Burundi

The Graduation model is an innovative approach to addressing extreme poverty that includes skills training, access to financial services, and mentorship. In 2023, Concern Burundi launched Green Graduation, a variation on the Graduation model which reduces poverty through a lens of environmental sustainability. This includes approaches like disaster risk reduction (DRR) and Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). 

Green Graduation is one of several approaches Concern is taking in Burundi to bolster resilience, increase access to professional training, diversify funding sources, and better meet the specific needs of the communities we work with. This includes a focus on young entrepreneurship, as 65% of Burundians are under the age of 25.

With 80% of Burundians employed in the agriculture sector, climate response and resilience is a large component of Concern’s work in the country. As noted above, our livelihoods programs include a significant focus on climate, including Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) — a set of farming methods designed to increase the resilience and productivity of land affected by climate change. 

In Burundi, our climate response also includes a heavy focus on agroforestry — the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into farming and pastoral systems. This method comes with a host of benefits for the environment, which in Burundi include resilience to drought, flooding, and irregular weather patterns.

All of Concern’s programmes operate through a gender-transformative lens, meaning that our projects and responses not only aim to correct the imbalances driven by gender inequality, but also work to address the specific root causes of these imbalances. Our work with Burundian youth, particularly through our young entrepreneurship program, included significant education and advocacy work as well as a shared commitment between programme participants (especially men) to prevent gender-based violence (GBV). We are developing similar activities for the Green Graduation program. 

In Burundi, our gender equality work also includes a psychosocial component to address the inordinate amount of unpaid domestic labor traditionally left for women and girls to complete. We have established Care Groups and “Husband Schools” that address these imbalances, as well as those found within family health and nutrition. Our goal is to ensure that women have the home and community support systems they need to help one another, while helping men and boys become better allies for gender equality within these communities.