Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

Chapter 7. GAIN methodology to enhance producer organizations’ capacity for market integration 239

Table 10. Tien-Tieetaa Union’s Plan of Action after consulting with partners (contd.)

Scheduled Activities Partners/actors

GROUP MARKETING

Technical management mentoring, developing working tools and training (2012-13) Union, Caisse Populaire

Negotiate a partnership to access cereal markets (2012-13) Afrique verte; SOS Sahel

Training of resource persons to develop projects, and identify partners (2012-

2013) SOS Sahel

Support to the creation of the guaranty fund (mutual) (2012) Crédit Sud; Caisse Populaire

Define the types of loans (production, food security, IGA) (2012) Union Bureau, Caisse populaire

Set up an account in the name of the mutual fund with the Caisse Populaire (2012) Union Bureau, Caisse populaire

TRANSFORMING INTO A FEDERATION (OF UNIONS)

Sensitize/Inform on the transforming the Union into a federation (January –

February 2012)

Union, municipality, district

technical services

Literacy training for group members (January - April 2012) Union, Provincial Directorate

Training members in PO management (March – April 2012) Union, Agricultural services

Create new warrantage groups (January - December 2012) Union, technical services

Reorganize groups by crop sector (June - October 2012) Union, technical services

Drawing up of legal statutes for the federation

Controllers, INERA,

agricultural services

Convene federation constituting assembly Union, technical services

Undertake administrative action to obtain legal recognition of the federation Groups and members of Unions

Affiliation to the Confédération paysanne du Faso CPF

(janvier 2013) Union

3.4 Conclusions and follow up by Tien-Tieetaa Union after GAIN

The assessment workshop, the consultations and the feedback workshop helped develop a vision and
goals for the Union. It also clarified the type of collaborations needed with institutional and economic
partners to achieve these objectives and to establish a roadmap with specific timelines.

To ensure that the Union has the internal capacity to implement the action plan, five Union women
leaders had the opportunity to make a training trip to SEWA, in India. This NGO offered a program
of visits and training provided by local trainers and leaders during several field trips during which the
Tien-Tieetaa Union women leaders learned how the SEWA savings and loans system is operated from
the village all the way up to the SEWA Bank in Ahmedabad. The visitors from Burkina Faso were very
impressed with several of SEWA’s operating elements. The first concerns the specialization by value
chain, thus rendering the structure more efficient as common needs and problems are shared. The