Cover_Rebuilding West Africas Food Potential

230 Rebuilding West Africa’s food potential

Table 5. National partners of the Tien-Tietaa Union and services provided

PARTNERS SERVICES

Type of partner Partners Services Type of services

Institutional

Partners

Agro-Action Overall and financial support

Overall

and financial support

National Federation of NAAM Groups Connects the Union with other

institutional and economic actors

European Union Funding

ANPE Youth training Capacity building

Diobass Support to resource conservation

Production support

Dreyer Foundation Protecting moringa cultivation

PAFER Lowland reclaiming

PIGPE Irrigation and water point

management

Afrique Verte Market research

Group sales

Marketing support

Economic

Partners

INERA Supply of improved inputs Upstream

SOFITEX Supply of inputs of production services

The Union members identified a large number of partners at both local (district) level and beyond. They

are: local representatives of Ministries, the city council and the municipality of Dissin, the European

Union, NGOs (Association AGC organization Fayenteren, Welt Hunger Hilfe, Wayel Association, CIDI

association, Dreyer Foundation). There is also the Caisse Populaire and Crédit Sud King Agro and Agro

Tropic, the Catholic Mission and the National Federation of Naam Groups, which acts as the Union’s

connector with other institutional or economic actors.

Two observations can be drawn from these lists. Firstly, “local” actors are dominant, reflecting the

low projection of the Union beyond the district of Dissin, especially as most of the players considered

as “external” to the area have tended to come into the municipality in order to deliver their services.

Secondly, institutional partners predominate denoting economic, financial and development support

relations aimed primarily at strengthening the capacities of Union members. In addition, the relatively

limited number of business partners indicates that the Union is not truly able to project itself

commercially. Moreover, except for those involving traders, relations with economic partners are often

related to upstream production, namely the purchase of seeds (INERA), pesticides (King and Agro

Tropic Agro) and loan requests (Caisse Populaire and Crédit South).

The pre-dominance of institutional partners who provide services and support to Union members

confirms that the Union is heavily dependent on external actors for its running, if not for its actual

existence. This shows that the Union appears to be strongly assisted and supported by institutions

and organizations in the vicinity. The strong institutional structure is an attractive factor but could also

be the consequence of repeated external requests that require beforehand a formal and functional

organization that can fulfil the requirements enabling it to benefit from development project offerings.

However, the limited list of business partners reflects the Union’s lack of significant economic and

financial autonomy.

Following the participants’ enumeration of the various economic and institutional partners, be they

local or national, a detailed analysis of the Union’s main partners was conducted.