Scaling up the fight against poverty and hunger in Africa #globalag

By José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) 

Agriculture is a powerful tool for reducing poverty and hunger. Events of recent years – such as food price increases, droughts, growing climate change impacts and other emergencies – have put agriculture high on the international agenda. We should be clear that agriculture is the solution. Economic growth generated by agriculture is more than twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Agricultural development is also an effective means of assisting developing countries in building capacity and infrastructure as well as introducing innovation and technology.

Future food and nutrition security and the eradication of poverty will be profoundly influenced by the steps we take today to support the 2 billion people in developing countries who depend on small-scale farms, herding, fishing and other forms of agriculture.

The past year has seen a food security crisis in the Horn of Africa and a developing emergency in the Sahel region of West Africa, where we are just entering the peak hunger season. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme have responded in a variety of ways, from immediate humanitarian relief to building the capacity of smallholders to grow more food, increase their livelihoods and feed their families and communities.

But it is clear that much more needs to be done at every level. Far-reaching partnerships, broader consultation in the formulation and implementation of country-led development processes, as well as long-term commitments, must be made and maintained. In order for development efforts to be successful, is essential to have the participation of civil society, farmers’ organizations and the private sector at every stage.

Beginning with the L’Aquila summit three years ago, the G8 has led a serious and sustained process to mobilize support for greater aid to food and nutrition security. At the L’Aquila Summit, US$22 billion was pledged over three years. The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) trust fund that emerged from the L’Aquila commitments is a new vehicle to ensure accountability in the implementation process for aid for food security and agriculture to some of the poorest countries in the world.

This financial commitment to support country-owned plans can help to make a big difference, but official development assistance alone has not and will not solve the problem. A favourable climate for investment must be created to attract other resources and partners in the framework of established development plans.
For example, in Africa, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), with its national compacts and investment plans, provides a key platform for public and private efforts  to converge towards agricultural development and food security.

Governments are primarily responsible for providing public goods and services that underpin and facilitate private investment, as well as the governance mechanisms that ensure socially and environmentally sustainable benefits from private investment. Farmers and their organizations must also be supported to benefit from increased investments, and they must be engaged from the outset in real, meaningful partnerships from public policy and programme design onward through evaluation.

Private sector investment, particularly through small- and medium-sized enterprises, is a critical factor for reaching the goal of a hunger-free Africa. However, the quality of this investment is of key importance. In this regard, Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, in the Context of National Food Security were endorsed earlier this month by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Implementing these guidelines, which have been agreed upon by governments, civil society and the private sector, will help ensure that responsible governance of tenure contributes to responsible investment, enabling sustainable social, economic and environmental development around agriculture and towards food security.

The United Nations Rome-based agencies welcome the G8’s renewed commitment to keep food security high on the global agenda and the creation of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.
The New Alliance complements ongoing activities and processes, starting from the CAADP itself, and is a tool that can accelerate progress in eradicating hunger and poverty in Africa. These efforts can and will succeed if they support smallholder production and market integration. This includes ensuring that technologies and inputs are adapted to local conditions, and promoting environmentally and socially sustainable farming practices to boost local economies. Stakeholders at the national and local level must drive and own the process from the start.

The New Alliance should avail itself of the opportunities to build upon, and further foster, truly participatory processes involving the G8, African countries, and the private sector, including first and foremost agricultural producers. In this way, it will respond to the needs of rural families and communities, and to the broader needs of African societies.

At the same time, we need to ensure that environmental sustainability is squarely addressed in the type of agricultural investments that are promoted, and that safety nets are in place and emergency preparedness is sustained to protect vulnerable people from the consequences of drought and other shocks.

Together, our agencies have been working with national governments, non-governmental organisations and civil society to help build resilience in developing countries. This includes targeted productive safety nets, such as school meal programmes, and other efforts that ensure that when the next disaster occurs, poor people are better equipped to feed themselves and protect assets such as livestock and property.

We welcome that the New Alliance is promoting a set of enabling tools related to markets and finance, risk and insurance, and science and technology, that can address gaps and strengthen smallholders’ position in the value chain.

We would, however, like to draw particular attention to the need to support women’s empowerment. Women make up nearly half of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa but face disproportionate barriers in access to resources and markets. The New Alliance must also address the aspirations of rural youth, who are key to long-term sustainability and the viability of rural agricultural communities.

Ending hunger and achieving food and nutrition security for the people of Africa is a pressing issue that cannot wait. Smallholders and rural people, who face the daily threat of food insecurity, urgently require access to science, technology and the most basic tools and services that would allow them to invest in their farms and businesses. With these benefits and a renewed commitment across all sectors we have an opportunity to reduce poverty, solve hunger and strengthen food security.

Cross-posted on Food for Thought blog

President Obama keynote address

Why the farmer should be put first

by Kanayo F Nwanze, IFAD President

Sustainable investment in agriculture is the most effective way to reduce rural poverty, improve food security and stimulate economic growth

Planting maize seeds in Mswagini village,
Arusha Region, Tanzania.

In recent years, agriculture has gone from obscurity to having a central spot on the G8 agenda. For those  working in rural development, this revival of international attention is very welcome, as is the recognition of an increased role for private sector investment.

Private investment in agriculture usually suggests the involvement of large organisations. But, cumulatively, smallholders are significant investors in this sector. There are around 500 million small farms in the world. More than 95 per cent of agricultural holdings in developing countries are less than 10 hectares. In Asia and
sub-Saharan Africa, about 80 per cent of farmland belongs to, or is cultivated by, smallholders. Around two billion people depend on these farms for their livelihood.

Smallholders invest not only their own money, but also their time and labour in their farms. Therefore, it is fair to say that they are the primary on-farm investors in agriculture in developing countries. New investments in agriculture must be sensitive to the requirements of smallholders if they are to achieve the desired result of improving global food security and reducing poverty.

The power of smallholdersInvesting in agriculture in developing countries is the single most effective method of improving food security for the world’s poorest people, while also stimulating economic growth. Growth generated by agriculture is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors. Experience repeatedly shows – in countries such as Burkina Faso, China, Ghana, India, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere – that smallholders can lead agricultural growth.

Successful small farms can transform destitute rural landscapes into vibrant economies, resulting in local demand for locally produced goods and services that also spur non-farm employment in services, agro-processing and small-scale manufacturing. This demand, in turn, leads to a dynamic flow of economic benefits between rural and urban areas so that countries have balanced and sustained growth.

There are sound economic reasons for supporting smallholder farming. Farming production systems have few economies of scale. Small farms are often more productive, per hectare, than large farms when agro-ecological conditions and access to technology are comparable. In India, for example, smallholders contribute more than 50 per cent of total farm output, even though they cultivate only 44 per cent of the land.

New investments must be sustainable – economically, environmentally and socially

One reason for this high productivity rate is that small farmers have a strong personal incentive to get the most out of their land and from their own family labour. Another reason is that family farms have
very low management costs and are labour intensive, while larger farms are often heavily
mechanised or have high costs involved in managing the workforce.

Nevertheless, in many developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, poor farmers do not produce enough to feed themselves and their families. Instead, they are net buyers of food
and, with incomes of less than $1.25 per day, they cannot afford to buy much.


If the goals in investing in agriculture are to improve the food security of those who are hungry and to improve the economies of developing countries, then the aim should be to transform smallholder agriculture into successful businesses that are profitable and generate surpluses, and that can help provide
career opportunities and a potential pathway out of poverty and hunger.

Targeting the investment
When one talks about farmers in developing countries, one is often talking about women. On average, women make up 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries. In East and Southeast Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa, this figure rises to almost 50 per cent. In investing in rural areas, the capacity of women farmers to invest more effectively and with less risk must be supported, given that women in rural societies face greater constraints. Rural women usually have more limited land tenure, less access to credit and equipment, and fewer market opportunities than have men.

New investments must also be sustainable – economically, environmentally and socially – so that the benefits last, through the years and the generations. Anyone who has travelled into the rural areas of developing countries will have seen the aftermath of unsustainable development: broken tractors abandoned in fields, withered and untended trees, forsaken hillside terraces. This is the residue of development efforts that did not respect and respond to local conditions, whether cultural or environmental, and that did not work with the local community from the start.

Similarly, the Green Revolution that transformed Asian agriculture in the 1970s focused on reducing the number of crops and increasing reliance on improved seeds, fertilisers and better irrigation. It produced
remarkable short-term gains, but came at a cost to the environment and to local species.

In the years since the Asian Green Revolution it has become clear that agricultural growth must be ecologically sustainable and that a diverse range of species, genetic variation and ecosystems is necessary
in order for the land to be able to provide for future generations of farmers.

Indeed, in many developing countries, simply optimising conventional approaches, such as the simple use of fertilisers and micro-irrigation, could yield dramatic results. Only about six per cent of the total cultivated
land in Africa is irrigated, compared to 37 per cent in Asia. Irrigation alone could increase output by up to 50 per cent in Africa. Small increases in fertiliser use could also yield dramatic improvements in yields
without risk to the environment, since farmers in sub-Saharan Africa use, on average, less than 13kg of fertiliser per hectare. This compares with 73kg in the Middle East and North Africa, and 190kg in East Asia and the Pacific.

There is also a critical need to develop national and regional markets, to ensure that productivity gains from new investments have the intended economic impact on developing-country economies. Similarly, there is an urgent need to invest in basic rural infrastructure. Today, about 30 per cent of the food produced is wasted, largely as a result of the absence of such basic necessities as markets, warehouses and paved roads.

Community-driven development
At IFAD, we see time and time again the transformation that occurs when development is sustainable and when local people are involved from the start. Last year, I visited Zongbega, a village in a drought-prone region of Burkina Faso, where smallholders are using simple water-harvesting techniques such as planting pits and permeable rock dams, along with crop-livestock integration. As a result, they have restored land that was once degraded and have increased their productivity. In Niger, a water-harvesting project in the Illela department is still going, more than 15 years after the funding ended – a fine example of the benefits of community-driven development.

In recent years, we have been scaling up what we know works, strengthening value chains, extending rural finance and creating new market opportunities for smallholders and other poor rural people. This year, as
world leaders meet for the G8 in May and the G20 and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June, there is an unprecedented opportunity to solidify the role of public-private partnerships in support of agriculture. I hope their deliberations will take into account the biggest on-farm agriculture investors in developing countries: smallholder farmers.

Originally published by Munk School of Global Affairs

IFAD projects in Ghana: Improving livelihoods

Women fixing the squeezer to drain water

from the grated cassava at the Milenovisi Gari Processing factory

by Philomena  Dovi Kuzoe

Eastern Region, Ghana- A team from the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD in Rome was in Ghana for a four day working visit to attend the Country Programme Evaluation round table and the start-up workshop for the new Country Strategic Opportunities Programmes.  The team, together with the CPM and Officials from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture made a field visit to IFAD’s project sites in the Eastern region of Ghana This is to enable them have first-hand information on projects.. In all, the team visited four project sites. First, the team met with the Fanteakwa District Chief Executive, the Coordinating Director of Micro and Small Scale Enterprises and other project staff and clients. They discussed the implementation and activities of the Rural Enterprises Project as well as the district assembly’s effort to maintain and sustain the project.  The District Offices operate the Business Advisory Centers initiated by the Rural Enterprises Project and these centers have become a model for national MSE policy in the country.

From Fanteakwa, the team moved to a local soap-making factory at Otuater.   A small group made up of only 17 women and one man, the group has become the leading soap supplier in the district and beyond. At the factory the women were seen busily cutting, branding and packaging their soap.   The Rural Enterprise Project, REP spotted this group during an exhibition and trade fair.  According to the group, being in touch with REP has transformed their operations; they now make good sales, have created market linkages and also learnt new technologies and skills.  They also support their husbands and are able to send their children to school. The District Chief Executive Officer promised the women a car to enable  them transport their products to the market especially on market-days when the soap is in high demand.

The IOE team and officials of the South Akim Rural Bank

The team moved from this point to Nankese, a cocoa farming community where the 2009 best rural bank, the South Akyim Rural Bank is headquartered. The bank was ranked the 20th on the Ghana Club 100 list in 2010.  It enrolled as a participating Financial Institution of REP II in 2006 to deliver financial services to target micro and small enterprises in the district. According to the officials of the bank the establishment of the Business Advisory Centers, (BAC) has been very beneficial and the bank has collaborated effectively with the center to support project clients to establish their businesses. However it was noted that despite the bank’s large clientele, only three people applied for a matching grant which is provided by REP.  Rural banks in the country lend to the rural clients but usually not for agricultural activities and 73 per cent of staff of these banks perceived agricultural lending to be riskier than other lending types.   But at the South Akyim Rural Bank, 70 per cent of its clients are agro-processors making it agriculture-friendly.


The last point of call was the Milenovisi gari processing factory at Korkormu. The facility at the centre has been upgraded to a Good Practices Center. The group is also a good example of the value chain concept with 106 actors including farmers, traders, transporters and fabricators. We couldn’t have concluded the trip without visiting a gari processing factory.

Gari is one form of processed cassava and is eaten all over the country making it a marketable commodity. It is vital to reducing post-harvest food losses and increases food availability in Ghana. Gari, if stored properly can last for a year without going bad. Through REP//RTIMP the gari processing center has recorded tremendous success.

It was an exciting field trip seeing how much small scale business are improving the lives of the rural poor and contributing to the development of the country through project implementation. As we journeyed back to Accra, I was wondering whether these laudable projects could be sustained and maintained in view of the weak marketing opportunities.

IFAD scales innovations through the ‘Learning Routes’

by Valentina Gullotta Sauve 

On 27 October, IFAD held an informal lunch‐time seminar on the “Learning Routes” as a knowledge management and capacity building tool to scale up best practices and innovations during the “Scaling Up the Fight against Rural Poverty” Event.

Ariel Halpern (PROCASUR) and Roberto Haudry (IFAD) ‐ with the intervention of  Paineto Baluku from Uganda (Bukonzo Cooperative, partner of PROCASUR)‐ presented PROCASUR and the learning routes methodology showing how knowledge sharing can open learning and innovation scale up spaces.

PROCASUR started as a Latin America and Caribbean regional training programme for IFAD and it is now, fifteen years later working at a global scale, implementing Learning Route Programmes for Latin America, East and Southern Africa and Asia and Pacific divisions of IFAD.

PROCASUR’s objective is to feed learning loops by making visible the voices of the ones that are invisible.

‘Already being in this room is an achievement for PROCASUR’, Ariel said, because it is an opportunity to make visible an approach and a movement to which many partners are involved and engaged. The LR is a methodology but also a way to promote rural development knowledge market with a positive inclusion of project staff and grass root organizations learning and local champions: this methodology is allowing IFAD projects approaches and tools to stay after closed, being recreated, adapted and expanded.

Helen Gillman from IFAD intervened underlining the fact that the Learning Routes are not just field trips or study tour, but a systematized journey with an intensive learning process, considering carefully the design, implementation and follow up phase.

Replying to Johannes Linn’s final question on how PROCASUR see itself in 5 years from now, it was explained that PROCASUR wants to keep the strategic partnership with IFAD on its expansion process and complement each other role.

Next 5 years vision is to reach out an increasing number of rural people in the Global South offering and demanding knowledge and skills generated by practicing rural poverty in the front line. Establishing this network, or hub as Ariel calls it, bring to a successful adaptation and adoption of the Learning Route methodology to the regional settings where IFAD is operating.
Check this cartoon to understand what a is Learning Route is and visit PROCASUR site in Spanish and English

“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.

ZNFU4455: An SMS service offering smallholder producers in Zambia a brighter future #ict4d

Once a luxury item, mobile telephony is now a catalyst to bring about economic development and social inclusion in developing countries, especially in Africa. For economist Jeffry Sachs “mobile telephony is the single most transformative technology for development”.

Mobile phone numbers talk for themselves. According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) the number of mobile phone subscriptions worldwide has reached 4.6 billion.  ITU estimates show that in sub-Saharan Africa there is 60% mobile coverage and one-third of the population has a mobile subscription.

Over the last decades we’ve seen the socio-economic benefits of mobile telephony on the lives of many poor rural people. We’ve seen how thanks to mobile phones those who previously were both socially and economically excluded are now actively participating in the economy and are able to connect with their families and friends. We’ve seen how mobile phone supports bottom-up economic development, provides entrepreneurship opportunities and gives voice to poor rural people and the voiceless.

Experts categorize the benefits of the mobile telephony in three categories:

• incremental: improving the speed and efficiency of what people already do
• transformational: offering something new such as comprehensive agricultural services (what to plant when, where to buy inputs, access to price information, potential buyers, transport, pest control and more)
• productive: offering employment and income opportunity

Next time you are in Zambia,  ask a smallholder producer, what is your lucky number. And do not be surprised if they say: “ZNFU4455”.

ZUFU4455 is a market information service open to all smallholder producers and traders, a service that encapsulates and touches on all three categories of benefits of mobile phone listed above.

Designed in 2006 with the assistance of IFAD-funded smallholder enterprise marketing programme and in cooperation with the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU), ZNFU4455 provides accurate and up-to-date agriculture and market information covering the entire value chain. It allows smallholder producers to make informed decision about what to grow, volumes required, storage, processing, marketing and investment opportunities.

ZNFU4455’s prime objective is to make markets functional for smallholder producers and traders. The service provides a list of 180 traders - 50% of whom are active -  and their offer for 15 commodities. To find the best price on offer, smallholder producers and traders send an SMS message to 4455 containing the first four letters of the commodity and the district or province. They immediately receive a text message listing the best prices and codes designating the buyers offering them. After selecting the buyer that best responds to their needs, farmers send a second SMS with the buyer’s code. A text message is returned with the contact name and phone number. Farmers are then able to phone the buyer and start trading. Each message costs around US$0.15.

This demand-driven service responds to the evolving needs of the Zambia smallholder farmers and traders. It has helped reverse the trend of smallholder producers being exploited and passive players to becoming successful entrepeneurs by addressing challenges such as:

• limited access to credit
• limited access to price information
• limited access to appropriate technology
• limited business and negotiating skills
• weak organizations
• weak bargaining power
• poor access to transport networks
• little or no knowledge of market trends

The success of this service is manifold. To start with, it benefitted from an excellent marketing campaign.  It’s business model is based on making revenue through advertisement and sponsorships.

It is one of those few IT applications that has little bells and whistles, it is easy to understand and use. It is a service that provides information upon request, as opposed to indiscriminately pushing content. It does so through different means such as  cellphone (SMS), internet and radio. The radio programme is broadcast in seven local languages and in English.

Most importantly, it got the government’s full support and is an integral part of the national agricultural policy. Zambia’s good rural coverage of mobile phones and the fact that it is hosted in a credible institution, such as Zambia National Farmers Union, with a strong management team have contributed to its impressive success.

Between its launch in August 2006 and August 2009, ZNFU4455 managed to improve the bargaining power of smallholder producers, by providing them better access to markets and allowing them to deal with traders on an equal footing. Farmers have managed to reduce their transaction costs, are now producing more high value produces and targeting different markets. Thanks to the weekly updates, they are no longer overproducing, thus eliminating storage challenges.

Policy makers are using ZNFU4455 up-to-date information to identify trends in price fluctuations and to flag emergent and imminent food security challenges.

To date, 90 percent of traders and 60 per cent of the Zambian farmers have benefitted from ZNFU4455. Forty percent have managed to negotiate better prices, 52 per cent have sold their products to different traders and buyers, 23 per cent managed to build new trading relationships, more than 50 per cent increased their income, 15 per cent of initial SMS messages to the system led directly to farmers selling their produce, and over 90 per cent of the calls to buyers led to transactions.

ZNFU4455 and many other similar initiative and services highlight the fact that developing countries see and want mobile phones as the preferred information delivery system. At the same time, there is enough evidence that poor rural people are willing to spend part of their income on such services. The challenge now is to move beyond pilots and make sure that we systematically embed and mainstream ICT4D activities and projects in rural development projects and programmes so that we can have many more successful experiences such as ZNFU4455.

For more information visit http://farmprices.co.zm/

Africa's small farmers - a change of thinking

by Mohamed Beavogui

As an African but also a development practitioner, I've seen a lot of good ideas and best intentions left broken and long forgotten in farmers' fields.

In so many cases, the reason is simple. One idea, one piece of technology on its own seldom addresses the multiplicity of problems facing the average smallholder farmer struggling to make a living on a small patch of land in a remote corner of his or her country. Yet too often, that's exactly what people look for - an easy fix or a single solution.

In my experience, both in the field and now as the Director of the Western and Central Africa Division at IFAD, what makes a real difference is something more fundamental - it's how we look at Africa's smallholder farmers.

Do we see them as victims - poverty stricken women and men trapped in cycles of subsistence farming - or as potential entrepreneurs struggling to run small businesses in places were basic tools such as finance, technology, training and access to markets are unavailable? It's my belief that we need a paradigm shift in the way we think - one that takes us away from old ideas of African agriculture which rely on basic farming practices and on government and donor handouts and, instead, focuses on creating a vibrant rural economy built on establishing the right business environment for small farmers.

A woman I know in Ghana is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Her name is Faustina Sayki. She runs a successful cassava processing centre in a small rural town. She employs 34 women and produces about 30 tonnes of cassava flour, known as gari, a week. Her customers are in the US, UK, Nigeria and Mali. She also extracts starch from cassava and sells it to local textile and pharmaceutical factories. Many describe her as a national success story.

So how did a poor cassava farmer in a remote community build a successful cassava-processing factory? A business environment was created that gave her a chance, that's how.

Through the IFAD-supported Roots and Tubers Project Improvement and Marketing Programme she received support she needed to respond directly to market opportunities. For example, she received training that helped her strengthen her entrepreneurial skills and business savvy; and she had access to expert research and adapted technologies that helped her improve her factory's efficiency and produce a higher quality and quantity of gari.

With a sound business plan and a savings history, she was able to access private equity from a rural bank. Together, these things enabled Faustina to enter the market with a well-priced, reliable, high-quality product that is now in demand. Her story suggests what's possible once we put away old notions and start looking at small farming in Africa as a business opportunity.

Originally posted on World Challenge blog

FARM 98.0 FM: The vocal gateway to agricultural information

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood of 80% of the 4.5 million people inhabiting the remote communities and villages of Imo State, a rural state in south-eastern Nigeria. However, agricultural extension services which should support farming have collapsed, due to the unavailability of input materials needed to support this service. The outcome is that smallholder farmers lack access to reliable market information and advanced farming techniques, and use outdated techniques that turn out small volumes of products. 

Today thanks to the efforts of Nnaemeka C. Ikegwuonu and FARM 98.0 Radio, the farmers have a precious resource. FARM 98.0 FM designs and broadcasts daily agricultural, environmental management and market information in the local Igbo language to 250,000 small farmer listeners living in 3 remote and isolated local government areas of Imo State. 

FARM 98.0 broadcasts 10 hours a day, sharing contemporary agricultural and environmental management techniques, daily market information, advertises farm products and imparts critical business skills. Smallholder farmers use the daily broadcast programme to decide what to produce, when to produce, how to produce and for whom to produce in order to boost their yields and income.

In this interview Ikegwuonu shares how and why he decided to set up this valuable service for smallholder farmers and tells us about his passion for agriculture.

IFAD President to African Union leaders: "Change must be cultivated from within"

By Kanayo F Nwanze


Tomorrow, a conference on the crisis in the Horn of Africa sponsored by the African Union will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. African leaders will be discussing how to help the millions of people affected by the drought and resulting famine. This conference is a good sign and I commend the African Union for taking this initiative. As President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), I have said before that Africa should not wait for the international community to solve its problems. Africa will conquer hunger when African governments give Africans the tools and resources they need to feed themselves. Change – real change – comes from within.

As an African and as President of a United Nations agency dedicated to helping rural people lift themselves out of poverty, I am also keenly aware of the need for partnership in what is a massive undertaking. It is imperative to deliver emergency relief to those who desperately need it now. At the same time, we need to look towards the future and commit to making medium- and long-term investments.

Along with climatic shocks, developing countries are already struggling with rising and more volatile food prices as well as the challenge of feeding growing populations. If donors, development agencies and governments do not attend to the medium and long term, the kind of tragedy we are seeing in the Horn of Africa will happen again.

Recently I travelled to Ethiopia and Nigeria to meet with government leaders at the highest levels, and I came away seeing hope for Africa’s future. In Nigeria – one of Africa’s most populous countries, known for its oil wealth – I saw hope in the news that the government plans to make agriculture a priority.

I believe that African countries need to do more to ensure that agriculture is put at the top of the national agendas. Although development aid is key to Africa’s advancement, the countries themselves will ultimately have to take responsibility for their own development. No nation, no people ever had sustainable growth that sprang solely from external support. Africa’s development must be made in Africa, by Africans, for Africans. Every food crop must be fully rooted in its own soil to flourish. Change cannot be imposed from outside, it must be cultivated from within.

South South: China’s experience as a development model

By Thomas Elhaut

The benefits of South-South cooperation have started to see new light as emerging economies - notably China and India – are grabbing headlines as growing economic powers investing substantially larger amounts in Africa and Asia. Justifiably so, as together, the two countries account for one-fifth of the global economy and are projected to represent a full third of the world’s income by 2025.

While the financial crisis still casts a shadow over many countries, India's trade with Africa has jumped to US$40 billion in the past few years. In addition, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that, between 1996 and 2006, developing economies provided more than US$17 billion of foreign investment in Africa and $27 billion of investment in Asia.

Combine this with the rise in South-South trade and investment flows and the shift from the G8 to the G20 as the primary forum to tackle global economic issues, and it is clear that there is more to South-South cooperation than just as a driver for developing countries to share and learn from the practical experience of others.

Some have argued that the emerging economies can put the global economy on a higher growth trajectory. But this is overoptimistic, as the former have their own domestic challenges and their economic cycles remain vulnerable to and synchronised with the North. For example, while China’s performance in tackling food insecurity and malnutrition is laudable and sets a good example for other developing countries to emulate, there remain 150 million people living below the poverty line in the country.

A key concern for development agencies and policy makers is how to extend and sustain rapid expansion of South-South trade and investment flows in pursuit of lasting development gains. Tapping the potential of South-South economic relations requires more than passive reliance on market forces and private initiative. Creating policy space for government action and regional policy coordination is crucial.

There is a great need for investments to move food from countries rich in arable lands to those with growing numbers of consumers and little food production capacity. For this to happen agricultural markets and trade policies at the global, regional and sub-regional levels need urgent improvement and reform.

Investment and trade among developing countries should set a good example of how to create win-win solutions. But we must take it to the next level by discussing how policies, institutional conditions and the right kinds of environments can further promote successful South-South cooperation. Specifically, as incomes and demand for food have grown, agriculture has begun attracting substantially larger investment flows but the benefits to smallholders and others in some of the poorest recipient countries in the region (e.g. Laos and Cambodia) remain uncertain. It is imperative that these investments are geared better to serve local needs and strengthen production capacity.

Above all, competitive rivalry for scarce resources must turn into cooperative ventures with larger pay-offs to both emerging economic powers and those lagging behind. An over emphasis on short-term macro-economic balances must yield to a longer-term vision for shared growth and prosperity. A key lesson learnt from China and India’s success in poverty reduction is that domestic factors played a crucial role while market integration created new opportunities for growth. Fiscal decentralisation in China, for example, accelerated growth and poverty reduction.

In promoting South-South cooperation between China and other developing member countries of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IFAD have so far organized two South-South events in September 2009 and November 2010 respectively. The forthcoming third event this month will offer a platform for policy exchange among senior officials from China and 15 developing countries in Asia and Africa.

South-South cooperation must be grounded in the questions of why and how policymakers can come together and share their successes and failures with each other and most importantly set guidelines that allow for investments to directly feed into development assistance so that those living on less than US$1.25 day don’t get left behind.

Partnership has always been central to IFAD’s business model. Our interest in South-South cooperation goes to the heart of strengthening our collaboration with the most important partners of all – namely poor rural people themselves.


Published on Poverty Matters Blog

Horn of Africa: The Rains will fail in 2015, 2016, or 2017, but must we also fail?

By Kevin Cleaver, IFAD Associate Vice President

The current drought in the Horn of Africa, the worst in the past 60 years, has governments in the region and the international donor community scrambling to raise additional funds for emergency relief and provide desperately required food, medical care and shelter to the affected populations in Somalia, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya to address their dire immediate needs.

Drought in this part of the continent is not unknown and has been an increasingly frequent occurrence. Datelines change (2005, 2006, 2008 and now, 2011) but the stories of unimaginable hardship, death and depravation, while differing in magnitude from one drought to the next, remain much the same. Drought never only has localized consequences. Its effects cascade through countries in the form of higher food and fodder prices, civil unrest and diminished social services as governments redeploy budgets to meet the most pressing needs of their citizens. These effects multiply the impact of the drought, dragging millions of families who had improved their living conditions back into poverty and deepening the hole of those fighting to climb out of poverty.

Although governments and their development partners cannot make the rains come, they can mitigate the impact of these recurring droughts in East Africa by helping farmers and herders build resilience to these inevitable meteorological occurrences. This is a cornerstone of the work the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in the region. Much greater investment in agricultural research, an area long neglected by both governments and donors, is essential to develop and diffuse drought and disease-resistant food and fodder crops which are better able to withstand moisture stress. There needs to be greater government and donor support for integrated soil fertility management, erosion control, agro-forestry, and reforestation, which are fundamental to preserving the natural resources — the principal capital asset of smallholder farmers and herders. Minimizing post-harvest food and fodder losses through better on-farm storage facilities, improving farmer and herder access to credit to purchase agricultural and veterinary inputs, supporting transparent and accessible markets, and strengthening farmer and herders’ organizations are all critical to building the resilience to mitigate the effects of drought.

News coverage of the unfolding events in East Africa brings stark images of desperation, disease and death into the living rooms, boardrooms and government offices in developed countries, eliciting sympathy, and hopefully the necessary financial support to address this growing emergency. But building resilience of farming and herding communities in East Africa requires a long term, sustained commitment on the part of the region’s governments and the international donor community. When the next drought comes in 2015, 2016, or 2017, will there be fewer refugees, walking fewer miles to get the help they desperately need? Will there be more water points, and greater availability of livestock feed and supplements? Will the granaries be full enough to tide over many who are now hungry? The answers to these questions depend largely on the continued commitment of the international community. The rains will fail. But let us not fail, too.

The tale of two lakes: Lake Ahémé and Nokoué

Last week as I was leaving Cotonou for Rome, I promised myself to spend the weekend and finalize the last blogpost of the Benin series. Despite all my good intentions, I did not quite manage to do so. And back in the office, I literally got swamped and swallowed by a web of meetings, emails, phone calls and process work.

Despite the delay, I sincerely hope that the text that follows recreates my rich experience.

Benin’s fisheries landscape
Benin has a coastline of 121 kilometres stretching from Togo To Nigeria and an exclusive economic zone¹ of approximately 27,750 km².

Fishers community living on the riversides, coastal lagoons and lakes primarily practice inland fishing using pirogues. Pirogues are small boats designed in such a way that they can be used in shallow waters and can easily be turned over to drain water that may get on board. Typically, artisanal fishers use paddles, sails and in some cases outboard engines on their pirogues.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Benin’s maritime artisanal fishing fleet is composed of 825 pirogues, more than half operating without an engine and 52,540 pirogue are used for mainland fishing.

The country’s fishing sector is faced with challenges such as a decreasing fish stock due to over exploitation and soil erosion which has led to degradation of water bodies.

To overcome these challenges and others, the IFAD-funded Participatory Artisanal Fisheries Development Support Programme, better known as PADPPA through its activities:

• put in place numerous spawning beds and acadja or “fish ambush trap” enclosures
• undertook reforestation efforts to restore vegetation and reduce soil erosion
• provided pirogues to crab collectors
• equipped women fish wholesalers with iceboxes and improved Chorkhor ovens for smoking fish

A typical day for an artisanal fishers such as Ambroise Zounon begins at 5 in the morning when he set out for the lagoon in his pirogue.

Zounon has a fleet of seven pirogues and uses the acadjas for fishing. Thanks to the training received from PADPPA, he has managed to diversify his activities. He not only earns from his fisheries activities, but is also practicing pig farming and rents out his pirogues to other fishers.

“The fish stock in our lake was almost completely depleted”, says Zounon. “Thanks to PADPPA’s efforts, we now have the spawning beds in this lagoon”.

“Acadjas is a traditional fishing technique which provides a substrata of plants and animals and help to enhance fish production”, explains Zounon. “The spawning beds, on the other hand, are underwater solid surface used to increase the fish stock.”

These different methods have allowed Zounon and the other fishers in village of Houinta in Porto-Novo to have a relatively flourishing fishing business which in turn provides income generating opportunities for the women of their community.

Power women
The clear division of labour in Benin’s fishing practices is quite impressive. For example, fishing crabs and selling fish are exclusively a woman’s job. This is why whenever you visit a fish market in Benin, you can be sure to be greeted by a cheerful and colourful army of “mareyeuses” - women fish wholesalers. I challenge you to find a male fish wholesaler in the entire country!

The mareyeuses activities is not only limited on land. Even if you venture on a lake or lagoon where men are fishing in the spawn beds or acadjas enclosures, you’ll find the “mareyeuses” on their boats, buying fish from the men and selling it there and then.

Eugenie Bocovou is the president of a mareyeuses association which has over 8,000 members. She, like other members of the association, buys her fish directly from the fishers on the lake.

“I leave the house early in the morning for the lagoon, where about twenty men fish in the spawning beds and the acadja implemented by PADPPA”, explains Bocovou.

“I buy fish from them and sell it directly on the lake and what ever is left, I’ll bring it back to shore and sell it at the local market”.

The mareyeuses not always have storage facilities, such as iceboxes on board of their pirogues. Lack of adequate storage facility, combined with the lack of processing culture, are amongst the many challenges of women fish wholesalers.

One of the many new frontiers for Benin’s fishing sector and especially for the mareyeuses is the processing industry. You hardly find anyone employed in cutting, scaling and storage business. In fact, this is an underdeveloped sector.

To overcome these challenges, PADPPA has been providing iceboxes to the mareyeuses and has equipped certain communities with fish smoking facilities.

Smoking and frying fish are practically the only processing techniques practiced by the mareyeuses. And unfortunately, modern smoking techniques are not quite widespread in Benin.

Women still use firewood and rudimentary ovens. This means there is a high incidence of respiratory and eye diseases among women. Furthermore, smoking fish is practiced in less than hygienic conditions.

Recognizing the benefits of smoked fish such as longer shelf life and enhanced flavour, PADPPA provided mareyeuses such as Afi Lea Amoussou one of the 12 environmental friendly and clean smoking unit - known as chorkhor ovens.

“Thanks to these new ovens, I have better quality of smoked fish because the smoke circulates better and this way the entire fish is smoked. This improved quality means I have better business, I have reduced significantly health hazards associated with smoke inhalation, burns and my eyes do not tear as they used to before”, says Amoussou with a smile.

“I manage to sell my smoked fish anywhere from CFA12,000 to CFA25,000”.

“We love these ovens, because they do not cost too much to build, I can smoke much more fish, they are easy to use, the firebox is very accessible and I have significantly reduced the consumption of fire wood, which means we have to cut less trees and I do not have to spend a lot of time collecting firewood so I can do other things”, explains Amoussou with an ear to ear smile.

Amoussou, Bocovou and other mareyeuses are now running successful businesses and as a result have gained a social status within their communities.

It is common knowledge that there are no limits to women’s inventiveness and creativity and the mareyeuses are no exception. Their next frontier is to expand their processing business and to enter the export business, something that Albertine Fanounonsi is successfully practicing.

No crab mentality in Benin!
Crab fishing is another source of income for women fishers in Benin. Pierrette Medeho is one of the women crab collectors who lives in the village of Dohi in Comé district on Lake Ahémé.

PADPPA provided capacity building to this crab collecting community and equipped the women crab fishers with seven pirogues.

“Before we had our own boats, we used to take our husband’s boat when they were not using them and if we had a bit of money, we used to rent them”, says Medeho.

“Now that we have our own boat, during crab fishing season we are able to go out every day.”

“Collecting crab is a tough job. I go out with five other women”, explains Medeho. “We leave the house at 5 in the morning and if the weather is good, we stay out until 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon”.

On a good day, the women manage to come back with four to five baskets of crab each. And when they come back to shore, they have Albertine Fanounonsi waiting for them who buys their entire catch.

Medeho and her four campions use the money from their crab sale to send their children to school, contribute to the household expenses and they put aside the money they used to pay for rent for a rainy day.

Fanounonsi who is one of their main customers runs a thriving “crab export” business to Togo. She has devised a sophisticated delivery system in some ways similar to dabbawalla - the Mumbai lunchbox boys.

She buys a small basket for 1,000CFA and transfers the contents of eight small baskets in a big one. Fanounonsi’s crab baskets carry her brand which is her business trademark.

The crabs travel for two hours on road and then a boat takes them Togo. Someone on the other side picks up her baskets and sells them for her. Amazingly enough, thanks to the branded baskets which act like a bar code on a DHL package or a luggage tag, just like the dabbawalla lunchboxes in Mumbai, Fanounonsi crabs never go astray!

Fanounonsi visits Togo once a week to cash the money from the crab sale. On average she manages to sell one of her branded baskets between 9000-12,000CFA.

These women crab fishers collect crab, but as you can see they not have a “crab mentality”. For those who may not know what a crab mentality is - it is a metaphor describing how when crabs are put in a basket, they grab at each other and by pulling each other down, they prevent any of them from escaping.

There is a lot to learn from the women crab fishers of Dohi village. Their total lack of a crab mentality has allowed the community as a whole to thrive and prosper, with Fanounonsi running a thriving export business and Medeho and her companions running an equally flourshing crab collecting business.

The next logical step for industrious and intelligent women like Fanounonsi is to seriously consider adding value to her business by embracing processing and packing techniques and setting up a global crab export business!

Meet the people of Ganvie: Living on water
One of the last sites that my mentor Daouda Aliou wanted me to visit on this extraordinary trip, was lake village of Ganvie.

Ganvie is located in Lake Nokoué not too far away from Cotonou. It has a population of around 40,000 people, with 3,000 stilted houses spread out in 11 villages.

Ganvie village dates back to 17th century when the Tofinu people to escape slavery and the wrath of the Fon warriors - whose religion did not allow them to enter water - settled in this lake village.

It lies several kilometers from the shore. To avoid continuous trips to the shore, the inhabitants have organized themselves in such a way that they are completely self-sufficient. The floating markets, similar to those of Thailand, Viet Nam and Indonesia, sell fish, vegetables and fruits and acts like a social hub.

The villagers of Ganvie may have no running water or electricity, but almost all of them have a cellphone. While it is true that the main income generating activity on the lake is fishing, however, as you move around in pirogues on the lake, you’ll come across villagers selling cellphone airtime from their floating houses or running a thriving business of recharging cellphones for 100CFA. I wonder how long it took the “recharge votre portable” gentleman to pay for his generator - which incidentally is the only one on the entire lake!

Thanks to PADPPA, the artisanal fishers in Ganvie are using acadjas technique which is helping the polluted lake to restore some of its biodiversity and increase the available fish stock.

PADPPA has also introduced alternative income generating activities such as rabbit farming on this extraordinary lake village.

“What we really liked about the PADPPA approach was the fact that they listened to and understood our needs”, says BlandineKossou, the President of the rabbit farming association.

“We had our share of challenges with the villagers, as they thought that PADPPA was here to give them money and handouts”.

“The villagers who understood the scope of the programme and embraced the various activities such as fishing and rabbit farming today have a secure income”, explains Kossou.

“For example, we are able to sell our fish at the market for an average of 10,000CFA per basket and our rabbits between 4,000-5,000 CFA.”

The rabbit farming association has taken all of this one step further and ever month is putting aside 10,000CFA which is used to buy feed, repair or buy new rabbit cages.

“We could further expand our business and increase our income if we could get a loan, but you know having access to credit is not easy”, concludes Kossou.

“It is within this context that IFAD’s next interventions in Benin amongst other things will also focus on rural finance. This will hopefully allow people like Amoussou, Mensah and Kossou to finally have access to credit and be able to expand their businesses and turn their dreams into reality”, says Ndaya Beltchika, IFAD’s country programme manager for Benin.

On a personal note
I want to close this blogpost with thanking all the extraordinary people who I had the privilege of meeting on this mission. And they are:

Paul Allognon, Rose Mensah, Kuassi Oke, Vincent Deyo, Afi Lea Amoussou, Raphael Tokpowanou, Eugenie Bocovou, Ambroise Zounon, Augustin Amoussougbo, Pierrette Medeho, Albertine Fanounonsi, Blandine Kossou, Julienne Ebleou, Brigitte Bonou, Hounkanrin Vincent, Afomasse T, Mesmin, Richicatau Sale, Aglinglo A. Crespin, Gérard Gnakadja and, Daouda Aliou.

Thank you for your time, for you generosity and for your honesty. Thank you for sharing your stories, achievements, successes, challenges, aspirations and hopes. And I hope I’ve managed to share a sliver of your rich and inspiring stories.

Bonne chance for all your future endeavours and I hope our paths will cross in the near future.

Read more from the PADPPA series:

• Learn, adjust and aim high
• Once a fisher always a fisher? Maybe not....

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1/ Exclusive economic zone is an area of coastal water and seabed within a certain distance of a country's coastline, to which the country claims exclusive rights for fishing, drilling, and other economic activities.