Women on their farms
Women now make up the majority
of the agricultural sector in Tanzania, but recent evidence
suggests that not only is their productivity constrained by a lack of
appropriate skills training , but also that they are particularly
vulnerable to a range of changes including economic and environmental changes. Equipping women on small farms with the skills to improve
production and manage change is therefore an important step towards securing
livelihoods and reducing poverty. Lack of credit and capital,
insecure land tenure and inadequate rural infrastructure make the application
of new agricultural and enterprise strategies risky for women smallholders.
FASO can play an important role in mitigating these risks by facilitating
access to credit, helping women manage capital, working towards more secure
land tenure, and helping women lobby local government for the provision of
better infrastructure.Training is best approach FASO will use to empower women in agriculture and enterprises development. Those skills will base on:-
Training
in financial management
To run their businesses
successfully, the women needed to be able to control and plan their finances.
To do this, they needed to be able to price their goods, work out their profit
margins, and understand when they were making a profit. The ability to price
inputs (including the cost of labour), establish market prices, and understand
the difference between income and profits, are important. FASO found that there important to deliver training designed to enable women,
individually or in groups, to improve the financial management of their
production: Training helps women to
distinguish between personal money
and business finances – individuals can take loans from business. They learn to make sure their
debtors are not too many, to
find reliable sources of credit, to manage their stock flows, and simple booking to manage their cash flows.
Training
in marketing, packaging and pricing
In addition to financial
management, smallholders also require marketing training. This was frequently
noted in the interviews as one of the women’s most important concerns, well
ahead of technical skills. Improving production techniques, although important, is not sufficient to create significant changes in their circumstances.
Achieving more efficient production and increasing yields did not address one
of the most serious problems for small producers, and especially women
smallholders: their lack of market power. Problems with accessing markets forced women to sell their goods on disadvantageous terms, and prevented women reaping the full benefits
of their work.
Training
to support group organization
The appropriate training FASO will provide can
support group organization. Groups need training and support at various points
in their development in order to function effectively, and to have a chance to
become self sufficient. FASO found that their
groups had very similar needs in this area of:
- Training and guidance for group formation;
- Training in formulating constitutions and by-laws, decision making procedures and electing leaders, to enable the transparent regulation of the group; and
- Training in conflict management and leadership skills.
Training
and guidance for group formation
The projects emphasized
that groups that formed for the purposes of mutual support, as opposed to
simply accessing credit, were more likely to operate successfully and have a
better chance of ultimately becoming sustainable. Mostly of women started groups for three main reasons: socializing, access to savings and
insurance, and changing practices and production
Training
on access of credit in groups
A
group approach (such as VICOBA) ensures that there is a collective
responsibility for
loans and reduces the individual
risks. Project can play a valuable role
in facilitating credit access for groups. It is important, however, that the initiative and
responsibility for ensuring repayment
remains with the group, as this is a key factor in ensuring the sustainability of credit access beyond the lifetime of a project. FASO Project will help
groups to become more credit
worthy by supporting proper group formation, and providing bookkeeping and literacy support.
FASO VICOBA Group training at Magereza, Moshi.
Training
to enable transparent regulation of the group
The organizational training
greatly improved the operation of the groups, and enabled them to make better
use of their resources. Training in group management processes, such as
establishing group regulations, leadership structures, and decision-making
procedures, improved accountability within the group and reduced the potential
for conflict between the executive and other members.
Training
in conflict management and leadership skills
Training in how to discuss
difficult topics with members and deal with challenging situations made the
groups more stable and resilient, and therefore better able to achieve their
goals over the long periods of time required.
The training
can play an important role in helping prospective entrepreneurs become
successful. For
women, training in enterprise
skills Is particularly valuable as they expanded into new areas. The entrepreneurship training is
important in allowing producers
in growth industries (including agriculture) to access more of the value chain associated with their product.
Women demanded a range of
enterprise skills including bookkeeping, entrepreneurship and business
management skills.
Developing
the capacity of women and groups to take small, measured risks was both a major
focus and a key challenge for each of the projects. While affecting this kind of change takes time, each project
played an important role as a
catalyst for this change.
