Driving Development Along the Administrative Boundary Line: Supporting Locals to Transform Tourism in Chuberi

When you cross the Sagergili bridge on the way to Svaneti, turn left and you will arrive at one of the hidden delights of Western Georgia – the village of Chuberi. Surrounded by the majestic Northern Caucus ridge, nestled in the picturesque Nenskra river valley, and located just nine kilometers from the Administrative Boundary Line with Abkhazia, Chuberi is rapidly emerging as a mini tourism destination in lower Svaneti, a mere hour away from Zugdidi.

Chuberi’s history is deeply rooted in ancient times, as evidenced by archaeological excavations. The Larilari burial grounds have revealed significant artifacts, including cremated bodies from the 8th-7th centuries BCE and gold coins minted in the names of Alexander the Great and King Lysimachus. These remarkable findings provide a glimpse into the past, showcasing the village’s historical significance.

Mikha Pilpani founder of Feel Funny Guesthouse

Amidst the stunning natural beauty of Chuberi and believing in the community’s ability to become a thriving hub for travelers seeking an authentic Georgian experience, a group of visionary locals are harnessing its tourism potential. One of these individuals is Mikha Pilpani, a proud seventh generation Chuberi native. Despite completing university studies in Tbilisi, Pilpani wanted to return to Chuberi and tourism provided him with an opportunity to have his own business while living in the place where he grew up. Pilpani embarked on a remarkable endeavor: the creation of the Feel Funny House guesthouse. Armed with determination and the knowledge he gained from YouTube tutorials, Pilpani set out to build the guesthouse.

His long-term vision for Chuberi extends beyond the guesthouse and is rooted in the belief that Chuberi possesses immense untapped tourism potential waiting to be discovered by adventurous souls from around the world. “I want Chuberi to be more than just a place on the map. I want travelers to come here and experience the unique culture, the breathtaking landscapes and the warmth of our community, he said.” With the support of the USAID Resilient Communities Program, he plans to introduce additional services that showcase the natural beauty of the community including horse riding tours along picturesque trails, thrilling hikes and bike tours. By expanding the offerings, he hopes to extend the stay of tourists in Chuberi from two to four nights. The increased tourism receipts will allow him to employ four to five locals in his business as stable hands and guides.

Mariam Khatchvani, a renowned Georgian filmmaker and a native of Svaneti, sees the cultural attraction of the Chuberi community. She has been organizing the Svaneti International Film Festival for three years and this year decided to expand showings of films to the Chuberi community. Mariam is driven to showcase the profound beauty of Mestia, intricate traditional values and the rich cultural heritage of the region. Chuberi had the honor of hosting a special event at the film festival- an open-air screening of the award-winning film “Dede,” directed by Khatchvani, which was filmed in the Svaneti mountains. When asked about the importance of the festival, Khatchvani replied, “The film festival holds the power to allure renowned actors, drawing in film-lovers and tourists thereby making significant contributions to the development of tourism and the promotion of Svaneti.” With the support of USAID, judges from the world-famous Sundance Film Festival were able to attend the festival together with 50 Georgian filmmakers, putting the festival on the international map.

While Pilpani and Khatchvani are driving the Chuberi community to embrace tourism, there are many challenges along the way. There is a pressing need to improve road access to the community, offer more accommodation and increase marketing efforts. Many community members are already seeing the benefit of developing tourism as a way to keep their community a vibrant, active and resilient place to live. Much like Pilpani’s example, tourism can be a reason for young people to return to the community. With individuals like Pilpani and Khatchvani, more tourists will flock to the hidden charm of Chuberi as the village continues to hold the promise of a bright and prosperous future, enriched by the dreams and aspirations of its people.

USAID Yidgiri improves rural incomes and stimulates demand for nutritious foods by supporting agro-processors to grow.

The processing of locally available, nutrient-rich crops can be a source of economic opportunity for many smallholder producers in Burkina Faso. Implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yidgiri activity supports agro-processors to overcome institutional, financial, environmental and market-related barriers so that they can easily and sustainably increase the local supply of safe, nutritious foods. It also partners with producer organizations, processors and other market actors to help them understand consumer needs and preferences in order to raise nutritional awareness and facilitate increased demand for these foods at the community and household levels.

Since 2022, USAID Yidgiri has trained 236 processors and retailers, including 109 women, on improved manufacturing practices and packaging standards, good hygiene and enhanced food storage and preservation techniques, while helping them to establish strong markets for their products. Training has also focused on strengthening sales techniques, canvassing for new points of sale and marketing goods to relevant distribution networks to help improve household incomes and enhance the nutritional status of women and children.

To date, USAID Yidgiri’s support to agro-processors has led to the establishment of 96 new points of sale and the generation of almost $1 million for producers like Awa Clémence Kabore that sell orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, milk and other products made from cowpea and small ruminants.

Kabore, an entrepreneur from Kaya who sells flour and chips made from home-grown orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, received training to upgrade her sales and distribution networks after an analysis conducted by USAID Yidgiri identified her business as having the potential to grow. Equipped with new skills and ideas to expand her business, Kabore successfully connected with nearby retail stores, 10 of which agreed to stock her products, and in less than four months was able to triple her monthly income from approximately $335 (200,000 FCFA) to approximately $1,000 (598,800 FCFA).

As Awa Clémence Kabore continues to develop her business, she anticipates that she will have the financial capacity to further diversify her products and establish her own store specializing in the sale of orange-fleshed sweet potato chips.

“USAID Yidgiri lives up to its name [“grow” in the Mòoré language] by helping us grow and open up economic opportunities. The testimonies I receive from customers and food managers continue to encourage me because they reinforce that my products are innovative and of good quality,” Kabore said while looking proudly at her products.

Through trainings conducted to build the capacity of agro-processors in Burkina Faso, USAID Yidgiri provides opportunities for entrepreneurs and producer organizations to increase their incomes and develop resilient livelihoods. Likewise, CNFA works to strengthen agricultural market systems across the Sahel—especially in the cowpea, poultry and small ruminant value chains. In 2022, CNFA trained over 6,000 producers, agrodealers, processors, breeders and traders in Mali to improve their agricultural practices, established more than 300 demonstration plots for agricultural producers in Burkina Faso and almost doubled the number of Nigerien producer organizations it supported, from 384 in 2020 to 658 in 2022.

In Matabeleland North, one of the driest and most food insecure regions in Zimbabwe, USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)-funded Amalima Loko activity empowers communities to address and take ownership of their development priorities. In Daluka Village, Ward 19, Lupane, community leader Moven Ngwenya reflects on his community’s experience a year after the village started the Community Visioning (CV) process.

“Amalima Loko set us in motion,” said Ngwenya, whose village’s CV process kicked off in June 2021 with the planning and preparation stage, which involves a series of exercises for communities to identify their existing structures, assets and formal and informal capacities to inform local transformation plans at the village and ward level. During this stage, communities generate a range of resources, including a socio-economic map, community resource map, historical timeline, vulnerability matrix and seasonal calendar for crops and livestock.

“We took part in several discussions on long-term food security and resilience planning,” Ngwenya recalls of the planning and preparation stage. “We started with resource mapping, during which we were asked questions about how we lived, what we had and what a thriving community looked like,” he recounted. “When they asked us what a thriving community would look like, we realized immediately that we were onto something life-changing and that we had taken an important step towards creating something that would provide the community of Daluka with some tangible sense of ownership.”

Ngwenya recalled that during discussions, Amalima Loko staff worked with the CV participants to overcome differences in community priorities. “At first, we had competing needs,” he said. “Some wanted food, others water, while others wanted schools and bridges. We worked with Amalima Loko to rank and prioritize our needs.”

These discussions feed into a cohesive community vision, including goals and actionable steps, with a focus on resilience. In Daluka village, ultimately community discussions led to the prioritization of water access through drilling and rehabilitation of boreholes that can provide clean water for people and livestock.

“We identified access to water as an important and immediate need,” Ngwenya said. “We concluded with a concrete action plan at village and ward level, where we now have both short-term and long-term goals that we are striving to achieve in solidarity as a community.”

The Daluka Ward 19 Transformation Plan was finalized in December 2021, and set goals such that by 2030, community members, inclusive of all genders and abilities, will have access to adequate potable water, productive agriculture, market linkages, improved health and nutrition, education, inclusive skills development, natural resources management skills and  recreational services.

Ngwenya’s  community is now in the implementation stage of the CV process, where communities take actions to achieve the goals outlined in the transformation plans. Accomplishments to date include:

• Ten boreholes in the watershed cluster rehabilitated with Amalima Loko support (two within Daluka Ward).
• Five new boreholes targeted for construction in the watershed cluster (one within Daluka Ward) by Amalima Loko—currently at the solar installation stage.
• One rehabilitated borehole completed by Mafinyela Village through collective action independent of Amalima Loko.
• Gulley reclamation conservation works throughout the ward.
• Rehabilitated feeder roads from Sibangani Village leading to major health facilities.

“The Community Visioning process under the Amalima Loko program has been a true turning point for the Daluka community,” Ngwenya said. “Amalima Loko came through with a Community Visioning approach which gave us direction and strengthened our voices to determine projects and set the pace at which we wanted this development to happen. I must say this was a welcome initiative.”

Amalima Loko is funded by the USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance and implemented by CNFA. It is designed to improve food and nutrition security for more than 82,800 vulnerable households in rural Zimbabwe through increased food access and sustainable watershed management. The activity’s Community Visioning process has reached over 42,000 people of diverse genders, ages, abilities and social groups in more than 500 villages.

Diakité Mariam Diarra is an agri-food processing entrepreneur from Koutiala, Mali, where she actively watched and helped her mother produce and sell home-made natural juices throughout her childhood.

“I decided to continue my mother’s passion in the field of food processing.” Diarra said. “However, my experience remained basic until 2014, when I received training provided by the the Support Fund for Vocational Training and Apprenticeship (Fond d’Appui à la Formation Professionnelle et à l’Apprentissage FAFPA).”

Since, she has been able to enhance her ability to market locally, as well as to Bamako. Her success led her to exploring export opportunities even, participating in the International Fair of Agriculture and Animal Resources (FIARA) fair in Senegal.

In 2022, Diarra started collaborating with the Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa activity through an Open Day Event organized in Koutiala, where she won first prize in the culinary contest and received a 100-kilogram gas drying machine. After this, her work with the Activity progressed, participating in other  trade events—both nationally and regionally—where she could sell her products and establish new business relationships.

“I attended several trainings that greatly improved my food processing skills which has enabled me to increase my income,” she said. “I particularly appreciated the session on good preservation practices for perishable products.”

Like other vendors in Sugu Yiriwa’s intervention zones, Diarra was facing significant waste of perishable products. With excessive use of fertilizers, frequent power cuts and high temperatures, the vegetables she bought would lose their freshness and quality over a period of two days, forcing her to get rid of the produce and bear financial losses.

According to statistics^[1] from the diagnostic report of market garden production systems in Mali, market garden produce perishes at high rates in Mali, often exceeding 20%. To improve the availability and accessibility of nutritious and healthy products for households throughout the year, Sugu Yiriwa organized three trainings in November 2022 for 177 market actors on good preservation practices for perishable products.

During those sessions, participants worked on techniques to preserve food products in the short- and long-term, using technologies such as Zero Energy Cooling Chambers (ZECCs) and canary fridges, as well as modern methods like pasteurization, refrigeration and the use of preservatives. Brining was also presented as a preservation method.

“I put these new skills into practice by building a conservation chamber with cement bricks and sand that was available at my house,” Diarra said. “This method helped me save time, energy and money by better preserving my products.”

With these new skills and techniques, Diarra’s family is able to enjoy fresh produce regularly, including during the Ramadan season where she conserved carrots, peppers and tomatoes effectively for up to two weeks.

She also began producing brine for marketing, as well as for her own consumptions.

“The brine I produce helps diversify my sources of income and provide my family with vegetables such as green beans and carrots throughout the year, even when they are not available in the market,” she said. “While others struggle to find these vegetables, I am able to preserve them year-round.”

To share her experience, Diarra organizes individual capacity building sessions for her family, cooperative members and neighbors on her volition. With knowledge from the Sugu Yiriwa training, she was able to disseminate information to 40 individuals, improving their incomes and access to nutritious foods year-round, while also building capacity.

“I am proud of the positive feedback I received and the impact these training sessions have on their lives,” she said.

Access to nutritious food year-round is essential to addressing malnutrition, especially in Mali’s the southern zone, among children, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly. According to the 2022 Standardize Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) nutrition survey, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in Mali exceeds the 10% alert threshold in most regions. Feed the Future Sugu Yiriwa trainings, like the one attended by Diarra, contribute to improving household livelihoods and fostering resilience by enabling households to produce and consume healthy foods throughout the year.

[1] Rapport diagnostic des systèmes de production maraîcher au Mali, Projet SAFEVEG.

Overview

Rwanda has seen significant improvement in agricultural production over the past 10 years. However, challenges due to the limited use of improved seeds, fertilizers and other inputs, lack of market information and environmental constraints such as land size and soil health persist. The sector also faces challenges such as food insecurity and malnutrition among vulnerable households, with 20.6% of the Rwandan population experiencing food insecurity, 18.8% experiencing moderate food insecurity and 1.8% experiencing severe food insecurity. About 32.4 percent of under five years children are chronically malnourished (2021 Rwanda CFSVA). Recurring extreme weather shocks and global climate change also pose serious challenges to the continued growth of the sector. Modernizing the agriculture sector offers the potential to boost productivity and create additional economic opportunities, while improving food security and nutrition outcomes for rural households.

The five-year Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Wunguke Activity aims to increase incomes and improve nutrition in Rwanda by sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and strengthening the domestic consumption and market for high-value and nutritious agricultural products. Hinga Wunguke, which translates to “grow profitable” in Kinyarwanda, utilizes a market systems approach, engaging and working through existing public and private market actors and structures to facilitate inclusive, locally driven and sustainable change.

By 2028, Hinga Wunguke will significantly improve Rwanda’s agricultural productivity, strengthen resilience to climate change, increase profitability for farmers and enhance nutrition and food security outcomes by enhancing access to improved inputs, knowledge, technologies, practices, finance and markets. It will also support policies that enable and incentivize private-sector investment and growth.

Approach

1. Increase Agricultural Productivity: Hinga Wunguke focuses on improving agricultural practices by facilitating farmers’ access to knowledge, information and improved inputs and technologies. This approach aims to increase productivity, while promoting sustainable agriculture and strengthening resilience to shocks, such as the environmental and economic impacts of climate change.
2. Facilitate Access to Finance for Farmers and Agribusinesses: Hinga Wunguke facilitates access to finance and improves financial literacy skills of farmers and agribusiness so that they can obtain and manage funding needed to boost their production and incomes. Hinga Wunguke also prioritizes engagement with the private sector to increase value chain financing and farm and agribusiness investment opportunities.
3. Improve Market Availability and Demand for Nutritious Foods: Hinga Wunguke expands farmers’ access to markets while increasing the availability and consumption of safe and nutritious food for Rwandan consumers. The Activity will accomplish this by using a market systems approach to support the private sector in developing and promoting nutritious products. It then helps generate demand by educating consumers on the benefits of nutritious products.
4. Strengthen the Enabling Environment for Market-Driven Agriculture: Hinga Wunguke works closely with other USAID/Rwanda implementing partners to strengthen the enabling environment for the development and implementation of policies that strengthen the Government of Rwanda’s (GOR) role as an enabler and the private sector’s role as a main driver of agricultural growth. The Activity will facilitate improved public-private dialogue so that the GOR can better support the private sector to invest in and lead systemic changes that modernize the agriculture sector and drive inclusive growth.

Partners

• MarketShare Associates (MSA):A global firm of creative facilitators, strategists, economists and experienced research and implementation experts who believe that both public and private institutions should contribute to social transformation. Having already a great deal of experience in Rwanda, MSA’s mission is to bring actionable insights to market development.
• Rwandan market systems actors: A key part of the Hinga Wunguke market-oriented approach will be its Catalytic Service Provider Fund and its Market Systems Opportunity Grants, which together total over USD 5.3 million. These resources will allow Hinga Wunguke to engage, innovate, disengage, adapt, and scale with a large number of Rwandan market systems actors whenever needed. Hinga Wunguke will also use “Pitch Fairs” and an approach of “aggressive facilitation” to identify entrepreneurs and change makers and bring in new expertise where it is most appropriate to achieve desired results. Hinga Wunguke will continually seek participant feedback on the use of these resources, including through annual surveys, impact assessments, and quarterly focus group discussions with participants throughout the relevant implementation areas of Rwanda.

Sumaila Edibo is a cashew farmer living in Iyale, a settlement in the Kogi state in central Nigeria. Since Edibo’s two-ha cashew farm provides his family with their primary livelihood and source of income, he decided to partner with the USDA Food for Progress-funded West Africa PRO-Cashew Project in 2021 to learn how he could improve his business skills, agronomic practices and harvest and post-harvest handling to increase his farm’s productivity and revenue.

Edibo participated in all of the trainings organized by PRO-Cashew in Nigeria where he learned best practices for weeding, timely pest management and disease control and harvest and post-harvest handling. He also learned how to collect and analyze relevant market information from buyers like Sonata Agri International, a local agro-processor, to improve farm-level decision-making and take advantage of market opportunities.

After Edibo applied these improved practices on his orchard, the productivity of his farm significantly increased. Edibo recounted that in 2021, before his participation in the training program, his farm yield was approximately 960 kg per ha, for which he earned $960 (NGN 420,000). In 2022, however, his farm yield increased by about 25% to 1,200 kg per ha. As a result of his farm’s increased output and the better prices he began receiving for his products through his partnership with Sonata Agri International, Edibo recorded an annual income of $1,710 (NGN750,000)—a 79% increase over the previous year.

Sumaila Edibo purchased a motorcycle to haul goods with his increased cashew earnings.

Edibo explained how the training program has benefitted farmers across Iyale, highlighting that the majority of local trainees have embarked on different projects throughout the community, such as building houses, launching new businesses, digging boreholes and installing grinding machines, with the additional revenue they acquired from the sale of cashew nuts. Edibo himself used his additional income to purchase a three-wheeled motorcycle with a trailer for hauling goods. This has enabled him to provide rural logistical services to farmers within and beyond his community, further increasing his earnings. Following the advice of a Sonata Agri International extension officer who provided training in partnership with PRO-Cashew in 2022, Edibo also saved $1,256 (NGN 550,000) of his cashew nut sales, which he used to sustain his family during the cashew off-season.

When asked about the impact of the training program on his livelihood, Edibo said, “Before participating in the project, transporting harvested goods from me and my friends’ farms was always a major challenge. We had to walk long distances, sometimes above three kilometers from our farms to our homes with heavy loads on our heads.”

Edibo plans to expand his farm to three hectares in 2023 using the new improved seedlings that the PRO-Cashew Project is distributing to farmers and nurseries. Next year, Edibo also hopes to help his wife start a small grocery business in the community.

Salifa Yahaya is a farmer from Labaka-Oja, a small settlement in the Kwara State of Nigeria, where about 80% of the residents are cashew farmers. Despite the region’s climate and soil conditions being apt for farming raw cashew nuts, local producers face other issues that hinder their operations. More specifically, unfavorable market conditions as well as a lack of technology make it difficult to harvest large yields and produce high-quality cashew nuts to sell for higher prices. Despite managing a relatively large farm of 11 ha, this affected Yahaya.

To address these barriers, the USDA West Africa PRO-Cashew Project (PRO-Cashew) collaborated with Sonata Nigeria formerly known as Huxley Nigeria, a company specializing in the processing and exporting of raw cashew nuts, to host a series of training sessions—one of which Yahaya attended. In this training, Yahaya and other local farmers learned new harvest and post-harvest practices to implement on their farms to produce better results. They were also trained in business operating techniques to make the most out of their improved cashew yields.

“I never thought I could get so much more money just by drying my cashew nuts,” she said. “I also never believed in keeping those little farm records and consistently saving small amounts of money until Sonata Nigeria trained us. I am so grateful I didn’t miss out.”

Applying the tools and trainings received from PRO-Cashew enabled Salifa Yahaya to diversify her income.

In the previous harvesting season, Yahaya was only able to collect 3.5 MT of raw cashew nuts due to many parts of her farm being inaccessible from orchard overgrowth. Applying pruning and management practices from the Sonata Nigeria training, Yahaya was able to improve her orchard’s conditions and collect larger and higher quality yields. This harvest season, she collected about 5 MT of raw cashew nuts. By drying the nuts, Yahaya was able to increase the quality of her product even further and sell for a higher price than she would have if the nuts were wet, earning about 7% more than her peers.

Before participating in Sonata Nigeria’s training, Yahaya did not approach her cashew production as a business, but rather as means to support just herself and her family. With a new business outlook, she now meticulously records production and sales figures, making it easier to re-invest into her enterprise and engage in other profitable activities. Yahaya also joined a savings group which allows her to allocate money toward other plans she may, following the recommendation of a Sonata Nigeria extension worker.

As part of the PRO-Cashew Agricultural Extension Grant program’s objective of establishing stronger supply chain linkages between producers and exporters, a grant was provided to Sonata Nigeria to continue supporting raw cashew nut producers with agricultural extension services. The grant also aims to enhance the local processing company’s supply chain and open doors for producers to find more selling opportunities.

The cashew industry is expanding rapidly in Côte d’Ivoire, one of the world’s top cashew producing countries, however its potential for quality production, processing and domestic and export trade has yet to be fully realized. To help farmers receive a quality-based price increase on cashew sales, Sonata Côte d’Ivoire (CI) formerly known as Huxley Cote d’Ivoire—a company specialized in the processing and export of raw cashew nut (RCN)—is partnering with the USDA West Africa PRO-Cashew Project. Implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), PRO-Cashew aims to increase the incomes of farmers in the West African cashew sector by improving crop quality, supporting value chain linkages between farmers and agribusinesses and strengthening efficiency and quality in production and trade.

As part of the PRO-Cashew Agricultural Extension Grant program to establish stronger supply chain linkages between producers and processors, Sonata CI was selected to receive a three-year $200,000 grant to invest in a Supply Chain Program to offer training on good agricultural practices and post-harvest handling to more than 10,000 cashew producers.

At the start of the 2020/2021 cashew season, PRO-Cashew supported Sonata CI to train 30 Lead Farmers and Sonata CI staff on good agricultural practices. These Lead Farmers then trained an additional 2,581 producers across five regions where the company’s collection centers are located. Supported by PRO-Cashew, Sonata CI also facilitated the organization of cashew producer groups in each locality, establishing a high-quality RCN supply network. By offering competitive prices to farmers and supporting quality production through training, Sonata CI is improving agricultural practices and incomes for cashew producers across Côte d’Ivoire and helping farmers invest their profits back into their production.

Sameer Kohinkar, the procurement manager of Sonata CI.

“The project has given a tremendous boost to the implementation of our procurement strategy,” said Sameer Kohinkar, Procurement Manager of Sonata CI since 2018. “The training of trainers and producers led by PRO-Cashew and the establishment of producer groups in the villages have enabled us to build a reliable network of producers and cooperatives in the major cashew producing regions of Côte d’Ivoire,” he added. “Now, thanks to our purchasing network, in less than two years, we have developed a strong supply system. In return, we pay cash at a price set by the state trade regulation authority, and we offer price-based incentives to encourage farmers to produce good quality nuts, which results in a higher price for the farmer,” Kohinkar explains.

The Sonata CI Supply Chain Program has only been active for a year and a half, but the preliminary results are promising. The volume of cashews purchased directly from farmers by Sonata CI, without intermediaries, increased by 59.9% from 1,614 tons to 2,581 tons from May 2020 to May 2021. Aiming to incentivize quality RCN production, Sonata CI developed an agreement with farmers to increase the minimum price of 305,000 FCFA/MT, approximately $505/MT, set by the Government of Cote d’Ivoire, by 10,000 FCFA/MT or an additional $16. Sonata CI’s higher purchasing price encourages producers to adopt quality production methods. It also improves farmer access to more profitable markets while improving supply chain efficiencies (i.e., developing a dependable and quality RCN supply).

The Forum of Associations of Producers of Mathariya (FACAM) is a smallholder farmer cooperative in the Rubáuè District of Nampula Province, Mozambique, that was formally registered in 2008 to serve as a platform organization for different associations. FACAM has 421 members, of whom 220 are women, distributed across 22 smallholder farmer clubs, each of which has its own leadership. The main purpose of FACAM is to provide commercialization services to members, as well as to protect forest resources, disseminate best practices for the sustainable use of mineral resources and advocate on behalf of those affected by epidemic and endemic diseases like HIV/AIDS within the members’ communities.

Although FACAM aspired to grow its organization and business ventures, an assessment conducted by the USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program in June 2021 highlighted several improvements that the Forum needed to make in order to take their activities to the next level. For example, low membership retention resulted in a reduction in income from dues, which are used to fund the cooperative. Additionally, the cooperative’s high turnover rate meant that FACAM members had limited relationships with clients, and therefore fewer clients using their commercialization services. The cooperative also had inconsistent organizational management and record keeping structures, making it difficult to track operations and extract data for financial statements.

In October 2021, the cooperative received its first of two F2F paired assignments involving local volunteers working on the ground while collaborating with U.S.-based volunteers remotely. The local volunteer, Dieter Savaio from Manica province, is a teacher at the Higher Polytechnic Institute of Manica. He is also a shareholder of Emilia Commercial Seed Company and a consultant who had spare time to volunteer with F2F due to the COVID-19 restrictions placed on in-person classes. The U.S. volunteer, Joe McFadden from New Jersey, spent the last 40 years of his career as a certified public accountant working in accounting, auditing, budgeting, financial analysis and financial reporting.

After assessing FACAM’s financial management practices, the volunteers assisted their managers to set up a simple financial management and bookkeeping system. As a result, the cooperative now uses printed forms to document sales, expenses, income statements, balance sheets and controls of stock, debtors, creditors and cash flow.

In December 2021, Savaio again supported FACAM, this time with veteran U.S. volunteer Pamela Karg from Wisconsin, to assist the cooperative in improving their organizational capacity. The volunteer assistance focused on increasing due payments and strengthening leadership and association management, including improving understanding of the association’s function and the rights and duties of members. The volunteers conducted a SWOT analysis with the FACAM board members to assess major operational constraints. The volunteers also trained the club members associated with FACAM in association function, highlighting the importance of participatory management strategies. At the end of the assignment, Savaio presented recommendations to FACAM Board members for improving the organization and helping them achieve their goals.

As result of the F2F trainings, currently 60% of the members are paying their dues – a considerable increase from before. Additionally, sale volumes increased from 640 ton in 2021 to 970 ton in 2022, as an increasing number of farmer clubs commercialized their products through FACAM due to its improved organization and services offered to clubs and non-associated producers.

Fast forward and in August 2022, FACAM received a grant from the INKOTA consortium to initiate mechanization and transport services through the purchase of tools such as a tractor and a trailer. Even though INKOTA received applications from four cooperatives located in Ribáuè district, FACAM was the only one that met the conditions required by INKOTA to have a strong organizational capacity.

Antonio Joaquim, president of FACAM, noted his gratitude for the assistance his cooperative received from F2F volunteers, stating that “FACAM now develops its business in a professional way. Our vision is to continue growing and we will count on more assistance from F2F to support us to better position ourselves in the market.”