What is the FXBVillage model?

The FXBVillage model is a holistic approach to poverty reduction that has been in place since 1991. It aims to simultaneously address the factors that underlie this situation: economic poverty, malnutrition, lack of access to health care, lack of access to education and information in the broadest sense of the term, and unsanitary housing and environment.

Destitute people face a variety of complex challenges such as malnutrition, lack of safe drinking water, limited access to education and information, disease, poor housing and environmental conditions, social discrimination and exclusion, and adverse climatic conditions.

Poverty is multidimensional. It would be a mistake to address only the issue of income! Partial aid, addressing only one of the causes of poverty, is not a sufficient solution to overcome it.

The FXBVillage model was based on the Public Health Paradigm taught by the late Dr. Jonathan Mann of Harvard University, which emphasizes the inextricable link between health and human rights. Mann’s paradigm proved that in public health there can be no sustainable impact unless the social and cultural factors that heighten disease risk and prevent people from having basic, essential rights are addressed simultaneously.

The only true way to break the cycle of extreme poverty is through a holistic model. By adding a key link to Mann’s approach (i.e., providing business training and a seed capital that enables people in poverty to build an Income Generating Activity (IGA) for long-term sustainability), FXB translated Mann’s public health paradigm into a development paradigm.

The five pillars of the FXBVillage model

The FXBVillage, our holistic poverty reduction model enables us to provide a comprehensive response by addressing simultaneously the factors that underlie this situation, through 5 axes:

1. Economic empowerment
2. Access to food security
3. Access to health care
4. Access to education and information
5. Healthy housing and environment

Each of our FXBVillage programs groups between 80 and 100 families (between 500 and 700 people) who will receive degressive support, for three years, in our 5 areas of intervention: the time needed to move from a situation of extreme poverty to sustainable economic and social autonomy.

The fundamental pillar of our model is economic strengthening.

Its main innovation is the donation of seed capital – in lieu of a loan – to enable the economic strengthening of families participating in FXBVillage programs. This small capital – combined with business management and financial literacy training – given to participants in the first year of the program will enable them to start Income Generating Activities (IGA/microenterprises) and facilitate their financial inclusion without worrying about having a loan to repay. FXB’s financial support is decreasing as families become more economically independent. Indeed, the newly created microenterprises enable families to gradually obtain sufficient income to meet their daily needs and continue to prosper after the end of the program. It should be noted that the issue of microcredit is addressed as early as the second year for the development or diversification of IGA/microenterprises.

Along with economic strengthening, FXB ensures that every member of the families it supports has access to their basic human rights through four other pillars: food security, access to education and critical health and social information, access to adequate health services, and healthy home and environment.

For FXB, fighting against poverty also means fighting against all forms of discrimination in general and gender discrimination in particular, in order to balance relations between men and women so that the latter, who are more exposed to poverty, can access the same economic and social opportunities.

With this proven, comprehensive and integrated approach, participants in FXBVillage programs can protect and nurture their children, make a positive impact on their communities and live a dignified life in their country.

The strength of our action: ensuring global capacity building

All dimensions of the FXBVillage program have been designed to ensure the sustainability of impacts. Rather than creating dependency on external aid, FXB builds capacity.

Everyone, through their work and commitment, ensures the sustainability of the results on their quality of life.

At the heart of the system is the human being: we help each person who participates in our programs to express the potential that is within him or her. Thus, as our intervention progresses and the ability to meet the needs of one’s family grows stronger, FXB’s financial support gradually decreases.

The strength of our intervention: sustainable cooperation

Almost all of the people (98%) working on FXB programs, regardless of job level, are community professionals. Our impact thus extends far beyond program participants: to their families, local teams and the broader community.

We deploy our methodology by working in collaboration with regional stakeholders and the local associative fabric in order to adapt our programs to social, cultural, economic and political realities without duplicating local assistance.

FXBVillage programs have lifted 10 people out of poverty every day for the past 30 years.

Evaluated impact

Throughout the three years of the program, field teams visit each participating family several times a month. Diagnostics of the evolution of the beneficiaries’ situation, based on a sophisticated monitoring and evaluation system, are carried out regularly.

These analyses allow for adaptive management to meet the specific needs of beneficiaries, identify areas requiring special attention and thus promote continuous improvement of our programs.

In parallel, since the early 2000s, the impact of the FXBVillageFXB model has been regularly evaluated by external organisations such as: Human Sciences Research Council (South Africa), Oxford Poverty & Human development Initiative (UK), researchers from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Harvard (USA) or by Le Group’ – Consultants Mutualisés Experts du Secteur Solidaire (France).

Find out more about external evaluations about the FXBVillage Model.