Since the early 1990s Ethiopian smallholder farmers have organised in cooperatives and grain banks with the support of numerous service providers and donor agencies. Many farmer organizations successfully completed a first phase of building basic technical, organizational and business capacities. Nowadays many of them face the challenge of improving their capacities for marketing and value chain development. Some critical capacities that farmer organizations need to develop are:
- Market-oriented production planning;
- Quality assurance and logistics;
- Building business partnerships with other chain actors;
- Develop business planning and entrepreneurial skills;
- Development of bankable business plans, Utilization of new financial products; and
- Up-scaling of farmer organizations at national level.
The Agri-ProFocus Ethiopian Learning Alliance (APELA) proposes to develop these capacities in a joint learning process of farmer-leaders and service providers. This alliance is an initiative to strengthen the capacities of farmer organizations as chain actors, and the capacities of service providers as chain facilitators. This joint trajectory started in March 2007 as an initiative of KIT, ICCO, SNV, and IIRR (Ethiopia). In the course of 2007, Agriterra, Cordaid and FFARM (Ethiopia) joined the learning alliance.
Objectives
APELA aims to empower farmers organizations to upgrade their position in the value chain, and to train service providers in supporting and facilitating processes of chain empowerment. Based on learning-by-doing, the learning alliance focuses on:
- Joint learning of farmer organizations as chain actors, and service providers as chain facilitator in the form of a cluster most of the time extended with specific service providers, like MFI’s and knowledge institutions;
- Involvement of specific knowledge and network institutions as part of the cluster but in particular for specific input during the workshops;
- Building skills and capacities for value chain development;
- Developing new businesses (create chain partnerships, joint business ventures, and new financial products); and
- Institutional development (create an apex body of farmer organisations, engage in lobby & advocacy).
Methodology
The learning alliance is based on two basic principles:
- It will guide the clusters through the four phases of value chain development: (1) mapping and assessment of the value chain; (2) building of engagements between the chain actors; (3) upgrading of the chain; and (4) monitoring and evaluation. Each of the steps requires learning and innovation.
- Learning processes are most effective when they are based on practice. The learning alliance integrates training activities and working activities in a continuous loop of learning, applying, and reflecting.
The learning network started with an inception workshop in march 2007 and will run until December 2009. Throughout this period there will be five workshops, in which the clusters share experiences and get trained in new strategies, methods and tools. After each workshop every cluster gets a specific assignment that requires him/her to apply the new knowledge in his/her work (e.g. to analyse a product chain, to conduct a market study, to select a company for a chain partnership, or to develop a business plan). The clusters are coached and monitored by the coordination team, and are expected to document their experiences and bring these to the next workshop for sharing and mutual learning. In this way there is a progressive learning process, which not only strengthens the skills and relationships of the clusters, but also generates market studies, business plans and possibly chain partnerships.
