Building local institutional capacity to improve food security: using the SATISFY approach

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of communities through the Systems Approach to Improve and Sustain Food Security (SATISFY) programme, an initiative that seeks to make rural communities in West Africa self-sufficient in food security, income-generation and health. In exploring the SATISFY initiative, the paper seeks to obtain a clear understanding of the milieu in which it can be carried out, the level and intensity of such interventions and also draw on the challenges and lessons learnt by stakeholders in the process of implementing the planned activities. The paper makes a very valuable contribution to the work of development practitioners and researchers alike by outlining key areas that make for interventions and strategies needed to ensure community participation in projects.