As a result of HRNS’s interventions, smallholder families are operating their farms as family businesses. All family members, whether male or female, older or younger, are aware of the advantages of gender equality and cooperation. They see themselves as equal partners in farming and other economic and household activities. They share opportunities and responsibilities.

Smallholder families develop a joint vision of how to improve their livelihoods, and all household members take proactive steps towards reaching it. By doing so, smallholder families improve their farming and business skills, increase their income and food security, and become successful business people. Natural resources are adequately used and protected. They are positively perceived in their communities and give examples to their peers.

Establishing and strengthening professional farmer organizations are important elements in reaching HRNS's vision of change. They are independent and self-driven and work beneficially for their members, offering increased access to markets and valuable services. We work to develop service-oriented, financially stable, and professionally managed organizations that act on behalf of their members. These organizations offer essential support services such as access to finance, inputs, information and training, ensuring proper post-harvest handling of crops, exercising quality controls, and promoting bulk marketing of farmers’ produce. They support their members’ economic and social interests in a transparent and business-oriented way. Over the years, HRNS has developed an approach that also integrates strong gender inclusion, youth representation, and generational transition at all organizational levels.

HRNS creates opportunities and professional perspectives for and with the youth in coffee regions. We promote them as key actors for thriving communities. Young men and women taking informed decisions about their livelihoods inspire other youth and actively contribute to advance the situation in their regions. They showcase the existence of rural employment and business development opportunities. HRNS’s interventions are aimed at developing social and technical capacities in farming practices and beyond of young men and women in addition to life skills. HRNS supports youth in identifying and pursuing job opportunities. With capacity-building programs young people also learn to recognize possibilities for self-employment. This enables them to use both on- and off-farm activities to develop themselves and earn their living. HRNS combines its expertise with other relevant partners to support the availability of the kind of youth-friendly services that are essential for making rural areas attractive to young people: family planning, health facilities, and education. With the support of older generations, structured processes for generational change in families, farmer organizations and their communities can make the regions better places for young people to build their lives.

HRNS enables smallholder families in coffee-producing regions to manage their farms and ecosystems in ways that make them resilient to climate change. First and foremost, smallholder families are supported to adopt climate-smart practices at both farm and household level.

Innovative adaptation and mitigation techniques to address the effects of climate change are developed, implemented, and shared by and within the smallholder community.

Farmer Organizations play an important role in combating the impacts of climate change by disseminating these technologies. Together with all relevant actors they become drivers in developing and executing joint action plans to make entire coffee regions climate resilient. As a result, smallholder farming systems can become embedded in thorough landscape management schemes. This goes beyond the community level as smallholder families form part of a global call for change. They understand that they play a critical role in assuring the future availability of healthy natural resources.

HRNS has made a long-term commitment to its work, which is deeply rooted in communities in coffee regions. We enjoy a high level of trust with smallholder families and farmer organizations. We are also committed to providing support during difficult times, e.g. periods of political instability. We will maintain our commitment for as long as conditions in the focus countries and regions allow field staff to continue to provide their services meaningfully.

We have a growing network of public and private partners, and a proven track record of successful interventions. We are a self-determined and independent organization with no commercial interests. We advocate for a holistic, long-term and context-appropriate socio-economic approach in coffee regions and build bridges between consuming and producing countries. This is needed to effectively address the complex challenges and opportunities of smallholder families.

HRNS supports coordinated learning globally through various formats including South-South Exchange activities. HRNS staff, partners, and beneficiaries connect and meet across regions and continents to learn from each other and to develop approaches further.

HRNS’s approaches are accompanied by a strong and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system (M&E). This includes own data collection as much as third party evaluations and cooperation with suited development research organizations. Together with our partners we are jointly learning from the results of these efforts. In this way, we ensure that our approaches remain needs-based and further develop.