Banka Coop

Project Banka Coop

The idea of starting a worker coop in the rural village of Banka in Bafang Cameroon Africa came from the need to encourage local consumption of foodstuff cultivated by local agricultural laborers and create a trading platform to facilitate the buying between Cameroonian producers and buyers.

Context

Cameroon

notes

--An estimated 70% of the population farms, and agriculture comprised an estimated 45.2% of GDP in 2006."Cameroon", The World Factbook.

--They sell their surplus produce, and some maintain separate fields for commercial use. Urban centres are particularly reliant on peasant agriculture for their foodstuffs.Human Development Indices, Table 3: Human and income poverty, p. 35.

--Reliance on agricultural exports makes Cameroon vulnerable to shifts in their prices. "Cameroon", The World Factbook.

--The main food crops are plantains, cassava, corn, millet, and sugarcane.

--Cameroon is among the world’s largest cocoa producers; 130,000 tons of cocoa beans were produced in 2004. Two types of coffee, robusta and arabica, are grown; production was 60,000 tons in 2004. About 85,000 hectares (210,000 acres) are allocated to cotton plantations.

--Human rights organisations accuse police and military forces of mistreating and even torturing criminal suspects, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and political activists."Cameroon", Amnesty International; "Cameroon (2006)", Freedom House; "Cameroon", Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, U.S. Department of State; "Elections to the Human Rights Council", Amnesty International.

Social, Economic, Political Environment(North/South)

• Technical and cultural exchanges + funding
• Participation in international networks, building and sharing social capital
• Sharing of development experiences and social organization:South-South, South-North, East-West.

Organizations/NGOs/Partners

ICO (?) NGOs

• Project Consulting organization Pya.Pya

A Development Consultancy working with and for communities directly at the grassroots level, in partnership with dynamic individuals, social groups and local civil society organizations. Fostering of real change and promote gender equality and respect of women’s rights through the utilization of women’s skills and intelligence, cultures and resources.

• Organisation of Rural Women's Development Association for Progress

An umbrella organisation made up of fiften Rural Women's Association and based in Cameroon. our main activities include farming, acquacullure, trade, revolving credit scheme, cooperative activities such as gari processing and many others. Because of diversified activities and greater participation, we are spread all over South West Province of Cameroon.

• Femmes Étoile de Banka

Association qui fait dans la transformation du manioc en divers produits(Baton de manioc,Tapioca,Couscous).

Evaluating solidity, accountability and sustainability

• Criteria

1. ability to take leadership and initiative on gender issues
2. ties with civil society
3. diverisification of activities
4. an integrated process of reflection and learning

Project Description

coop

• what: a cooperative of agricultural workers and buyers
• how: use new technologies to facilitate the transactions between producers and buyers( members of the coop can advertise their goods and offers on a Web site with their own Internet addresses, and farmer and trader groups can set up Web sites to manage all these services for their members) and have a local store where producers can advertise and sell their products to local community members.
• who: agricultural workers of Banka/Bafang, buyers of cities (Yaoundé, Douala)
• Partners

1. Chefferie Banka
2. exportateur de café
3. fonctionnaire au service de l'agriculture
4. radio communautaire

Project Objectives

• why:

-to enable agricultural workers (peasants) to prosper through timely supply of reliable, high quality local agricultural inputs and services to urban buyers

-to faciliate the trade between rural and urban buyers

-to initiate other socio-economic activitities to improve the welfare of the Banka/Bafang community

• Our short-term objectives are:
  • to mobilize more workers to form a worker cooperative;
  • to obtain space to sell products;
  • to locate funding sources;
  • to organize the flow of production to buyers;
  • to set up websites for trading;
  • to organize capacity-building workshops and training on worker cooperatives, entreneurship and the use of technology;

• Our long term objectives are:
  • to actively engage in advocacy work concerning women’s rights;
  • to support the promotion of the women's rights and labor rights;
  • to encourage the young unemployed of the cities to return to the villages because the fields are stable sources of revenue;
  • to engage in policy work concerning the labor rights of agriculture workers.

• Activities

Activity 1 : Production and sale of corn and manioc products - Task 1 : form a group of producers and recruit buyers - Task 2 : develop a management strategy

Activity 2 : Sale of corn and manioc products to urban buyers and local consumers. - Task 2 : devise marketing strategy

Activity 3: Education and capacity-building - Task 1: Identify needs for capacity-building - Task 2: build network of support and expertise

Activity 4: Advocacy and policy work - Task 1: Develop a priorities list - Task 2: Develop advocacy strategies - Task 3: Increase awareness on labor and women’s rights

• Working groups
  • Working group 1: research, assessment and product quality

- responsible to monitor the quality and flow of the production and gather information. The team will be responsible for organizing capacity training workshops on using different technologies to improve production and quality of production.

• • Working group 2: export

- responsible for making connections with local urban buyers.

• • Working group 3: advocacy and policy work
  • Working group 4: women and youth
  • Working group 5: cooperative management
  • Working group 6: education and training

Evaluating solidity, accountability and sustainability

• Criteria

1. include gender perspective in their mandate
2. ties with civil society
3. leadership &innovation
4. require a ‘long term’ investment
5. ability to diversify their activities

Gender: 5 Actions with women

• 5 Actions
  • integrate her voice in the areas of management and decision-making by ensuring that all of the working groups have women in them, meetings are lead 50% of the time by women and women have a role in developing actions and evaluation plans;
  • develop capacity-building training seminars on policy work and gender issues;
  • build a support network by organizing forums on rural women's priorities organized by women although both genders can facilitate workshops;
  • support women's collection, analysis and processing of data. In every phase, women need to integrate time during meetings to recollect in women-only spaces to analyze and discuss data and findings.
  • create publications on women's activities and give out in city and villages. This includes information on women’s situation and activities.

Links

• Cameroon
  • Cameroon Profile
  • Genderwiki
  • Fact sheet: Cameroon - Women, agriculture and rural development- Food and Agriculture Organization
  • Human Development Index
  • The World Factbook 2008
• Geographical Information
  • Haut Nkam District
• Cooperative
  • worker cooperative
• ICO/Partners/NGOs Information
  • Photo of Femme du groupe Femme Étoile de Banka
  • Pya.Pya Constitution
  • Chefferie Banka
• Activities
  • Dried Manioc
  • Hearthstone
  • Corn Processing Machine
• FYI
  • Statement on the Co-operative Identity
  • Rochdale Principles
  • Worker's self-management
  • ICA Rules
  • ICA Member Questionaire
  • Manual for Gender Audit Facilitators
  • Millenium Goals