Affiliates

African Woman Food Farmer Initiative in Benin

Many WE members have expressed a desire for WE to support a microcredit program in Sub-Saharan Africa given the region's deep and pervasive poverty. After an extensive search, WE has chosen The Hunger Project's African Woman Food Farmer Initiative in Benin.

Located in West Africa between Nigeria and Togo and with a population of about eight million, Benin is one of the poorest countries in the world: 74 percent of its population lives in poverty, and 31 percent lives in extreme poverty. Benin demonstrates better governance than most African countries on worldwide governance indicators, including political stability, absence of violence, and democratic processes.

Many experts agree that agriculture is the key to economic progress in Africa, where women produce 80 percent of the food. In 1999 The Hunger Project started the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI), a program of economic empowerment and microfinance for rural women engaged in farming. Economic empowerment is achieved by helping the women develop a credit, savings, and training program so they will have access to small business loans and savings facilities. The idea is that through this program they will gain the necessary expertise to manage their credit and income-generating activities, and eventually their own government-certified rural bank.

The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative is part of THP's epicenter program in Africa, a holistic, bottom-up, gender-focused strategy for empowering the people of rural African communities. Women and their leadership are at the center of this development process.

An epicenter is a cluster of 10 to 15 villages with a population of about 10,000 people within a 100-kilometer radius who come together to meet basic needs. Programs offered at the epicenter include health, education, literacy, nutrition, improved farming and food security, microfinance, water and sanitation, building community spirit, and developing women's leadership. The primary resources for the programs come from the local people themselves. Programs at the epicenter complement existing local government resources.

Within villages, women form solidarity groups of 10 to 15 women, receive credit as a single entity, and are collectively responsible for repaying the entire loan. Loans for individual women's businesses range in size from $25 to $500, with an average of $59 in 2006. Not all loans go for farming. To diversify income streams, loans may also go for other businesses, such as food preparation, recycling, tie-dye, and tailoring. In 2006 the repayment rate on loans in Benin was 100 percent. The cumulative repayment rate has been 96 percent for the period 2000-2006.

The goal at the end of five years is for the women to establish and manage a rural bank that is certified by the government. The basic level of capitalization needed for one AWFFI epicenter bank is $25,000.

During the first year of our partnership, WE has set a target of raising $25,300 in loan money to bring the AWFFI programs in two epicenters up to their full $25,000 capitalization: $15,300 for loans to poor women in the Zakpota region and $10,000 in loans to poor women in the Ouissa region, both in southern Benin.

After the first year and assuming we are pleased with our partnership, we can continue to provide additional funding for loans at the two epicenter banks because the need for loan capital greatly exceeds the $25,000 capitalization base.

The leader of one group in Zakota is Juliette Ketehoundje, a 33-year-old mother of three. Although she never went to school, Juliette is a natural leader and manages the group well. The group, which calls itself "Kpondehou" - meaning "take us as an example" - has more than 200 members. The group of 200 is divided into 20 small groups, each of which has a cashbox into which members put 200 CFA (~ US 40 cents) at each semimonthly meeting. This savings helps pay the loans of members who default. After six loan cycles, the large group reimbursement rate remains at 100 percent. According to group rules, women who miss three meetings in a row are dropped, and those who come late or quarrel are punished.

Juliette works with other epicenters to help mobilize loan groups as effective as her own. Some of the projects in Juliette's group include growing groundnuts, cassava, and maize, and processing these crops for storage and sales.

We'll be telling you more about the women of Zakpota and Ouissa and the AWFFI program in future newsletters.

More information about the African Woman Food Farmer Initiative can be found at http://www.thp.org/awffi.

GDLF
Grameen de la Frontera

IRC
Int'l Rescue Committee

AF
Adelante Foundation

AWFFI
African Woman Food Farmer Initiative