OCTOBER 2002

Update on the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative

Jennifer Thomson, Senior Program Officer, Africa Region

Since AWFFI was first created in late 1999, more than 36,000 women have received over $1.2 million in credit from the revolving loan funds in the eight AWFFI countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal in West Africa; and Uganda, Malawi and Mozambique in East and Southern Africa. The average loan taken by each woman is about US$33, and the overall repayment rate to date is about 98%. All of the AWFFI women attend trainings in literacy, health, management and accounting and VCAs provided by AWFFI on a regular basis. In the first six months of 2002 alone, some 5,200 women received almost $150,000 in credit for their farming and food-related income-generating activities. The women have also been saving small amounts of their profits on a regular basis with AWFFI in order to provide an economic cushion for their families in the future; and to create the foundation of women-owned and managed rural banks.

During the course of the year, Jennifer Thomson, the Senior Program Officer for AWFFI, and Dr. Fitigu Tadesse, Director of the Africa Region, visited all eight countries where AWFFI is operating. We met with the staff and members of the AWFFI National Coordinating Committee as well as with our AWFFI women partners in the rural areas. In every area we visited, the women told us how the credit and training offered by AWFFI is changing their lives. The credit is enabling women to expand and diversify their farming, as well as to engage in other food related income-generating activities.

By diversifying their activities, the women are able to spread the risk over a variety of activities to ensure that they gain a profit, even if one of their activities fails to be successful. This is an important risk mitigation strategy. For example, many women in Malawi are raising chickens, pigs, fish, dairy cows and steers in addition to their vegetable farming. In Burkina Faso, farmer women buy large quantities of grain after the harvest in October when prices are cheaper in order to sell later on when supply is lower and prices are higher. In Mozambique, the credit program has enabled women to invest in more lucrative vegetables like tomatoes, onions and carrots which fetch a greater profit in the local market than the cabbages that they usually grow.

In addition to being profitable for the farmer women, the diversity of foods produced by the women represent an important improvement in the local food availability in quantity and quality. Also, having been produced locally, the women’s food products are cheaper than food transported from other regions. Therefore, many communities are benefiting from the provision of more affordable foods in the area which are accessible all year round.

With the profit gained from the sale of their products in the markets, the women told us that they have been able to buy enough food for their families and have been able to afford a more nutritious and varied diet. They are also able to purchase medicines for ailments like malaria that they were not always able to afford before. In some countries, replacing a home’s thatched roof with a sheet metal roof is a high priority. Women told us proudly of being able to provide this valued improvement for their families. In addition, women are now able to meet the school fees for both their girl and boy children. As we had hoped, The Hunger Project’s investment in farmer women has enabled the women to invest in turn in their own livelihood and that of their families in order to end their own hunger, as well as improve all family-members’ health and education. This impacts not only the women themselves, but also their children, their husbands, their parents and other family and community members, including - in many countries - AIDS orphans.

This year, both Malawi and Mozambique have been afflicted by a serious food shortage along with other southern African countries. Our women partners in both countries have been affected, but the availability of credit and access to their savings, as well as the availability of food in Malawi’s THP food banks, has significantly eased the hardship that they would have otherwise experienced. In addition, this time of hardship has resulted in the women being more receptive to suggestions from the AWFFI staff about how to avoid food shortages in the future. For example, in Mozambique, the National Coordinator reported that women are now adopting drought-resistant crops much more readily than before, because the women have seen what can happen if they don’t adapt their farming practices. They are now more willing to try new ideas, as the familiar practices are not ensuring their well-being.

While AWFFI is working very well in seven countries, in Nigeria there is a lack of structure and competent leadership to ensure that our partner women are able to benefit from the credit program. In August, we visited Nigeria to evaluate the progress of AWFFI. Even though we did see some improvement in the overall situation since our last visit one year ago, we nevertheless found neither the needed AWFFI leadership nor the necessary structures in place to deliver and collect loans to the rural women. These missing elements are necessary to ensure that the credit is effective in the economic empowerment process for rural women and also to create a viable revolving fund that will lead to the establishment of rural banks, created and managed by rural women. The eventual creation of women’s rural banks is necessary to ensure that the poorest of the rural women have sustainable access to credit in order to make a substantial contribution to the end of hunger and poverty in Nigeria. We therefore recommend the suspension of any future funding to AWFFI-Nigeria. Instead, the AWFFI-Nigeria program may continue to operate with the existing amount of $140,000 that THP has sent to Nigeria to date.

Despite the situation in Nigeria, in the seven other countries AWFFI is continuing to have a great impact on the lives of the women food farmers, their families and their communities. VCAs have provided a platform for women to share experiences and expertise among themselves and to provide mutual encouragement and positive reinforcement – all elements of equal importance to the women’s success as is the credit itself.

Similarly, the selection of an African woman food farmer "laureate" from each country during the AWFFI Torch Events has successfully created high profile role-models for other farmer women in each country. For example, while traveling in the villages with the AWFFI laureate of Bénin, Mrs. Leonie Donhou, the AWFFI partners we work with in each area were positively spellbound when listening to her speak. For many women, this was the first time that they had seen a farmer woman talking about how she had become literate, and how she had improved the quality of life in her village by working with other farmer women toward a common vision to which all group members committed to take action. AWFFI has started a strong movement among our partners which is growing every month as loans are re-paid enabling more women to receive credit and to partake in the benefits of joining a women’s group, attending trainings and working toward a better future for herself, her family and her community.