• Prologue
• Introduction
• Achievements
  • Introduction
  • Outcome: Strengthening farmers’ organisations
  • Impact
  • IFDC: From 1000s to millions (1000+)
  • IFAP
• Advisory Services
• Projects: the building blocks
• FFP: Funding & Expenditure
• Conclusions and recommendations
• Download Activity Report 2009

Achievements

Introduction

Strengthened farmers’ organisations are at the core of our work. The agri-agencies want to support farmers’ organisations in becoming strong, representative and democratic membership-based organisations. The agencies are convinced that such organisations have an important role to play in development, democratisation and income distribution.

In this chapter we present the evidence collected on our outcome (were organisations actually strengthened?) and impact (did people’s living conditions really improve?). To measure outcome we use the profiling. This is a tool, mainly used by Agriterra, to measure the strength of organisations on a number of indicators. To measure impact we use the figures on outreach and activities per intervention level, stories collected and evaluations of four projects. This chapter also presents the results we obtained together with two important institutions with which we closely cooperate, IFDC (the 1000+ programme in Western Africa) and IFAP. Both of them were thought to contribute considerably to our overall results.

Outcome: Strengthening farmers’ organisations

A strong farmers’ organisation maintains external relations and is able to (positively) influence these relations. Members are involved in policy- and decision-making and in the activities of the organisation, making the organisation democratically organised. The leaders report to their members about results of the organisation and give them the opportunity to control the organisation and the board. A strong organisation has the capacity to pursue long-term goals. To do so members need expertise and implementation capacity is needed within the organisation. Apart from that agri-agencies and their constituent farmers’ organisations consider it important that an organisation is aware of the role of women and actually includes gender issues in their activities.

All these aspects are brought together in the profiling tool by means of its indicators (a full explanation can be found in Annex 9b). By measuring those aspects we assess the strength of an organisation at a certain point in time. Repeated measurements in subsequent years provide information about the organisation’s development. Agriterra started to profile some of its organisations in 2000. Ever since, repeated measurements have been executed, constructing an increasing information source on the development of the farmers’ organisations. During the Farmers Fighting Poverty programme, four measurements will be done. The measurements as part of Farmers Fighting Poverty could only be continued at the end of 2008. These measurements were about the situation at the end of 2007 and were discussed in last year’s report. This year we will base discussions on measurements up to end of 2008. The developments are made visible in the so-called ‘spider map’. Some examples of spider-maps are included in this section and in Supplement 3: Outcome and Impact. The last two measurements will be discussed in the report on 2010.

We can describe strengthening results at two levels: in terms of trends for groups/all organisations, and by giving examples of what happened in certain specific cases. We will start with the latter.

Strengthening processes in organisations

In 2009-2010, an extensive evaluation of Dutch support to capacity development is being carried out by the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In that context, the long-term strengthening process of three clients of Agriterra was evaluated by the Dutch consultancy firm MDF: Sydip in DR Congo, Fekritama in Madagascar and Mviwata in Tanzania . The evaluation reports without exception underlined the fact that all organisations were indeed strengthened and had become important organisations in their respective countries. The reports also mentioned the clear relation between the invested efforts of Agriterra and the positive effects of these efforts in the strengthening process.

In the case of Sydip, the interventions of Agriterra have contributed since 2002 to several positive changes in the capacity of the organisation. For instance, broad leadership has become well institutionalised in SYDIP and is not limited anymore two men in charge: the President and the General Secretary. In fact the leadership of the organisation is better organised at all levels with youth, producer and women commissions. These and other strengthening processes have led to visible improvement of Sydip’s performance, i.e. in terms of the services it actually delivers to its members. To name a few:

• legal support to members on land issues
• leadership training at all levels
• technical advice on agricultural production, cost calculations and sales
• sales of agricultural inputs, including seeds and small plants
• improved marketing information and marketing conditions for members
• informing and training of members on themes such as gender and HIV-AIDS

And these services in turn led to a better quality of life for the members, as exemplified by qualitative factors such as the feeling of pride of being a farmer and being capable to negotiate with authorities, but also by tangible improvements in areas such as the access to seeds of quinquina (a medicinal crop), coffee, an increased production (potato, quinquina), increased income and saving for investments.

The findings confirmed what was shown by Agriterra’s own profiling instrument (below). It showed a clear improvement in the score on the indicator for strategic potential. This indicator specifically measures the quantity and reach of the services provided by the organisation to its members.

Spidermap, Sydip

What about other countries and continents? Which processes do we see there? By describing some examples, we will occasionally mention a specific indicator. The value of these indicators can be found under the tab ‘Organisational data’ in the Organisations module of agro-info.net.

Ecuador: Economic activities of producer organisations are sometimes hampered by certain weaknesses. By addressing these issues in a focused manner an improvement of the work of the organisation can take place. A typical example is UNORCAC, which has been supported over a number of years and has in the meantime built a positive track record on farmer-led business development within tourism, honey and processing. However the financial sustainability of UNORCAC itself is still an issue, hampering the delivery of those services. This is indicated by the general setback in indicator scores between 2007 and 2008. An advisory mission from COCLA (Peru) explored the feasibility of the establishment of a corporate marketing and management company by UNORCAC.

Kenya: KENFAP Services Limited has been developed as a business wing of KENFAP. This is an innovative approach of KENFAP to generate its own income. This has not yet been fully realised, as becomes clear if one looks at the scores for income diversification and strategic potential. Based on advisory support of a Dutch AgriPool expert and a business development consultant, the future focus of KSL will be more on supply of input for food crops.

Cambodia: Farmer Nature Network (FNN) received advice from a French AgriPool expert recruited by AFDI and an liaison officer from Agriterra on the implementation of its strategic plan. FNN also visited France where the do’s and don’ts of establishing a cooperative and the way of working of the Agriculture Credit Bank were discussed. The joint support from AFDI and Agriterra to FNN has resulted into the network being able to build up a strong relationship with the district government and with its members, as is visible from a high participation score and progress on the representation indicator. Both aspects are important for the future plans for cooperative development in Cambodia and the establishment of a credit institution.

Madagascar: Statistics show a significant discrepancy between the income of rural women and that of men. It is therefore interesting to see that most micro-projects by Fekritama are implemented by women. They started income generating projects in poultry raising, collectively selling their products, breeding and selling zebu’s (together with their husbands) and improving rice production. The women in Madagascar are able to take their responsibility and power into their own hands through the application for funds in micro-projects. This is reflected by the gender indicator that shows a slowly rising score over the years: from 47% in 2007 to 52% in 2009.

Burkina Faso: The farmers’ organisation Fepa/B has a relatively high representation score, meaning it is well-positioned in the agricultural arena in the country. It was able to sign a marketing contract with the World Food Program (Purchase for Progress program) for 200 ton cowpeas / sorghum. National headquarters was responsible for the negotiations, and three regional unions supplied the demanded quantities. The federation and the members of the three unions profited considerably from the collaboration with this important buyer.

These and many other examples of how the services of the agri-agencies contribute to the strengthening processes are to be found in the chapters on Advisory services (II.4) and Projects (III.2). And of course the process is cyclical: the strengthening process is a result of these funding and advisory services. And inversely, the exact nature of those services will be determined on the basis of the existing image of strengths and weaknesses of the organisation, as we see in some of the next cases.

Madagascar: Agriterra’s support to Fekritama (since 2000) is characterised by ownership: the support is entirely aimed at contributing directly to the realisation of the organisation’s own development plans. According to external IOB evaluators, Agriterra has contributed about 65% to the capacity building results of Fekritama.

Nepal: MIAN’s cooperation with the Nepal Federation of Savings and Credit Cooperative Unions (NEFSCUN) has already resulted in NEFSCUN being much stronger on aspects such as economic independence and strategic potential. But NEFSCUN could still professionalise their insurance services both in terms of administration and service provision. The MIAN advisers, a group of professionals from the Dutch insurance companies, is called to advice on this.

Does the above mean that our support always leads to such excellent results? No, not always. There are also organisations where, despite intensive advisory and funding support over a number of years, not much development is seen. For instance, in Peru, there seems to be little understanding within the Confederación Nacional Agraria (CNA) of rural markets concepts. The financial support by Agriterra and others has not yet resulted in a financially healthy and viable organisation. And in Tanzania, Mviwata seems to have difficulties moving on from a (well-working) network organisation/service provider to a truly organic membership organisation.

But all in all, there is an overall positive trend: focused and long-term support of a producer organisation does finally lead to an impact on the farmers’ livelihood by making organisations stronger and more autonomous. It is clear that those effects cannot be achieved overnight. Such is also one of the (challenging) conclusions of the abovementioned IOB evaluators. They go on by expressing their doubt whether farmers’ organisations with a high ambition level (the typical prospected clients of the agri-agencies) can ever be really financially independent and have an influential role in society and economy in their country:
“This valid ambition always will require external funding. The large number of farmers still to reach is another key challenge. The idea of Agriterra that rural membership organisations should become (financially) independent, say after seven years, is not realistic if the above mentioned ambitions are maintained.”

An AgriCord analysis on ‘Evidence on Impact’ argues in a similar way. One critical issue is that many small farmers are still too poor to afford membership fees, so the organisations need support until they are truly sustainable. During this phase, it is important that organisations continue to account for their activities to their members (with only external contributions, they run the risk to answer only ‘upwards’, i.e. to donors). Notwithstanding these doubts, the trends – particularly on this issue of external financial dependency - are positive, as we see in the next paragraph.

Trends and figures

The aggregate profiling figures show a picture that is very positive on two ‘solid’ (exclusively factual) indicators: Income Diversification (to what degree does the organisation succeed in generating its own income?) and Degree of Organisation (how many of all possible farmers are member of the organisation. In other words, its Representativity). We single these two indicators out, because current thinking in membership organisations strengthening argues that there are two main criteria by which to analyse those organisations: their size (i.e. membership) and their financial autonomy (which closely resembles our income diversification indicator). They are factual and therefore less subject to variable opinions as we already pointed out last year. Income diversification improved with 5,5% and the degree of organisation rose with 9,0%. For the Degree of Organisation the increase is even more in a single year than was foreseen for the four-year programme term. The figures behind these percentages show that in 41% of the cases the membership increased up to 25% and in 21% of the cases the increase was even higher than 25%. Half of these organisations being African organisations. In 15% of the cases analysed the membership base reduced, whereas 23% of the cases showed no significant change in membership.

The average improvement of income diversification of 5,5% has to be clarified more, especially related to the sensitive subject of the dependency on donor money. According to our point of view the absolute increase of funds accruing to farmers’ organisations is desirable and it is part of our strategy to stimulate that. In this sense, an increasing donor income is not a problem and according to the IOB evaluator the farmers’ organisations do need external funding for some time before they will be strong enough to become independent. Yet, what is important is the relative share of donor income as compared to total income and the diversification of sources. In order to not let the wishes of a donor prevail over the goals of the farmers’ organisations themselves, the income share originating from own sources needs to be higher. Figures show that this relative share is still high, ranging from 63% in Asia to 88% for our clients in Eastern Europe. In the monitored time frame, both total income and donor income has increased in the case of 45% of our clients. In the other cases there was a decrease or stabilisation of both elements, reporting the average effect of a net 5,5% improvement of the income diversification.

However, the picture of the six other indicators (shown in the spider map) is more ambiguous. Regretfully, only the representation indicator is more or less on track. Almost all of the other indicators are more or less stable. There are however large differences between continents. In Africa, we see that on average the organisations are doing well in the way they account for their actions to their members as well as the potential to pursue long-term goals. However, the members are (on average) not very much involved in the decisions made nor are the operations of the organisations as professional as they should be. On the other hand, in Latin America we see that this involvement is increasing but that the capacity to think and act strategically (long-term) had decreased somewhat, showing an increase of 3% in participation, but a decrease in strategic potential of 4,8%. The Asian organisations show good results when it comes to increasing their presence in all sort of networks and fora, and in their strategic potential.

If we look at the 53 organisations that have undergone two complete measurements, 18 of them have been strengthened and 21 remained stable. Several factors can explain these results.

Over the four programme years, we expected these six indicators to show an increase between 10% and 25%, which coincides with the yearly increase presented in table 1. The results show that only for the indicator that measures the capacity of the organisation to position itself vis-à-vis other actors (= Representation) this goal can still be met. A partial explanation is probably that a continuous growth on these aspects is far more difficult than initial success. The targets were based on historic trends and did not take into account diminishing returns in the strengthening process and thus the influence of the growth in membership.

Then again, also the success on the increased membership dimension can explain the stagnation in the strengthening on most aspects represented in the spider map. It is for instance easy to understand that with fast increasing membership, as is happening in Africa, a rise in members’ participation and involvement (which is computed as a share of that total membership) becomes more difficult. So, keeping the participation levels constant when membership grows, is already an achievement in itself. The influence of membership growth could also be inferred from the fact that the only ‘spider map’ indicator that is on track is representation: a logical development, since the more members an organisation has, the more it will be taken seriously by the government and other actors and stakeholders. In other words, perhaps these figures should be corrected for membership growth.

Furthermore, facts vary less quickly than opinions, and the latter partly influence the six so-called leading indicators. The six indicators are partly based on opinions, some of them intuitive, and when the time between both measurements is relatively short, it is understandable that normative statements about some of the aspects of an organisation will not vary too much and make these six indicators more inert. The figures on 2009 (in our next Activity Report) will confirm or reject this hypothesis, which anyway seems to find some theoretical confirmation in using as core indicators the two solid ones mentioned earlier.

Then the following conclusions can be drawn. The performance of the programme is satisfactory, showing more progress on the two ‘factual’ indicators in a single year than was foreseen for the entire programme. Given the complexity of the profiling instrument and the fact that the two factual (yet relatively less sophisticated) indicators show the clearest results, it will be reviewed whether the instrument needs to be redesigned. This would be in line with the recommendation of the IOB evaluators, who tended to criticize the excessive technicality of the system and the large quantity of information needed to build up indicators.

We conclude this paragraph with illustrations of the ample increase in membership among our client organisations. Per continent this gives the following picture:

Why satisfactory? Because, in our opinion the larger the better. The larger the membership of organisations, all the more likely it is that they will be taken seriously by their negotiating partners: governments, banks and research institutes. Some striking examples of this increase in membership are listed below.

The reasons for these increases can be diverse, and can sometimes also have to do with better registration systems. But in the case of NEFSCUN, for instance, both the number of member SACCO’s (Savings and Credit Cooperatives) and the number of farmers in every member SACCO have grown. Why? Not only it seems that NEFSCUN is making itself more visible in Nepal (something that is confirmed by the increasing representation indicator). The organisation also succeeded in making it very attractive for women to join their local SACCO. They could become a member if they saved a certain small but constant amount of money during six months. Many women have taken this opportunity, which explains not only the fast growth of the organisation, but also makes the share of women in the total membership to have risen to 50%. The trend seems to have continued in 2009, with NEFSCUN now having 350.000 members, 60% of which are women.

Future developments concerning organisational strengthening

Currently Agriterra is working on a complete profiling of selected organisations, consisting of a descriptive part giving a full picture of the farmer’s organisation and the detailed data that have led to the indicators discussed above. The target is to produce 40 complete profiles in 2010, which will also (like the capacity strengthening memos) form the basis for strategic discussions with our partners and will be a source of information on farmers’ organisations. Where possible the profiles will include the results of the quantitative profiling exercise of 2009, which is being carried out in the first half of 2010. The descriptive profiles will be registered on agro-info.net.

A CIDIN post-doc researcher has continued his work on the profiling of cooperatives, presenting a draft format to apply to these organisations. The final version will be decided on in 2010.

Impact

Introduction

As explained in Farmers Fighting Poverty – Start of a new programme (2007), we use several criteria to measure the impact of our work, i.e. the visible change (improvement) in people’s livelihoods. Direct participation in projects is considered an indication that the participants actually benefit and perceive a direct change in their surroundings. That is why we monitor the number of participants per level of operations (outreach). To be as truthful as possible about the number of people reached, we only count those who actually receive funds or support through a project.

The programme is performing very well when it comes to its outreach: the number of people actually participating in the projects. We are already well beyond the original four-year goal (2.7 million people), with over 2.4 million participants in 2009 alone, and some 4.8 million in 2007-2009. In 2009, 38% of the outreach concerned women, i.e. more than 900.000 women, which is again far above target. Although these figures are far above expectations we have to remain critical about the numbers and acknowledge the fact that the registration of participation is a subjective matter (what is direct, what is indirect, which level, etc). With the definition and understanding of the concept of outreach becoming clearer over the years, we have corrected the outreach of some projects the past few years and will continue to do so when there is reason to do so. By the end of the programme we aim to give a reliable indication of the real number of participants. This being said we are sure the effectiveness of Farmers Fighting Poverty in reaching farmers and improving their lives will remain above what we ever promised.

Stories, or testimonies, from the field are another way to collect evidence of the impact of our work. In order to get a further understanding of impact and best practices we also conduct in depth evaluations of projects. In this chapter we will highlight some stories and outcomes of the evaluations. The more quantitative analysis of impact are dealt with in Supplement 4.

Each of the 2,4 million participants in 2009 received an average € 12 from the programme. Particularly at the lowest levels of association many people were reached, which, together with a relatively smaller share of the funding that went that way, led to an average benefit of € 8 on the local level.

We assume that spending at the local level contributes to direct poverty reduction; spending at (sub-) national level to civil society building and spending at regional and global level to lobby activities. In 2008 we saw that spending at local level fell just a little short of expectations (33% instead of 37%). In 2009, however, we had foreseen a substantial growth in the share of spending at local level but the reality did not match the expectations. This mainly has to do with the fact that the number of micro projects (and thus spending at local level) did not grow as much as we had expected (see the table below).

In conclusion, we are doing well in terms of people reached, also at the local level. The programme is however lagging behind in its ambition to have funds going to the lowest geographical level. There are two ways to look at this. When we only look at the intervention levels of project as a whole, we see that only 20% goes to the local level (See the table rows ‘Expenditure per intervention strategy (incl. financing costs)’ in Annex 1.). The table above, gives a more in depth picture of the distribution of funds (see supplement 4). It is calculated on the basis of the division of funds within the projects: which amount of project funding was spent at which level? This already gives a more positive picture, which is confirmed by the outreach and expenditure data. Much of the work and actual activities are being carried out at the local level, whereas contracts might be signed on another level (see II.2 Organisations).

Stories

By collecting stories among the members of organisations that participate in the project of Farmers Fighting Poverty, we want to paint the picture behind the figures collected on impact. There is indeed evidence that Farmers Fighting Poverty is having an impact. Farmers’ organisations can bring innovations to their members in diverse ways. AgriCord’s report ‘Evidence of Impact’ has analysed a random selection of stories and uncovered five emerging themes. Relevant examples from this report are given below.

Markets
Markets are a significant area where there is clear evidence of impact. But a market is a process as well as a facility. Traders need access to price information and fair weights and measures. Sellers may need to clean or process commodities. It has taken ten years of concerted action with MVIWATA to set up six new rural markets in Tanzania, managed by small local groups of key market stakeholders, including representatives of farmers’ organisations. Sales volumes and range of products on offer are good ways of judging how useful a market is to the surrounding population: on these measures the new markets are flourishing, even if the profit made by each market is not large.

Savings and credit cooperative organisations (SACCOs)
A recurring theme is the proliferation of micro-finance banks known as SACCOs. Farmers can be affiliates of these cooperatives, which allow their members to take out small loans at affordable interest rates to expand their businesses. For example, working with the Cooperative Bank of Kenya, a community-based microfinance initiative was set up especially for low-income small-scale entrepreneurs, including farmers, who would otherwise find it difficult to obtain a loan. The project encouraged SACCOs to work as financial intermediaries for rural communities. As well as taking out loans, members were able to build savings, and more women were reached in 2009 than the year before. Other examples abound, and the voices of some of the beneficiaries can be heard in the stories harvested.

Organic production
Organic production and certification is another approach, particularly in Latin America. Organic and fair-trade produce has a growing market in the developed world, and switching to this way of production can give growers a higher-value crop that requires fewer expensive inputs. Members of 38 coffee-growing cooperatives (allied to PRODECOOP) in Nicaragua earn 20% more for their coffee and production has increased by 25% since the project started.

And in Guatemala, coffee cooperatives (FECECOCAGUA) have pushed productivity up 10% per year (and 20% on demonstration plots) by a combination of better internal controls, fair trade and organic certification and agricultural best practice.

Agro-forestry and an ecological approach
Another project in Costa Rica (with FECOOPA) chose to use agro-ecological methods to increase food security in a sustainable manner. Cooperative members (more than 1,800 people) now have better nutrition from a broader range of food, and the co-ops have moved away from the mono-cropping that was having detrimental effects on the social and natural environment.

In Honduras, 17 communities (about 90% of the people living in the Tawahka Asangni biosphere reserve) are involved (with ICADE) in surveillance to protect forests and watersheds. Illegal logging and deforestation have has been reduced by about 80%. At the same time, the communities are getting better yields of food crops, and are using solar dryers in some cases to reduce post-harvest losses. Kitchen gardens have been set up to produce vegetables fruit and non-traditional crops. Fish farming and poultry have also been introduced. People living here now have a better diet and cash income from selling excess (…) Conserving biodiversity at the same time as protecting livelihoods cannot be done without understanding local groups’ natural coexistence with the forest, which is why support through a farmers’ organisation is so effective. However, even though progress has been made, the communities are not yet ready to deal with the remaining challenges alone.

Technical innovations
In the south of Madagascar, 1,700 farmers reported better yields as a result of increased productivity of cassava, rice and pulses. They also learned how to farm fish and use more diverse production systems.

In Morocco, cooperatives found that traditional silos maintain low temperatures and are better for storing grain than metal silos. Wheat producers have been able to cut costs by sowing seed directly, which uses less seed and is twice as fast as using traditional cultivation methods. There have been experiments using direct sowing machines using animal traction. And by using nitrogen fertilizer rationally they avoid waste and improve wheat quality.

So the varied evidence is suggesting that producer organisations (and hence their members) are seeing impacts from interventions under the Farmers Fighting Poverty framework. Yet, there is still much to do. Many small farmers and producers are still too poor to pay membership fees to join their local cooperative, so the organisations will need support for some time to come.
There is tension too between the need for small farmers to attend training courses to improve their skills and the more pressing daily requirements of running a small farm. A project in Paraguay with ONAC (the national campesino organisation) has achieved many things, including better commercialization of vegetables and grain, more women having access to monetary income and being active within the organisation. The participatory approach has fostered leadership, analytical capacity and ownership of the development process, but its weakness is that it takes a great deal of the farmers’ time and hampers productive farm work.

Another mid-term review of projects in Southeast Asia reported that “the lack of resources and the abject poverty of the target group in the lower spectrum of poverty hinder their full participation in the local economic development process. As they are still in survival stage, how to bring them to the next level is a challenge particularly for the micro-entrepreneurs.” As was the case with the campesinos mentioned above, farmers were often unable to attend training sessions: “assistance is always hampered by low prioritization because of their preoccupation with their livelihood.”

The general picture emerging from these stories is very positive. Many testimonies (almost 60) have been collected in 2009 that show that lives of farmers have improved thanks to the fact that they belong to an farmers’ organisation that is carrying out activities made possible by the support of agri-agencies. This in itself is evidence that, in combination with the quantitative data on outreach, the interventions of the agri-agencies indeed do have an impact. It was our goal to make the evidence even more solid by recording to how many farmers and women farmers it could be considered to apply. This, however, turned out to be more difficult than we thought and calls for further reflection on how to combine quantitative and qualitative data when reporting, monitoring and evaluating: a challenge for phase II of Farmers Fighting Poverty. The evaluation of the 1000s+ programme, which is very much about impact and income growth (see chapter 1.4) will also address this issue.

Evaluations

Project evaluations in the context of the programme were carried out by Agriterra in all continents, the Swedish Cooperative Centre (SCC) in Southern Africa and by Trias in Central America. We mention some of the evaluated projects, illustrating again the impact of the actions that are made possible in the context of Farmers Fighting Poverty.

Agriterra
Like in previous years, Agriterra carried out four evaluations in 2009. This time about projects carried out during 2008 in Niger, Nicaragua, Thailand and Senegal. The details are to be found on agro-info.net (see project 5248 and click on Execution/Missions). In the present chapter we will briefly highlight and compare the main findings of each evaluation (the full reports are available) and draw some lessons for the future.

L'évaluation du projet 'Amélioration de vie des pasteurs et agropasteurs' (de l’ l’Association pour la Redynamisation de l’Elevage au Niger - AREN) (5 to 25 December 2009, Niger). By Amza Tahirou and Achille Ouedrago.

Since the project title hints at improving lives of farmers, one expects this project to have direct impact. In practice, the AREN project turned out to be geared more towards multiple dimensions of organisational and institutional development than towards activities that could have a direct impact on the lives and circumstances of the members. One of the main findings of the study was that the project was successful in terms of the strategic positioning of (nomadic) cattle-raisers, who, as a sector, have always been somewhat ‘overlooked’ in Niger. They are now taken into account when development policy is made in Niger, which is a good result but “…more attention should be giving to the direct interest of the ranchers. The strong focus on rights and obligations has left too little room for economic activities and the value of local knowledge is not always acknowledged.” Other points of attention pointed out by the evaluators are the internal communication and deficient accounting and monitoring of activities.

Improvement of Services to Farmers in Thailand (SorKorPor). 9 to 21 November 2009, Thailand. By Rien Geuze and Sara Filius

In general, the evaluators evaluated the project as ‘satisfactory’ and attributed this in part to the financial aid through Agriterra. The project concentrated on lobby and advocacy in 2008. The imminent creation of the National Farmer Council, which is going to receive a strong legal basis in 2010, is the most tangible result. Through this council, SorKorPor will be formally consulted on new farm laws and regulations from 2010 onwards. In general, the lobby maintained to be strong under three different governments in 2008. The Dutch partner organisation ZLTO could help SorKorPor to improve agricultural vocational education in Thailand in addition to its present organisational advisory support.

The goal of 1.000 new registered members was almost reached (828). The ultimate goal, continuous economic progress of farmers, is coming about very slowly. Policy development takes a lot of time in Thailand as well and farmers want to see results after ten years. Therefore members ask for economic activities from their farmers’ organisation in order to benefit themselves at farm level.

The issue of financial sustainability through contribution of members, affiliated organisations, economic activities or additional donors remains difficult to handle. SorKorPor still has very little income from membership contribution, which is also attributable to a lack of clarity on who exactly are the members. A strategic decision needs to be taken by SorKorPor in order to become financially independent in the (near) future. Agriterra has made this very clear to board members and the Secretary-General.

Evaluación del proyecto UNAG-Chontales ‘Fortaleciendo los afiliados de UNAG-Chontales - Fase II’. 1 to 11 November, 2009, Nicaragua. By Jan Smid and Jorge Acosta Soto

The evaluators highlighted the success of the Farmers’ Market in the town of Juigalpa (the capital of Chontales). As the figures below tell, the total sales increased enormously, this again divided over a higher number of farmers that could enjoy these higher profits.

Évaluation externe du programme « oser et croire » 2007-2008 et de l’organisation interne de l’Union des Producteurs Privés/Union des Femmes (Île à Morphil). 10-22 October, Senegal. By Fatou Bocoum and Gino Pelletier

The evaluation confirmed what was already apparent from the frequent problems and tiresome communications associated with this project: it is not going well. Agriterra is not inclined to continue working with either the Union des Producteurs Privés (UPP) or the Union des Femmes (UF) due to a mixture of factors. For instance the fact that communication was taken care of by only one person, the unclear relationship between the two organisations that executed the project, the contradictory reports about the use and depletion of a revolving credit fund, which in the end turned out to have been used much less (and much later) than possible. The evaluators still had some positive recommendations, but Agriterra feels that effective cooperation is not possible at this moment.

SCC
1. Regional Study Circle Resource Centre, December 2009
SCC commissioned an evaluation of the Regional Study Circle Resource Centre to assess the centres’ work in supporting study groups of 5-15 farmers. The main lesson learnt was that the information flow from study groups through organisers to partner headquarters has not been very strong yet. By improving the monitoring this issue should be solved.

2. Civil Society Support Programme (PASC), Niassa, Mozambique, December 2009
The purpose of the mid-term review was to discover how achieved results of PASC can be further enhanced as well as sustained once the programme ends in December 2010. The approach to combine social accountability and advocacy, on one hand and, support to productive activities such as agriculture, turned out to be relevant in the Niassa context. The programme will, amongst others, carry out organisational assessments to guide final interventions. A final push will be made to even further develop and use the study circles and an effort will be made to coordinate even more with the public sector.

3. Evaluation of the Food Security for HIV Affected Households Project, Zimbabwe
The evaluation sought to assess the results achieved by the SCC food security project in Gweru Urban and Kwekwe Rural Districts and provide lessons and recommendations for future programming. A participatory approach was used in the evaluation. The main finding was that the project has brought equity among community members, restored dignity, self-esteem and hope among the poor who can now feed their families as well as own livestock. An important recommendation, to be followed up by SCC, is that SCC will work to deliberately target men in food security interventions and related education activities to ensure that the benefits arising from the programme do not face resistance at the household level.

4. Gender Impact Assessment of the Food Security Project for HIV Affected Households, Zimbabwe
The main goal was to provide recommendations and input on how the project can better take into account differences between men and women with regards to participation and improve its contribution to the elimination of gender-based inequalities. The evaluation found that the strides that the project has made would have been further enhanced if in addition to baselines for monitoring and evaluation, gender analyses were carried out. To this end, there should also be deliberate quotas for male participation in the recruitment of beneficiaries not just at project inception but also in the course of the project.

Trias
Evaluations of three Central American projects were carried out:

• Improved market conditions, quality labeling, cooperative management for 1300 small organic coffee producers (APODIP, Guatemala)
• CCA as active role player in the local economic development of Nonualcos (El Salvador)
• Towards a strong rural movement, AMPRO (Asociación de Microempresarios y Productores Agrícolas del Occidente de Honduras).

For details, see www. agro-info.net. We quote from the Salvadoran report:

“A participatory self-evaluation has been carried out, covering social, economic, institutional and other aspects. This has led to a new strategic plan that still needs refining and feasibility studies in order to take final decisions. Also the analytical capacity of the board has improved, and numerous exchanges have led to more knowledge”.

Evaluations: conclusions and lessons learned
The Nicaraguan case is the most outspoken in confirming the positive impact on the number of participants and their income thanks to their participation in the programme. In other cases, it is not always very easy to say how the situation of the members has changed thanks to the project. Partly this has to do with the nature of the projects. Many focus on the more vague aspects related to organisational strengthening, than on concrete and visible services that are rendered to the members.

It is also partly due to the intervention logic, in which “impact” we see stronger organisations that have a positive effect on economic development, democratisation and inequality reduction as the highest level of the result chain. This ignores the fact that many projects do generate immediate impact for their members when the higher level results in terms of organisational strengthening may not be immediately apparent, let alone lead to those mentioned changes at the societal level as a whole.

Another aspect of the occasional inability to detect impact has been pointed out by several evaluators: the sometimes vague formulation of concrete success indicators for the project and lack of baseline data concerning the situation of the beneficiaries (= members). Both aspects will be dealt with in the second phase of Farmers Fighting Poverty, when each project as such will be formulated in terms of project targets that have an initial situation (baseline) and a desired result.

It is noteworthy that the projects in which impact has been hard to detect have often been successful. In several cases, progress has been made towards higher representativity of the organisations involved. And in the Nicaraguan and Zimbabwe cases impact was evident: members now have access to the Farmers’ Market in Juigalpa, leading to higher incomes for the participating families. And, equity among community members, restored dignity, self-esteem and hope among the poor who can now feed their families and their own livestock in Zimbabwe. Yet, the project in Senegal has been unsuccessful, if only because the turnover of the credit fund has been much lower than expected (and indeed not easy to determine exactly).

The evaluations of the last two years were complicated because of the difficult availability of key (project) data during the evaluation visits to the organisations. Not only in terms of budgets and spending but also in terms of registration of project activities and progress. The M&E task team will therefore look for ways to support farmers’ organisations in improving their reporting, monitoring and evaluation systems.

Rice field - Madagascar

IFDC: From 1000s to millions (1000+)

With strong involvement of seven national platforms of farmers’ organisations in West Africa and their umbrella organisation ROPPA (Réseau des organisations paysannes et des producteurs agricoles de l'Afrique de l'Ouest), the 1000s+ programme promotes the widespread introduction of competitive agricultural systems and enterprises (CASE approach). It does so by stimulating linkages between value chain actors and surrounding support services, such as credit institutions, training and extension services, agricultural research, etc. The actors are grouped around a single commodity in so called ‘agribusiness clusters’ that are integrated into specific value chains.

The programme has typical impact-related objectives, such as a 50% increase of agricultural productivity, as well as a 30% increase of the average income of 1 million farmers' families.

Agriterra joined the programme in 2008 with the intention to strengthen the capacities of the regional and national farmers’ organisations in the programme execution, thus making it more farmer-led. The presidency of the steering committees was given to the national farmers’ platform in most cases and NAFEIs (National Advisor on Farmers’ Economic Initiatives) were appointed in all the countries at the beginning of 2009. Their presence increased the involvement of farmers’ organisations in the clusters. In Burkina Faso for example of the 15 new approved clusters in 2009, 13 were mobilised with the support of the NAFEI and the platform.

In 2009 the number of clusters increased considerably from 134 to 218. This 63% increase is attributable in a large extent to concerted work by all actors concerned, including the NAFEIs (National Advisor on Farmers’ Economic Initiatives), the mandated farmers’ organisations and the Steering Committees in bringing about a great number of business ideas.

The interest in cluster development, and the consequent increase in the number of clusters shows that the activities undertaken by the project address the everyday problems experienced by the farmers’ organisations and their members at grassroots level. Based on of the available results of 207 clusters (of the 218), we can estimate that a total of 588.626 households were reached in 2009. These households can be divided in two groups. A total of 355.063 members and non-members of the involved grassroots farmers’ organisations were reached.

This number falls short to the 412.368 which were planned. Besides these households a total of 233.563 other households were reached through other agribusiness value chain development project obtained by business support services through the capacity development of 1000s+ project and the CASE approach. This category representing households reached through other projects is a new one (in 2008 it was not identified yet). In any event, the interpretation of these results and their (non-)compliance with original targets is also part of the comprehensive evaluation of the SAADA programme carried out in 2010 by Berenschot at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Agriterra.

The number of local entrepreneurs (dealers, traders, processors, etc.) involved in agribusiness clusters is 3.971. In these clusters 6.613 grassroots farmer groups are involved. This is a good indication of the further reinforcement of collaboration between farmers’ organisations and input suppliers and buyers within the agribusiness clusters. Between the start of the project and 2009 positive results were effectuated on agricultural productivity with an average change of 87% on the targeted commodity. The income, the households received from the targeted commodity, increased with 135%.

An objective that is lagging behind on the target of 2.000.000 hectare (2 ha per household) is the additional land under more sustainable land use. This has only been realised for a total area of 164.946 hectare. A phenomenon explaining this disappointing result is that farmers are not always able to buy mineral fertilizers; and if a farmer does not use mineral fertilizer he or she does not fulfil the criteria for ISFM (i.e., combination of mineral and organic fertilizers) and therefore, the criteria of more sustainable land use. Another reason is that at the time of the design of the project the estimated 2.000.000 hectares was based on the assumption that all clusters will be crop based.

The end-of-project target for food security through additional production, measured in cereal equivalents, has already been reached with an additional agricultural production of over 1,3 tons. This has still to be numerically converted to cereal equivalents. It is anticipated that this additional production, foreseen over 5 years, will soon be realised even on an annual base.

The project execution has had its difficulties: communication and swift replies are not always possible in West Africa, and ROPPA has its doubts with regard to the degree of participation within the 1000+ approach: “L’approche du projet 1000s+ se veut participative, responsabilisant les promoteurs des projets à la base. Cependant, dans bien des cas la maîtrise d’ouvrage des projets échappe entièrement aux acteurs promoteurs, notamment les OP. (…) Cette difficulté est récurrente et affecte également la qualité des projets sélectionnés.” That is, in many cases the participation and implication of all the actors in the formulation and execution of the project, especially the farmers’ organisations, is not well assured.
This is an important point made by ROPPA and shared by Agriterra, since the participation and indeed leadership of farmers’ organisations was the main goal. Although we have made significant headway in this regard, there still is work to be done. And if that is done well, surely the quality of the selected projects will increase, since a project supported by its own target group has all the more chance of being successful. In as much as this (lack of) participatory focus can be attributed to the specific nature of the CASE approach is also a topic for the Berenschot evaluators. As the International Centre for development-oriented Research in Agriculture (ICRA) points out, CASE is just one of the possible so-called ‘collective approaches to rural innovation’, and it is not very easy to determine which one is ‘the best’ .

IFAP

Introduction

The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) is the representative entity for farmers’ organisations at world level. The federation has been closely interrelated to the work of the AgriCord and the agri-agencies, and vice versa. IFAP gives guidance and recommendations to AgriCord’s development cooperation policies. This is most obvious from the fact that the Farmers Fighting Poverty Programme was based on the recommendations of IFAP to combat poverty and hunger. In a similar vein, AgriCord considers it important to strengthen IFAP in its role as platform of exchange between farmers’ organisations in developed and developing countries, as well as being the worldwide advocator of farmers’ interests. Related to the latter point, AgriCord seeks through IFAP the improvement of the policy contributions from the new members from developing countries and their influence on the general policy positions of IFAP. AgriCord also urges farm leaders of these new members to become office holders in various commissions of IFAP.

In this chapter we look to IFAP from two angles: First, what has Farmers Fighting Poverty contributed in relation to the recommendations set by IFAP? And secondly, what has IFAP contributed to the targets of Farmers Fighting Poverty?

Farmers Fighting Poverty in support of IFAP recommendations

The table below shows the distribution of actual Farmers Fighting Poverty expenditures divided over the fifteen recommendations of IFAP to eliminate rural poverty and achieving food security (Paris, November 2004).

What is most evident is the large proportion of funds going to recommendation # 3 Enhance capacity of farmers' organisations: 38 %. This roughly reflects the equally high (and higher than expected) proportion of funds going to work areas 3 and 4 for organisational strengthening and institutional development. This share of efforts being high, is only logical since capacity building is the main objective of both AgriCord and IFAP.

The increase of market power for farmers (10), re-centre resources to agriculture (1), involvement of farmers in decision making (4) and the focus efforts on people and their organisations (2), also score relatively high. These recommendations relate to work areas 1: Participatory policy formulation, 5: Grassroots participation and 11: Market and Chain development. The expenditure in these work areas is also relatively high (see chapter III.3).

Support to organisations
As indicated in Chapter II.2, the projects in 2009 were executed by 187 farmers’ organisations. As shown in the table below, 37 of these organisations are member of IFAP, half of which are African organisations.

Contribution of IFAP to Farmers Fighting Poverty

IFAP implemented two projects with direct support from Farmers Fighting Poverty: the so-called ESFIM project and the International Farmer dialogue. In 2009 IFAP funded its activities largely from own resources. AgriCord had the intention to financially contribute considerably to the activities, but eventually did not do so in the second mentioned project, because no agreement could be reached on the 2009 work plan.

Since 2007, IFAP had a regional coordination system in place, consisting of four regional coordinators and a project. To diffuse IFAP policy messages and raise awareness on global issues they made use of new communications channels (website, news articles through e-mail, etc). The coordination system was dismantled early 2009 and the regional coordinators became part of the general policy departments. A new instrument to increase policy contributions were the so-called expert policy working groups.

On the basis of the results of 2008, the urgent challenge for 2009 in the ‘International Farmer dialogue’ was how to involve members in developing countries in policy planning. In order to do so, IFAP was urged to give more attention to PIPGA (Promotion of the use of Participatory Policy Processes as a way of improving members’ participation in the IFAP policy preparation work) or similar participatory approaches for capacity building of its new members from developing countries. It was part of the original project “International Farmer dialogue” that IFAP would take the lead on the issue of policy generation and make sure the members were involved in the process. Likewise, the internal restructuring of IFAP, e.g. improved travel arrangements, clarity on accountability through a clear organisation chart, and a monitoring and reporting system were expected to be included in the work plan 2009.

In spite of the absence of a work plan, IFAP’s activities did attain some results during the period 2007–2009 that re-enforced the results within Farmers Fighting Poverty. IFAP reports an increased membership. Eleven new member organisations were accepted into membership in 2009, compared to nineteen in 2008 and six new members in 2007. Though their website mentions 125 member organisations, we do not have much information about the course of membership. We know that in 2008 about 17 % of the members discontinued their membership owing to non-payment of membership fees. But we do not have information about loss of members in 2009.

In two cases one could witness IFAP influence on policy results that are worth mentioning: IFAP reports on its active involvement in the Climate Change Issues and the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. Through the input of an active and dedicated delegation in Copenhagen, as well as the work throughout the year of the Secretariat and experts from member organisations, IFAP has been instrumental in increasing the visibility of farmers and the image of agriculture throughout the two-week Copenhagen Climate Conference.

IFAP was also involved in the G-14 Farmers’ conference in Treviso, Italy (see Box 1), where agriculture and food security were at the core of the agenda.

Knowing that policy generating processes in developing countries’ are very complex, the number of staff in the IFAP secretariat was increased in 2007. This did however not lead to the expected increase in contributions from developing countries in policy generation. Consequently, the degree to which targets in work area 1 were reached was lower than expected (see targets work area 1 on agro-info). This became already evident in 2008 and was a concern in discussion with the secretariat of IFAP.

Knowing that policy generating processes in developing countries’ are very complex, the number of staff in the IFAP secretariat was increased. This did however not lead to the expected increase in contributions from developing countries in policy generation.

This lack of convincing results in 2009 is probably due to the dismantling of the regional coordination system. This led to a situation where work for developing country members became part of general policy work. The type of work which was specifically focused on members in developing countries, became less visible. Furthermore, we have to conclude that IFAP did not make use of the PIPGA or a similar participatory method in its policy generating activities. The fact that only two policy activities have visible results, shows that the standing practice of policy generation that IFAP uses is not sufficient to guarantee the quality of policy proposals emerging from IFAP. Both quality and quantity did not meet expectations.

Moreover, there is no evidence on how the IFAP activities contribute to Farmers Fighting Poverty, because IFAP has no system in place to track inputs of its members to the policy process, nor of the outputs that resulted from its advocacy efforts. Furthermore, IFAP was expected in 2009 to further professionalise its secretariat, to support the policy generation processes of new member organisations and to use its mobilising effect on donors. Unfortunately this did not happen in 2009. AgriCord remains, however, convinced that IFAP could and should play an important role as the international organisation with great capital in the form of its access to virtually all relevant players in the field of agriculture and development.

The future

The dynamic in the agricultural world increases. More farmers organise themselves. Right now approximately 20% of all farmers are member of an organisation. We also see that farmers’ organisations work together on regional level. This is important, because in every region farmers have specific interests. Support to such umbrella organisations is vital and both IFAP and AgriCord should play a role in that. Organisations such as EAFF (East Africa), ROPPA (West Africa), SACAU (South Africa) have increased their membership-base and are looking at the possibility of organising a Pan-African organisation to represent all African farmers.

Looking at these trends it becomes obvious that farmers in developing countries will be better represented and enabled to voice their needs for instance through their regional organisations. These changes in the farmers’ movement cannot but lead to stronger representation of the needs of developing countries. The membership base of IFAP and the changes in it in the last decade should reflect this. The way IFAP is organised and works is defined by its members. These members, and especially the members from developing countries, have been critical about IFAP’s work and the added value for them in the international field of agriculture and development. The members have to decide what they feel the role and place of the regional committees in IFAP should be and define their relationship with regional farmers’ organisations. Besides that IFAP needs to decide how they can optimally incorporate the voice of all its members: farmers in developed countries as well as farmers in developing countries.

Bee keeping - Nepal