ABOUT US
We are an international development organization putting ingenious ideas to work so people in poverty can change their world.
We do things differently, so answers that start small can grow big – bringing people together in bold collaborations, combining knowledge and innovation to help shape a world that works better for everyone.
We help people find solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems. Challenges made worse by catastrophic climate change and persistent gender inequality. We work with communities to develop ingenious, lasting and locally owned solutions for agriculture, water and waste management, climate resilience and clean energy. And we share what works with others, so answers that start small can grow
big.
We’re a global change-making group. The group consists of a UK registered charity with community projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, an independent development publishing company and a technical consulting service. We combine these specialisms to multiply our impact and help shape a world that works better for everyone.

OUR AIMS
We help people find solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems, made worse by catastrophic climate change and persistent gender inequality. Our aims are to:
• Make agriculture work better for smallholder farmers, many of them women, so they can adapt to climate change and achieve a good standard of living
• Help more people harness the transformational effects of clean affordable energy and reduce avoidable deaths caused by smoke from indoor stoves and fires.
• Make cities in poorer countries cleaner, healthier places to live and work.
• Build disaster resilience into the lives of people threatened by hazards – reducing the risk of hazards and minimizing their impact on lives and livelihoods.

HOW WE WORK
We work on holistic solutions that change systems and have a framework to help us achieve our aims:
• Analyze the root causes of a poverty and vulnerability
• Define the change at scale we need to make
• Develop activities along three complementary paths: Demonstrate, Learn and Inspire.
• Demonstrate that our solutions are sustainable in the real world
• Learn by capturing evidence and adapting our approach
• Inspire wider support to multiply our impact.

OUR ORGANISATION
Practical Action is an unconventional, multi-disciplinary, change-making organization
• A highly innovative community development charity operating in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Practical Action community projects use ingenious ideas to design, test, refine and prove new ways to overcome poverty and disadvantage and then ‘open-source’ knowledge of what works so that it can be implemented at a greater scale by others.
• A world-class consulting operation that helps socially responsible business, government policy makers and other development organizations. This draws on learnings from our own development work as well as the combined brainpower of a roster of over 2,000 expert consultants. Practical Action Consulting helps to extend the reach of our influence by providing the best advice to others, whose work can make a bigger difference.
• A well-respected specialist development publisher. Practical Action Publishing brings together development practitioners, researchers and thought leaders to create publications that stimulate discussion, strengthen peoples’ capabilities and inspire sustainable change.

ABOUT OUR WORK IN WEST AFRICA
In the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), two-thirds of the population make their living working in agriculture. About 90% are smallholder farmers with an average plot size below 1 ha, who depend mainly on agriculture for subsistence and often live below the poverty line. In urban areas, zones at highest risk of flooding and extreme heat tend to be settled by low-income households (from rural exodus), often informally. Each rainy season brings reports of dozens dead and thousands displaced by floods. The frequency and severity of extreme weather events appear to be on the increase.
The ever-growing urban population along with climate change exert an increasing and tremendous pressure on energy and food security as well as livelihoods in the region.
Strengthening climate resilience– the ability to adapt to long term climate changes and to anticipate and recover well from shorter term climate shocks including droughts and floods - is a major objective of governments in West Africa.
Practical Action West Africa is working with smallholder farmers and urban communities to strengthen their resilience to climate related risks through access to information and knowledge services that effectively reach “the last mile" and through generating evidence to
improve local planning, governance and investment in resilience. We expect to see improvements in the management of livelihoods risk, land use planning and in the effectiveness of early warning systems and disaster preparedness. In tandem with the climate
resilience agenda led by this role we work on energy for adaptation. In this work we expect to see farmers, livestock owners, fishers and other small business owners with access to sufficient energy to produce, transform and store their products in a way which earns them higher incomes, and improves their living standards.
We deliver influence, innovation and impact through direct community programming, technical assistance consulting and through the intentional and targeted use of knowledge.
For the 2025-30 timeframe, we aim for our work in the region to expand in more countries in the ECOWAS region and to revolve around:
• Facilitating donors, governments and other institutions to improve their understanding and uptake of the best suited technologies and approaches for increasing climate resilience.
• Working with private sector and others to improve and ensure understanding of the complexity agricultural market systems and the role that energy access and information systems can play to strengthen resilience and improve lives and livelihoods, from small agri- businesses to the poorest and most marginalized.
• Catalyzing positive change using technologies to build more equitable, sustainable and resilient systems that deliver on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable.
• Evidence gathering in collaboration with businesses, experts, universities, governments and others on what works, what doesn’t and how to replicate and scale successful business models.


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