Video: Agricultural Co-ops- Enabling Economic Advancement in Africa

Africa Agen­da

Mon­i­ca Brown and Senai­et Mesgun

Mon­i­ca LaBiche-Brown, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Africa Devel­op­ment Promise, sat down for an inter­view with Africa Agen­da to dis­cuss the organization’s plans for build­ing path­ways to eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence in Africa.

These coop­er­a­tives or co-ops are espe­cial­ly impor­tant in areas of rur­al Africa where small farm­ers may not have the mon­e­tary funds avail­able to grow and sus­tain them­selves. Co-ops allows a group of peo­ple to pool their resources togeth­er for a com­mon goal to gain bet­ter mar­ket power.

Africa Devel­op­ment Promise is cur­rent­ly work­ing in Rwan­da. The orga­ni­za­tion has plans to expand into Ugan­da as part of their phase-two development.

Accord­ing to Africa Devel­op­ment Promise, the orga­ni­za­tion works with farm­ers in three ways.

First, to help farm­ers under­stand what is a coop­er­a­tive, what are the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the board and group, and devel­op­ing the busi­ness aspect. The sec­ond is on the agri­cul­tur­al side, help­ing to find and access good seeds and pes­ti­cides for max­i­mum har­vest. Final­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion helps farm­ers build strong networks.

Part­ner­ships help to bridge obsta­cles found in their val­ue chain and main­tain sus­tain­abil­i­ty, she says. Africa Devel­op­ment Promise has a long term vision to even­tu­al­ly enable the groups to run them­selves and become more of a mon­i­tor­ing orga­ni­za­tion, with addi­tion­al ser­vices being pro­vid­ed as needed.

Hav­ing seen the changes that coop­er­a­tives have on the lives of the farm­ers, LaBiche-Brown is con­fi­dent that Africa Devel­op­ment Promise will play a pos­i­tive role in help­ing Africa move for­ward in eco­nom­ic advancement.

When speak­ing about her pas­sion, she says of Africa Devel­op­ment Promise, “ the word promise meant a lot because we want­ed to make sure that when I wake up in the morn­ing I remem­ber that I have a promise I have made to some oth­er peo­ple who are depen­dent on the work we do.”

Labiche-Brown start­ed the orga­ni­za­tion in 2013 after rec­og­niz­ing that sup­port was need­ed in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor of rur­al areas in Africa. In this video inter­view, she tells us that one moti­va­tion in start­ing the orga­ni­za­tion is the idea that small scale farm­ers in Africa need resources to help build coop­er­a­tives in their respec­tive communities.
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Africa Devel­op­ment Promise recent­ly obtained its 501(c)(3) des­ig­na­tion from the U.S. Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice. More infor­ma­tion about the orga­ni­za­tion can be found online at www.AfricaDevelopmentPromise.org.