#ifadland – Outcomes of the Nairobi workshop on strengthening land tenure security

By Harold Liversage and Steven Jonckheere

Last week in Nairobi, Kenya, IFAD and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) hosted a regional workshop on securing land and natural resource tenure to reduce poverty and enhance agricultural development. The workshop was very well attended and came up with a clear way forward. IFAD and GLTN will continue working together to develop practical tools for strengthening land and natural resource rights in IFAD-supported projects and programmes, while at the same time contributing to broader national, regional and international processes and policy dialogue.

People from 20 African nations gather for a group photo
at the land tenure security workshop in Nairobi.

GLTN is a global network that develops tools and approaches for securing land and natural resource rights. It brings together a range of practitioners, including surveyors, lawyers and representatives of civil society organisations, universities and governments. The GLTN Secretariat is housed in UN Habitat and is a member of the International Land Coalition (ILC).

As the Nairobi workshop demonstrated, GLTN is helping IFAD to strengthen lesson learning from the wealth of experience of IFAD-supported projects and programmes. In addition, it is supporting the further development of appropriate tools and approaches to strengthen land and natural resource rights for the benefit of these projects and others.

Land policy implementers

About 80 people attended the workshop, which took place from 29 to 31 May. Approximately 55 participants came from IFAD-supported projects and programmes, mainly in East and Southern Africa but also from West and Central Africa (specifically, from Ghana, the Gambia, Guinea and Burkina Faso). The rest came from civil society groups, farmers’ organisations, private sector enterprises, government departments and inter-governmental organisations more directly involved in land policy implementation.

Some of the notable regional and international organisations in attendance were the Joint Secretariat of the African Land Policy Framework and Guidelines initiative (known as the Land Policy Initiative, or LPI), the East African Farmers Federation (EAFF), the ILC Africa Platform, the Regional Centre for Mapping Resources for Development (RCMRD) and the International Federation of Surveyors (FIGS).

Five sub-themes were chosen for the workshop:

• Mapping land and natural resources use and tenure
• Group rights
• Women’s land rights
• Land and water tenure
• Inclusive business models and land and natural resource tenure.

Various projects were asked to make presentations in both plenary and smaller group discussions. IFAD-Africa and Procasur also made a presentation on the use of knowledge management tools. On the last day, many workshop participants attended and highly appreciated a visit to the offices of RCMRD.

Follow-up actions

There was a general agreement among participants that the overall theme and topics were highly relevant for their work, and we think people were highly engaged in the discussions. UN Habitat and other GLTN partners were particularly impressed by the work being done by IFAD-supported projects and programmes.

Although the sub-themes were considered relevant, some participants proposed that the interface between micro-finance and land tenure should also be examined and that some of the sub-themes could be revised or better defined. For example, they said, the issue of group rights is not just about rangeland and forests, and the discussion of women’s land rights should be broadened to look at targeting poor and vulnerable groups, which include women and youth.

The workshop closed with a set of short- and long-term follow-up actions. Some will be undertaken by participants on their own initiative, and others will be followed up by IFAD and GLTN. A report on the workshop proceedings will be available by the end of June and will be posted on our land page in the Rural Poverty Portal, and elsewhere.

Many thanks to everyone involved in making the Nairobi workshop a success.

Harold Liversage is the regional land advisor and Steven Jonckheere is the land and natural resources associate for IFAD in East and Southern Africa.

Progress achieved and future goals for IFAD-FO partnerships at national and regional levels: East and Southern Africa

This was a parallel regional working group session, that took place on Monday, 20 February 2012.
IFAD is currently providing financing to 19 countries in East and Southern Africa (ESA), for a total of USD 1.12 billion. Most of this funding is provided to sovereign governments, to implement investments in the rural sector which will benefit small holder farmers, fishers, herders and rural folk engaged in off-farm employment. As highlighted by Geoffrey Livingston, Regional Economist at IFAD, if these investments are to be effective, the participation of farmers, fishers and herders, directly and through their respective organizations is essential. Although these partnerships are growing stronger, Geoffrey highlights that there is still enormous space for improvement.
What are these FOs/RFOs and what are they doing?
Experience was shared by Stephen Muchiri , CEO of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF – see http://eaffu.org ). EAFF is a sub-Regional Farmer that strives to promote the interests of farmers within the region on various issues, including markets, productivity, capacity building and regional integration. Membership is voluntary and is currently approximately 20 million farmers. EAFF has a wide range of partnerships, including research organizations, NGOs, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), other RFOs, etc. Stephen highlighted the important policy role played by EAFF – both at the regional and at the national levels. This has included budget tracking, developing positions on controversial issues such as GMOs and land-grabbing, drafting policies.
CAPAD, as we are told by Annick Sezibera, is a confederation of 26 130 households cultivating crops (such as coffee, tea, cotton, oil palm) in Burundi. CAPAD offers its members services related to technical assistance; improving access to inputs and finance; support the post-harvesting; and dialogue with policy makers. The IFAD - CAPAD partnership began in 2009, through the IFAD/EC co-funded SFOAP "Programme To Support Farmers' Organizations in Africa." Thanks to this programme, the capacities of grassroots members were strengthened, particularly with regard to governance and financial management, and this has helped improve visibility, legitimacy and strengthen partnerships with other FOs.
With regard to the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU – see http://www.sacau.org ), its vision is promoting a vibrant, prosperous and sustainable farming sector that ensures food security and contributes to economic growth in Southern Africa. In terms of core membership, it has 16 general interest FOs in 12 countries. It focuses on policy advocacy regional, global and continental matters; strengthening of capacity of farmers’ organisations; provision of agriculture-related information to members and stakeholders; and 3 cross-cutting areas, namely gender, HIV/AIDS and the environment.
How has IFAD been working with the FOs? And what are the areas for improvement?
It emerged that Regional Farmers’ Organizations (RFOs) are playing an increasingly more important role in the development of country-based IFAD strategies. RFOs are participating in project design processes, supervision, and monitoring and evaluation. In certain instances, RFOs are implementers and service providers for IFAD-funded projects.
Claus Reiner, IFAD CPM for Rwanda, highlighted that the support that IFAD can provide is important to ensure that the FO is taken seriously in the role that the members want to play, and making it responsive to their needs.
How do we expand and systematize some of these best practices within the division? What new practices/rules of engagement should we consider? Some suggestion were brought to the table yesterday (but of course the beauty of blogging is that this conversation can go on…. ):
• Clear guidelines for engagement with FOs, identifying suitable ways to work directly with the FOs.
• IFAD could promote a platform for engagement.
• IFAD could help to capitalise on good practices developed in the various countries –e.g., promoting South-South cooperation and KM.
• IFAD should consider lengthening the project duration of grants (required to put together the required infrastructure)
ESA is a big region. 20 million farmers may sound like a lot, but they make up for only 10% of all farmers. So these RFOs are really still quite weak in terms of representation. Greater involvement of RFOs in IFAD-funded investments are real win-win-win situations. It can result in better targeting, and more relevant programmes. This greatly benefits the host country government, IFAD and, of course rural people.
As Périn Saint Ange, ESA Division Director, concluded, FOs need to be practical and on the ground, otherwise the good intentions will not materialize. Currently, FOs do not have much time – they need to have projects with longer durations. They do not have enough funding. We would also want more and better coordination. From the demand side – we understand that what IFAD is doing is good, but we need to do more. This is indeed good news, as we plan on doing more. It is fundamental for FOs to remember that IFAD is owned by government. We can help provide a better platform for engagement, and most of the work needs to be done by the FOs, with the governments.

“Happiest man in Africa…….and change is possible….”.

By Willem Bettink

I participated in the annual regional  implementation workshop of the East and Southern Africa  region. A full week immersion in Africa, to be more precise in northern Tanzania,  at the foot of mount Kilamanjaro. It was an  exciting and dynamic 4 days, not in the least thanks to “veteran” Edward Chumamoto. He facilitated -189 people- with grand style, a sense of humour and enormous skill –a true pleasure!

The project coordinators in the region decided last year to radically change the format as they felt there was not enough interaction and added value generated.  The workshop embraced the  open space methodology which generated many unexpected sessions about a variety topics from learning routes, communication and social media, gender equality and many more.

The theme of this workshop was: Managing for Impact-one of those development  concepts that appear clear at face value, but are not . As a participants said : “over these 4 days we have unpacked the concept and it has become clearer for me what it means to me in my work in our project”. 

Over the days we unpacked the managing for impact into its key elements from the perspective of a project team . One of the  results was a practical diagnostic tool referred to as the learning wheel for managing for impact. It brings together  12 elements that enable a project team to diagnose its performance.

The outcome of this diagnosis enables a team to discuss and agree on corrective actions to improve its delivery to achieve impact. One of these elements is “ continuous experimentation with new ideas and approaches as a source of innovation and performance improvement”.   

Almost all- if not all- development programmes are change management programmes. Research and our own experience  has proven  that a typical organizational change programme has a 20-30% success rate . Or if we  look at innovation and start –up businesses: only 10-15% make it through year  1 and go on to achieve sustainable profits.

If we truly believe in “managing for impact",  it implies that project teams, given the change and innovativeness of development programmes,  continuously need to perform at the top of their toes. Delivery has to be of an exceptional quality while it is conditioned by known obstacles , unplanned interferences, unexpected natural disasters and what have you.

This implies that a project team  needs to have  a strong predisposition to openly reflect upon its challenges and mistakes , harvest the learning (in particular from failed attempts ) and share  this learning with its stakeholders.

In my opinion , managing for impact is closely linked to return on investment. If we do not focus persistently on achieving impact, creating value,  we are not ensuring the pay-off to the rural poor for what they invest to engage with the changes and innovations promoted by development programmes.

A final personal note: that change is possible whether at  personal, process, technological level  I am strongly convinced off. While I was in Arusha  I witnessed the transformation of a colleague to be the happiest man in Africa.  

Managing for impact: learning from successes and failures

The East and Southern Africa (ESA) annual workshop focusing on managing for impact kicked off on 14 November in Arusha, Tanzania. The event brings together 200 participants from 17 countries. 

This is a special event on many fronts. To start with, the participants warmly welcomed colleagues from South Sudan. Secondly, they bid farewell to Ides de Willebois, who is moving on to lead the West and Central Africa division.  And last but not least, this is a unique event because for the first time, participants have embraced moving away their from traditional way of doing workshops and have embraced knowledge sharing methods.

Ides de Willebois in his opening remarks reiterated the fact this is a learning and sharing event. “Without learning and sharing we cannot improve and we cannot have impact”. He also went on to say that “we need to have a better understanding of what we do, so that we can do it better.”

In concluding his remarks, de Willebois mentioned that he is planning to start an exchange visit between East and Southern Africa and West and Central Africa. “I hope that West and Central Africa colleagues will join next year’s annual event, so that they can learn from your experience”. 

Breaking the mould

Whenever you decide to innovate or break away from business as usual, there is some apprehension. You feel gratified when breaking the mould ends up being successful and resonates with the expectations. And this is exactly what happened at the ESA event.

It was so refreshing to see 200+ participants embrace knowledge sharing methods such as openspace, spectogramme and world cafe type discussions. Thanks to these participatory methods, they started to mingle, bond and in no time they got to know each other.  

In the process, they heard many stories, including one about how ESA implementation workshops evolved from a being top-down loan administration events to more learning events owned and organized by the projects.

The majestic mount Kilimanjaro and the Kalali women dairy cooperative

As a child, when school was  over, I would be counting the days so that I could join my grandmother in Mount Damavand. Damavand is Persia’s tallest mountain in the Alborz mountain range. Grandma had these wonderful stories about mount Everest, the far way mount Fuji and then a majestic mountain in Africa - mount Kilimanjaro. 

I was intrigued by mount Kilimanjaro, because as a I child I found it difficult to fathom that Africa had mountains. So, on Monday when we had to sign-up for the field trips, I could not believe that finally I would be able to see this far far away mountain.

Unfortunately the majestic mount Kilimanjaro decided to remain pretty veiled and the clouds did not cooperate. But nonetheless, seeing it was an emotional moment and brought back many fond childhood memories.

We then moved on to visit the Kalali women dairy cooperative. This cooperative is part of the Agricultural Sector Development Programme where IFAD is investing loan funds in supplementing financing to the nationwide development programme, to counteract the depletion of the initial funds committed by development partners as part of a basket fund arrangement.

The cooperative is located in Machame division, Hai district in Kilimanjaro region. Inspired by a local daily community business, this cooperative was established with 132 members in 1988. The cooperative’s goal is to:

• increase income of poor rural households, particularly women in the area through a number of different income generating activities
• improve lives of orphans and provide assistance to poor families who were unable to provide education and sound nutrition for their children

“To get going the cooperative members contributed 1000 shillings each and payed a membership fee of 50 shillings,” explained Nancy Manasseh Kidin, the cooperative’s chairperson.

Considering their scarce income, these monies were paid in 4 installments. The cooperative started with 8 dairy cows. In 1995 they had 41 dairy cows.

Considering the vital role women play in rural societies, the cooperative decided that women headed-households were the ones to receive the cows.  They agreed that the person who receives the cow for a period of seven months would:

• give one litre of milk a day to the orphanage
• give the calves to other women headed-household and members of the cooperative 

As a result in a short time, 24 women who had signed up to this deal managed to provide dairy cows to 117 cooperative members.

Today the cooperative has a total of 260 members.

Diversifying activities

These industrious women used their income to diversify their business. In the 90s they bought themselves a milling machine.

“We provided milling service in the local market and expanded our business by buying a container to store the maize”, said Kidin.

“We also used the profits from the milling business to buy seeds.”

In 1993, they went one step further and bought themselves an electric machine and donated their diesel operated milling machine to another women group.

With the profit from their milling business they bought feed for the cows.

A terrible blow

They had a flourishing business, produced milk in abundance and sold this to a company in Arusha, thinking that a company is a reliable partner.

“We failed to ask for the money upfront and the company failed to pay us 12,000,000 schillings”, said Kidin.

This was a terrible blow for them. The community lost confidence in cooperatives and felt let down.

This mishap taught the cooperative an important lesson: never accept an “IOU”, always finish a transaction, sell, get your money and go on.

Despite this set back, they managed to back on their feet, thanks to the generous contribution of Italians.

A new door opens: dairy processing 

The Italians provided them processing instruments and that is how they started making butter and cheese.

Today they produce:

• 400-800 litres of milk a day
• 10-20kg of cheese per day
• 50-95 packs of butter per week
• 400-600 packs of yogurt per week

They keep track of their daily production and make some impressive graphs without using Excel. They also have a sophisticated booking keeping practice.

They package their products and have a registered trademark. “We sell the dairy products at Moshi, to grocery stores, to hotels and send our cheese and butter all the way to Zanzibar”, explains a proud Kidin.

The cooperative has the necessary certification to package its product, however, they are faced with the challenge of not having adequate technical support. This means they are unable to take their business to the next step and benefit from industry’s best practice.

One thing that we observed was the BEST BEFORE DATE on their products. Without exception their products seem to have a shelf life of one year!!!!

Kidin shared with us that the cooperative aspires to be able to:

• procure large 50 litre metal containers to store the milk instead of using plastic containers
• avail themselves of technical expertise and training so that their products are of high quality meet regional standards, have bar codes and can compete with Kenyan products
• have access to veterinary service
• have access to East African Community Market and get packaging machinery 
• have all the women of the community become members of the cooperative
• become a renown cooperative both inside and outside Tanzania

In conducting their business, the cooperative has learnt the importance of:

• providing thorough and in depth training to the machine operators, so that they do not only know how to operate the machine, but also maintain it properly
• understanding the market demand and their potential competitors
• doing a good market search before buying equipment and better understanding what is needed and how a piece of equipment can help them 

Expanding the business and facing new challenges

With a relatively good income from their dairy business, the cooperative bought a sunflower oil pressing machine and started a savings credit cooperative (SACCOS).

The SACCOS has 375 members and started with a capital of 3.2million schillings.

The older women of the community put their savings in the SACCOS and the more business oriented women use the SACCOS to get a loan. The loans have an interest rate of 3%.

Kidin shares with us that the SACCOS are faced with two challenges:

• underpayment
• corruption

This has led to a loss of 22 million schillings.  This loss made the community understand the importance of choosing right people as SACCOS board members. They now know that a board member:

• needs to be a trusted member of the community
• one who understands the ins and outs of the business and entire process
• one who has knowledge of financial management so that they can play a supervisory role, detect collusion and immediately take corrective actions

Investing in health and eduction of young people

The community is committed to provide education for the children and young people - especially to orphaned children and those from less advantaged families.

They use their profits to send children from disadvantaged families to school and are also assisted by Italians who are sponsoring a number of children and putting them through school.

Their vision is that every child has to go to school.

Their sustained programme of investing in education of their children is one of their great successes. Thanks to this initiative many young people have successfully finished school, obtained their degree and now serve as accountants, agriculture specialists, engineers and health workers.

Many have heard of WFP’s school feeding programme. Well, the Kalali women dairy cooperative runs a similar programme - they support school feeding by providing one glass of milk per class. 

The cooperative challenges

Kidin shared with us the cooperative challenges: 

• continuous power cuts which lasts days
• lack of access to adequate and state of the art machinery for packaging and conservation so that they are able to compete in the  market
• lack of access to technical expertise to take the business to its next level
• lack of local talents and expertise
• lack of access to appropriate equipment for conservation
• high taxation and cumbersome regulations
• competition with Kenyan products

The cooperatives aspirations

Kidin and the cooperative members aspire to:

• have all women in the area become members of the cooperative
• give dividends to all the members and not just provide contributions in kind
• create more employment opportunities
• send all children to school
• expand the sunflower pressing business
• innovate and continuously provide new services to the community
• provide capacity building
• build technical and leadership skills and groom local talents
• set up a milk bar so that community members understand that there are other options to drinking alcohol
• do more follow-ups and have a better feel what you can realistically achieve 
• develop robust business plans

We cannot but wish this group of hardworking and resilient women the best of luck. They are a great example of how when a community takes development in their hands, despite set back, they are able to move on and bring about change. I am sure the Kalali women dairy cooperative will go from success to success and manage to fulfill all their aspirations and be a model for many more women.

Beer-wine assist: An innovative way of sharing knowledge

Last night at the East and Southern Africa knowledge management workshop, Peter Ballantyne introduced an innovative way to share knowledge - a beer-wine assist!!!

The beer-wine assist was a peer assist in the form of an open space. Now, that is real innovation. Combining two knowledge sharing methods into one!!! And we covered the following topics:

• learning more about linking local learners
• how to document and package success stories
• learning routes
• communication and knowledge management strategies

This morning when the group shared their discussions in the openspace, it was heart warming to see how much they had learnt and internalized in just 60 minutes. And this evening when we did the after action review, participants indicated that they found the openspace very useful. 

So, the peer-assist innovation turned out to be a smashing success. Must have been a combination of great participants and the beer and wine!!

This morning we had a great conversation on how a good meeting culture is essential for creating a conducive environment for learning and sharing. To instill a better meeting etiquette and to ensure that everyone gets the most of any meeting, the group talked about the importance of:

• preparing for the meeting
• sticking to schedule
• staying focused
• holding meetings only when there is a real need to do so
• inviting the right people
• distributing background documents before the meeting
• having a facilitator
• involving all the participants in the conversation
• having concrete action points and follow-up mechanism
• debriefing after the meeting, asking ourselves what worked and what could have gone better

There was a lengthy debate on the role of facilitator versus a chairperson. I am not sure we reached any agreement on this issue. Suffice to say that tomorrow, we'll be dedicating some more time on talking about how to conduct meetings in an appreciative manner and unpacking further the roles of facilitator and chairperson.

During the course of the workshop, the country teams discussed the challenges and opportunities of mainstreaming knowledge management within their projects, at government level and at grassroot and farmer level. As the day came to a close, they shared their draft action plans for the next 12 months.

Here are some of the challenges they committed to address and overcome:

• identify a  KM champion at leadership/government level
• develop an integrated knowledge management and learning strategy
• capture information in a meaningful manner
• institutionalize knowledge management and learning in a sustainable manner
• create a culture of learning and sharing
• develop capacity for knowledge management and learning in a sustainable manner
• convince projects and government of the importance of knowledge management and learning
• identify the structure and institutional arrangement required in the project to make KM work
• promote exchange visits as their are valuable learning and sharing mechanism

I felt privileged to have participated in this workshop, and I learnt a lot from the wide range of experience of our colleagues in the field. 

I sat in awe when I heard the insightful comments of participants such as: "KM and learning is not a project", "We cannot do is not an option", "we need to consider feedback as a gift", and "KM is not about creating a website, but it is about transforming and changing the way we do business".

This group has come a long way. I guess their next frontier would be to expand their partnerships and networks so that they can benefit from a much wider knowledgebase, and to share their knowledge, experience and achievements with others.

I am sure sooner rather later we'll be ableto instill a culture of learning sharing not only in IFAD-funded projects, but also at grassroot, government level and beyond. And when that happens we can pat ourselves on the back and be proud of our work. For sure, that day is in the very near future!

IFADAfrica - facilitating KM&L in project meetings

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

IFADAfrica Rwanda -Presentation of country experience

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

IFADAfrica - Zambia country experience progress report

View more documents from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

IFAD’s knowledge management efforts in East and Southern Africa bear fruits and add value to rural development activities

The third IFADAfrica knowledge management learning workshop kicked off on 20 June 2011 in a sunny and relatively chilly Lusaka.

The event brings together 60 participants from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia.

I had had the privilege and honour of attending the startup workshop of IFADAfrica two years ago and I must say, I was delighted to see the progress made by my East and Southern Africa colleagues in mainstreaming knowledge management (KM) in their activities.

What struck me most, was the fact that some countries had managed to work with ministries, to build KM capacity at ministerial level. s a result, today government representatives were in a better position to understand and appreciate the value of knowledge management. This has resulted in reducing redundancies, improving the flow of information and increasing efficiencies.


As a KM practitioner, I get excited when I see how KM activities have led to influencing policy. This morning, listening to my Zambian colleagues how thanks to their KM efforts, they had managed to influence the development of the national rural finance, put a smile on my lips. They had done a knowledge audit and used the results to inform government which then developed the national rural finance strategy.

During the last two days, participants shared how they had mainstreamed KM in their activities. There was general consensus that when knowledge management is embedded within the project, that is when it has the biggest impact.

It was refreshing to hear that there was a general understanding on the importance of KM being a common thread throughout the entire project cycle: starting with project design, through out project implementation to instill a culture of knowledge sharing and learning, to continuously and systematically capture and share the learning and lessons.

This is why, East and Southern Africa colleagues are now increasingly including knowledge management in the design of new projects and programmes. I guess we can call these projects rural development 2.0 projects!

East and Southern Africa knowledge management evolving framework

One of the objectives of the KM activities in East and Southern Africa is to make sure that government and project staff, stakeholders and partners understand and appreciate what is a knowledge management and learning system. This has lead to an interesting evolving KM framework, which at its heart focuses on learning and adapting to continuously improve and increase the impact of IFAD-funded projects and programmes.
What this framework does, is to link and create cross linkages between learning adaptation, information management, communication and innovation.

This is why they’re putting in place sound information management mechanisms to capture, document and store information. They’re adopting learning oriented monitoring and evaluation and as a result they should be able to continuously analyze information, assess progress and adapt.

Another key component of the framework is communication, which ranges from systematic sharing of information, communication within and among teams, instilling a culture of giving and receiving feedback, to communicating with stakeholders, packaging content in a compelling manner for advocacy purposes and increasing IFAD visibility.

One of the objectives of KM is to innovate, scale-up and bring about change and transformation. Thus, the need to instill a culture of appreciation for new ideas, culture of sourcing new ideas and creating the right environment to experiment with new ideas.

The ESA KM framework has adopted simple principles such as building capacity of project staff, instilling a learning and sharing culture, continuously improving processes, promoting south-south/exchange visits. To the maximum extent possible they are trying to use existing structure and avoid reinventing the wheel. And in the words of Dick Siame, IFAD country presence officer, “making sure government warms up and buys in to the KM agenda”.

As I am writing this blogpost colleagues are discussing the importance of collaboration, breaking the silos, and linkages between knowledge management and monitoring and evaluation.

We’re reporting live from the workshop on Twitter. Follow #esakm. Have look at the pictures from the event on Facebook and please share your comments and views on this blog, on Facebook and on Twitter. For IFAD colleagues at HQ, post your comments and feedback on Yammer.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Learning Route on Gender and Microfinance, Uganda

WELCOME ON BOARD!!! by Maria Fernanda Arraes

We have just started our Learning Route in Gender and Rural Finances - New approaches, services and products in Uganda. We would like to share with you this unique experience…Welcome on board!

We are a diverse group formed by 15 practitioners from 13 different countries, from Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia); from Asia (china and Japan), Latin America (Colombia, Chile, and Brazil) and Europe (Belgium).

A quick assessment on my colleagues’ expectations for this journey affirmed their curiosity to learn from each other, see different and practical experiences in the field and get new information to bring back home. They are also looking forward to improve their knowledge on microfinance management including monitoring & evaluation of impacts, working with partners on different levels and improve gender and HIV issues within their programmes.

After a warm welcome by the Procasur Team coordinating this Route, we started with a first presentation on the overview of microfinance in Uganda. This was really interesting getting to know the history of the first country in Africa that started the regulation and supervision of microfinance institutions and as well the only country that has a Ministry of Microfinance. This was just the first impression and made clear, why the learning route will be taking place here!

The second part was the fair experience- exchange of institutional information by participants' focusing on the key areas of microfinance and gender issues, opportunities and challenges that our organizations currently face to improve the interventions.

In the afternoon we were introduced to the gender issues in microfinance. In group exercise, we drew pictures of how we thought an empowered woman looks like. Some of the ideas the group came up with were: “a woman thinking on her own and a voice to express herself, who has the capacity to provide education and health conditions for her family”; “someone who has access to financial and technical services for economic activities, among others”.

But the most exciting activity until now was the opportunity that we had trough our first field visit. We went to Kiboga district North West of Kampala to learn from the experience of two women’s groups supported by FINCA a deposit taking microfinance institutions regulated by Bank of Uganda using “Village Banking model”.

Other than the technical information, we were treated to the women’s artistic expressions though dance, comedy, drama, and poems performances to show us their lives before and after the participation in their village banking groups and all changes that they experienced. It was an amazing and unforgettable experience!!

And now we are preparing ourselves for the next stop: Tomorrow we will be moving on to Mbarara, southern part of Uganda to learn about interesting experiences with Uganda Women’s Effort to support Orphans (UWESO) and its offshoot the Success Microfinance Services (SMS) Ltd in financial services for people living with HIV and aids.

See you tomorrow after this next adventure!

Classes vertes au Burundi

Les visites de terrain sont aux personnels des projets et programmes et aux fonctionnaires du FIDA, ce que sont les classes vertes sont aux écoliers et collégiens. Elles sont une sortie sur le terrain des activités et permet à ceux qui les font de s’imprégner de la réalité de ce que rapports et autres notes essaient plus ou moins bien de décrire.

Depuis le 16 novembre 2009, la quasi-totalité des responsables des projets et programmes que le FIDA finance en Afrique de l’Est et Australe sont réunis à Bujumbura, Burundi, dans le cadre de l’atelier annuel sur l’exécution de ses projets et des programmes. Cet atelier est organisé par la Division de l’Afrique de l’Est et Australe. Autour du thème central de l’amélioration de la productivité agricole pour répondre aux besoins du marché, quelques 200 participants échangent sur les questions de l’accès au marché et de la durabilité d’une part et de l’intégration de l’agriculture et de l’élevage d’autre part, pour améliorer la productivité agricole. L’atelier va s’achever le 20 novembre 2009.

Après deux journées intenses de travaux, ponctuées de communications des différents responsables de projets, programmes et fonctionnaires du FIDA et dont une demie journée consacrée à des sessions parallèles sur le rôle de la femme dans la productivité agricole, l’appui juridique et l’administration des dons et des prêts ; plus d’une centaine de participants sont allés à la découverte du Burundi rural et des populations rurales pauvres bénéficiant des appuis des cinq projets en cours dans le pays.

Trois groupes, fort enthousiastes, se sont ainsi rendus dans la matinée du 18 novembre, à plus d’une centaine de kilomètres de la capitale, vers les provinces de Bujumburu Rurale, de Cibitoke et de Gitega. Ils y ont rencontrés des responsables des services d’appui technique et des bénéficiaires des projets. Ainsi dans la Province de Cibitoke, un groupe de participants a pu visiter un atelier de couture, une menuiserie et discuter avec une association de femmes impliquées dans la vente de légumes et de fruits.

Un autre groupe, après avoir eu le privilège d’admirer les collines vertigineuses qui surplombent Bujumbura, sur la route de l’est vers le Rwanda, puis vers la Tanzanie a fait sa classe verte dans la Commune de Bugendana, Province de Gitega pour y visiter des infrastructures d’irrigation et toucher du doigt la réalité d’un programme d’intégration agriculture-élevage, thème au centre des discussions de l’atelier de Bujumbura. Cette visite, longue de plus de 12 heures a donné lieu à des échanges animés entre les bénéficiaires de cet appui du Programme de relance et de développement du monde rural (PRDMR) et dont les résultats sont visibles.

Le troisième groupe s’est rendu dans la Commune de Rumonge, Province de Bujumbura Rurale, pour s’entretenir avec des agriculteurs ayant reçu des boutures de manioc résistantes à la maladie de la mosaïque du manioc, des plants de palmiers à huile et autres animaux pour l’élevage. Souhaitons qu’ils raconteront l’aventure mémorable qu’ils y ont vécue !