary for delivery of HIV/AIDS prevention messages including messages on gender based violence, multiple concurrent partnerships, and alcohol abuse as drivers of HIV, and social norms that put women and men at risk, to the full workforce of a company. The TOT program will enable the partner associations and firms to continue AE trainings in their workplace even after the close of the project. As the final part of AE training, roll-out programs for delivering the HIV/AIDS messages and literature to co-workers will be developed. These roll-out programs will be coordinated with company Human Resources managers, ensuring that programs stay on track, message delivery is effective and monitoring data is properly collected and used for decision making. ZERSs HIV/AIDS program rollout will be expanded to include surrounding communities where workers and the ultra-poor live. The final activity is workplace program design and implementation. This will involve developing Workplace Codes of Conduct covering HIV/AIDS, sexual harassment, and sector specific workplace policy models, and working with the associations, communities and companies in adapting and implementing the policies for their communities.

Other prevention (OP) activities will target the most at-risk populations for HIV in Eastern province which include: vulnerable and poor households by integrating HIV prevention activities with economic resilience activities to improve food security and economic status of these groups. Among ZERS target groups the OP activities of ZERS will focus 1) partners of persons who practice casual heterosexual acts; 2) persons who practice casual heterosexual acts; 3) persons in stable sexual relationships, including marriages; and 4) babies born to HIV+ mothers at household, community and work places.

Each of these groups are seen as struggling with stigma and discrimination specific to their risky behaviors thus sexual prevention interventions for the target group of ZERS: vulnerable and poor rural households, the vulnerable yet viable, as well as the very poor will be implemented through the use of community level agricultural and health personnel. The community level personnel will integrate sexual HIV prevention activities with the economic resilience strategies in vulnerable households and determine the level of vulnerability to HIV in relation to their specific vulnerability. The ZERS project focus of fostering economic resilience and improving the capacity of households to respond to shock will be used as an opportunity at community and households levels to identify vulnerable individuals, families and group to HIV/AIDS assist the project in designing sexual prevention interventions. A general HIV risk assessment tool can be adapted by agricultural and health personnel at community levels to capture different vulnerabilities to HIV and socioeconomic issues.

The use of tools will help in disaggregating information about the target which will in turn enable ZERS to implement OP activities which will not only prevent new HIV infections in ZERS targeted households, families, groups, but also protect those who might already be positive and beneficiaries in ZERS project. The activities will also protect those who are negative but vulnerable to HIV infection due to their gender, age, economic status or their physical or mental disability