Banka Coop

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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

  • International Co-operative Alliance[1]
  • International Cooperative Agricultural Organization [2]-Sectoral Organization of the ICA-
The International Co-operative Alliance is an independent, non-governmental organisation which unites, represents and serves co-operatives worldwide. ICA members are national and international co-operative organisations in all sectors of activity including agriculture, banking, fisheries, health, housing, industry, insurance, tourism and consumer co-operatives. ICA has 222 member organisations from 85 countries. ICA's priorities and activities centre on promoting and defending the Co-operative Identity, ensuring that co-operative enterprise is a recognised form of enterprise that is able to compete in the marketplace. ICA's activities include:
  1. ICA raises awareness about co-operatives.
  2. ICA ensures that the right policy environment exists to enable co-operatives to grow and prosper.
  3. ICA provides its members with key information, best practice and contacts.
  4. ICA is able to communicate the position of the Co-operative Movement on a wide range of economic, social and cultural issues because of its special status with the UN, the Council of Europe and regional development banks.
  5. ICA provides technical assistance to co-operatives through its development programme.

NGOs

  • 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).

Project Description

  • 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)

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

Evaluating solidity, accountability and sustainability

  • Criteria
  1. capacity to build and maintain relationships with local social movements
  2. reputation
  3. ties with civil society
  4. innovative
  5. leadership

Gender: 5 Actions with women

  • 5 Actions
  1. create publications on women's activities and give out in city and villages
  2. capacity-building training seminars on policy work to increase participation in the implementation of priority issues
  3. build a support network by organizing forums on rural women's priorities
  4. reinforce women's entrepreneurial role with management capacity-building training
  5. support women's collection, analysis and processing of data

Links

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