25 AUGUST 2000

Update on the African Women Food Farmer Initiative

To : The Global Board of Directors

From : Caroline Hossein, Senior Program Officer, Africa Region

RE : African Woman Food Farmer Initiative

Summary

In October 1999, The Hunger Project officially launched the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI) when the 1999 Africa Prize for Leadership was awarded to 100 million African women farmers. AWFFI Torch Events began in October 1999 in Burkina Faso; the "torch" then moved to Benin in February; Ghana in May; and Senegal in July of this year as part of the advocacy campaign to have the international community and national governments recognize the work done by women food farmers in Africa.

As of January 2000, the AWFF National Coordinators in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ghana and Nigeria have established local structures to ensure that the centerpiece of the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative – the micro-credit program – has a solid foundation. Each micro-credit program is unique and dependent on the village credit experience of the AWFF National Coordinator in distributing small loans to rural women involved in food production, food conservation and food marketing. In each AWFFI country, the AWFF National Coordinator has organized a local loans committee in AWFF partner villages. The loan committee is comprised of an executive who collaborates with the AWFF National Coordinator to identify women farmers in the village who need credit, to manage the repayment system and to monitor the work of partners receiving the loan.

African Woman Food Farmer Initiative Project Assessment Trip

From 24 July to 14 August 2000, Dr. Tadesse, Director for the Africa Region and I went to Senegal, Burkina Faso, Benin and Ghana as a first time visit to monitor and evaluate the on-the-ground projects of the AWFFI. What we found is that there is variation in the composition of the local loan committees, group formation and the loan distribution, repayment and collection systems in each of the AWFF countries and that there is a need to strengthen the institutional capacity-building of the microcredit program. However, the AWFF National Coordinators have set up a local structure that works within each country’s social and cultural context. All the local structures that have been set up ensure that AWFF partners have ownership in the microcredit program at a village level.

The AWFFI is received in Africa with great enthusiasm and political and other leaders in Africa recognize the important contribution that THP is making in creating such a program designed to empower the poorest of poor women in African society. More than rhetoric, The Hunger Project is making a concrete contribution in supporting women not only economically but also politically to ensure that women will have their rightful place in the society.

This AWFFI will allow women in their respective countries and subsequently in the West African region the possibility of creating their own rural banks, thus enabling them to have uninterrupted access to their own financial resources making them practically independent from unresponsive banks or credit institutions in their countries.

The biggest challenge facing this new initiative of The Hunger Project is to ensure that the AWFFI is an autonomous program designed to economically empower African women food farmers while being an integrated program for the end of hunger in each of the West African countries where we operate. It is therefore essential that the Global Office makes constantly clear this distinction in order to ensure that women in THP-Africa have their own program while being an integral part of the Country Hunger Project. In the long run, if this arrangement continues to be an obstacle to the effective delivery of the program, it may be necessary to fully integrate the Initiative.

AWFFI Micro-credit Programs in West Africa

Benin

The AWFF National Coordinator, Mrs. Rafiatou Karim, has distributed small loans to 2,048 rural women farmers in the four regions: Oueme, Atlantique, Zou and Mono. In fall 1999, she held an AWFFI and NGO seminar in which prominent local non-governmental organizations specializing in microcredit and business management were selected to work in partnership with the AWFFI. The AWFFI partnership with six local NGOs provides AWFF partners additional support in the supporting areas of literacy, health and management training.

While in Benin, we visited women representing 12 villages in the Mono and Zou regions. In the village of Savalou, five women groups received a loan for their respective groups, and the women decided that what their village needed was appropriate technology. As a result, the women from the five women’s groups equally contributed a portion of their group loan toward the purchase of a gristmill and grinding machine for cassava. The five groups now own a mill and grinding machine, which they have also turned into an income-generating activity by allowing others to use it for a small fee.

In addition, Mrs. Karim has an active AWFF National Coordinating Committee integrated with microcredit experts to ensure that there is a strong working relationship between men and women. The AWFF National Coordinating Committee provides technical and logistical support to the microcredit program.

Burkina Faso

The AWFF National Coordinator, Mrs. Bernadette Ouattara, has distributed credit to approximately 1,600 women farmers in 9 provinces. She has also provided health and nutrition training to 425 women in 2 provinces. The microcredit program is based on a one-year period with quarterly installments. The loans given to women can range from US$10 to $350 for individuals and groups. The women in each group determine whether they will divide the group loan among the members in the group or use it toward a communal project.

In all AWFF villages, a local structure has been put in place where each woman’s group has an executive, and the president from each group serves on the loan committee for the village. The loan committee works with the AWFFI to identify partners involved in food farming and they carry out regular site visits to monitor the income-generating activities of women’s groups participating in the microcredit program.

In the village of Villy, the community organized a Construction Committee in which men and women will work together on community projects to ensure sustainable development and self-reliance. Even though the AWFFI targets women farmers in rural areas, women and men are forming committees to work toward the goal of establishing a community food bank to ensure food security and a rural bank to enable that the poorest women farmers have access to small loans.

The AWFF National Coordinating Committee is very active in the identification of AWFFI areas of intervention. The Africa Prize recipient, Mrs. Nagbila Aisseta, is also a member on this committee and often accompanies the AWFFI staff on their site visits to empower women food farmers.

There is a close collaboration between THP-Burkina Faso and the AWFFI in terms of VCA workshops. The AWFFI concentrates on small loan distribution to women and THP-Burkina Faso gives VCA workshops to AWFF partners and staff.

Ghana

The AWFF National Coordinator, Mrs. Lorraine Osei-Mensah, has granted credit to approximately 900 women in three regions in Southern Ghana. Like the other AWFFI programs, she has created a local structure to ensure that partners have a real sense of ownership of the loan program in their villages. Due to larger group sizes, each group has a management executive and loan executive committee. It is the loan executive committee, comprised of 5-7 members, that works closely with the AWFF National Coordinator to distribute, monitor and collect loan repayments. In the village of Agona-Asafo, men also work with the AWFFI management executive. They have affirmed their solidarity and commitment in helping the women build a food bank and rural bank in the village within 2 years time.

The AWFFI is working closely with the treasurers of each women’s group to ensure that they have acquired strong management skills from the business training they recently received. The AWFF National Coordinator is confident that in 15 months, each AWFF village will have their own rural bank.

The AWFF National Coordinating Committee works closely with the AWFFI staff to ensure that partners receive technical training since members of the committee have selected to work in regions where they have a link with community leaders. THP-Ghana and AWFFI intend on merging their programs more in the future to ensure that the AWFFI can provide loans to women in THP villages and THP-Ghana will launch VCA workshops in AWFF partner villages.

Nigeria

We did not visit Nigeria during this project evaluation trip. In May 2000, Chief Bisi appointed Mrs. Akindele as the new AWFF National Coordinator. In a recent activity report, 1,250 women have received loans in 13 states in 3 regions of the country. In addition, approximately 2,300 women have received training in literacy, accounting and health.

Senegal

To date, the AWFF National Coordinator, Mrs. Fadiop Sall, has granted small loans to 5,470 women entrepreneurs and farmers in 12 regions in Senegal. In the northern regions of Ross-Béthio and Rosso-Senegal, the AWFFI and THP-Senegal office are working at ways to collaborate so that the AWFFI can focus on the microcredit program and THP-Senegal can provide literacy classes, VCA workshops and health training to partners.

The microcredit program follows a 17-month period, and each region has a chairperson who is responsible for mobilizing AWFF partner groups and assisting the AWFFI in project visits. The loan program requires women partners to contribute as a group of ten women at least 50% of the loan given to them. They are also required to save 10% of their earnings from the start of the program.

Within 10 months, the AWFF National Coordinator will have established rural banks in every region in which the AWFFI has partners.