INTEGRATED COMPANY REPORT 2014 - GIZ. Solutions that work.

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The successful strategies developed
for the cashew sector are now
being transferred to another
sector. The African Cashew Ini-
tiative is advising the Competi-
tive African Rice Initiative,
which is also jointly financed by
BMZ and the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
The PRO-PLANTEURS project in Côte d’Ivoire
focuses not on cashew nuts but on cocoa. Although most
chocolate is sweet, the lot of the farmers who produce the
cocoa beans is often bitter. PRO-PLANTEURS has set itself
an ambitious goal – improving the lives of 20,000 families
in the south-east of Côte d’Ivoire who earn their living by
producing cocoa beans. To this end the members of 50
farmers’ organisations are undergoing intensive training and
receiving advice. Young farmers, many of them women, are
learning how to farm cocoa sustainably, which means that
they can sell it for a better price. They are also learning how
to grow nutrient-rich food for their own families between
their cocoa trees. They are being supplied with seed and fer-
tiliser, and microloans where necessary. PRO-PLANTEURS
builds on the experience of the project ‘Sustainable Small-
holder Agribusiness in Western and Central Africa’, which
GIZ is implementing on behalf of BMZ.
PRO-PLANTEURS was initiated by the Government
of Côte d’Ivoire and the German Initiative on Sustainable
Cocoa (GISCO), which is an alliance of the German confec-
tionery industry, the German food trade, the German Gov-
ernment and non-governmental organisations. All GISCO
members pull together to ensure better working conditions
and consistently high quality cocoa in the long term. The
top priority is to improve the lives of cocoa producers by
raising their incomes while retaining soil fertility in cocoa-
producing areas. BMZ and the German Federal Agriculture
Ministry, the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and the private
sector are each providing one third of the budget of EUR 5
million over a five-year period. GIZ hosts the GISCO
Secretariat, which is financed from membership contribu-
tions. The Secretariat organises board meetings and working
groups, ensures that problems in the supply chain are iden-
tified and rectified, performs PR work, recruits new mem-
bers and is responsible for the financial management of the
initiative.
Like high-quality cocoa from West Africa, wild coffee
from Ethiopia is much sought after by gourmets around the
world. Most of the people who gather the wild coffee beans
in Ethiopia’s Kaffa province, however, cannot survive on what
they earn. And the unique forest ecosystem with its rich bio-
diversity is seriously jeopardised by the rapidly growing pop-
ulation and the expansion of plantations. Conserving the
natural world while raising the income of small farmers –
this is the goal of GIZ and the medium-sized company Origi-
nal Food GmbH, a German enterprise that
trades in certified wild coffee. This devel-
opment partnership is financed through
BMZ’s develoPPP.de programme.
Original Food GmbH and GIZ are
promoting local cooperatives,
enabling them to comply with the
strict requirements governing har-
vesting, processing and transport for
Fairtrade and organic product certifica-
tion. This guarantees all partners higher prices
on the market. At the same time, small farmers are being
trained to supplement their incomes by producing other
natural products, including tea, honey and medicinal plants,
and by marketing agricultural waste as fertiliser and biofuel.
Today about 60,000 people in the region are already benefit-
ing from these activities. //
02
// Worldwide
Enhancing prosperity
Competitiveness/social and environmental standards | Many
small farmers in developing countries find it difficult to live
on what they produce themselves. There are many reasons
for this, ranging from environmentally inappropriate crop-
ping methods and a lack of alternative crops to dependence
on international middlemen. In many parts of the world,
GIZ is taking these as entry points for measures imple-
mented on behalf of a variety of commissioning parties and
in conjunction with a large number of partners, including
private companies. What all projects and programmes have
in common is the twin goal of improving the working con-
ditions and incomes of small farmers and their families
while protecting the environment. This is to be
achieved by introducing market-oriented sustain-
able agricultural production and improved
value chains.
The African Cashew Initiative aims to
raise the income of small farmers and their
families. About 1.5 million families in rural
parts of West Africa depend on cashew nuts for
their livelihood. But a family earns less than
EUR 140 a year from cashew trees – not enough to live
on. There are many reasons: falling harvests and the poor
quality of cashew nuts as soils become leached, and farmers’
lack of business skills and an understanding of modern
farming methods. This situation is compounded by the fact
that less than 10 per cent of the harvest is processed in
Africa, even though processing offers the highest profit mar-
gins.
The African Cashew Initiative has already gone some
way to changing this situation. Since 2009 the net income
that small family farms generate from sales of cashew nuts
has now more than doubled to almost EUR 360. The addi-
tional income benefits 2.2 million household members.
Local processors have almost quintupled the volume of nuts
processed locally, creating almost 5,800 new jobs, three
quarters of them for women.
The initiative is funded jointly by the German Federal
Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
(BMZ) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and
works with a large number of national and international
partners in both the private and public sectors. These
include the African Cashew Alliance, Côte d’Ivoire’s Regu-
latory Authority for Cotton and Cashew Nuts, the German
software company SAP and the US development
agency USAID. To establish long-term business
relations, the African Cashew Initiative has
also set up an eight million euro fund, with
half of that sum provided by private busi-
nesses, state agencies, parastatal institutions
and research institutes.
GIZ’s task within the African Cashew
Initiative is to bring together small cashew farmers
and processors. So far 330,000 West African farmers
have received training, and 2,200 extension agents trained
as cashew specialists. Cashew processing companies have
benefited from management consultancy services that have
enabled them to make their operations and production more
cost effective, and raise their income. This also makes it eas-
ier for them to borrow money and invest in modern technol-
ogy. An SAP application, for instance, allows 45,000 cashew
farmers to use their mobile phones to check the latest mar-
ket data, pre-finance goods and network with traders in
order to get the best possible prices for their nuts.
African Cashew Initiative – contact: // |
PRO-PLANTEURS – contact: // |
Ethiopia, wild coffee – contact: // (in German)
60,000
people are already
benefiting from
additional income.
Better living and
working conditions for
20,000
cocoa-producing
families
2.2
million people have seen
their household income
double since
2009.
GIZ Integrated Company Report 2014 30 31 Business and financial systems development