Project area, gender situation, target group

The project target group

The definition of the target group of a cash and export crop development project must identify the area of convergence of three major sets, namely, (i) the number of HHs living below the poverty line, which are the target of the GOR and IFAD poverty reduction strategies, (ii) within that group, the number of HHs willing and capable of meeting the conditions required to join financially sustainable development activities in the sub-sectors, and (iii) the number of HHs of the latter group that can be accommodated, taking into account the suitability of natural conditions for quality production, and the market constraints and opportunities that would make such sustainable development activities possible. Within the smaller set, gender-targeting issues would be addressed. Finally, consideration must be given to the opportunity of including some of the local wealthier farmers coffee growing associations. This would increase the very limited initial social capital of the poor participants in the IFAD project, facilitate start up by building on existing local groups, and avoid potential conflicts. However, measures should also be introduced to ensure that the wealthier groups do not acquire a dominant position over the interests of the poor.

For the next decade, the scope for producing coffee of the quality that can be sold in remunerative markets is probably limited to 1 200-1 300 tons of Fully Washed coffee, of which one quarter to one third may be absorbed by the speciality markets. Most of the balance would be sold at significantly lower prices, at least until a worldwide reputation for good quality Rwanda coffee producers and for ease of doing business with them has been established. This production would require a maximum of 8 000-10 000 tons of cherries of good quality. To secure the extra net income required to reach the threshold of poverty, a coffee grower must have 250 bushes in his/her plot, and a yield equivalent to at least 5 000 kg/ha of cherries of good quality. This means that the project could in theory accommodate between 15 000 and 20 000 poor HHs, with a large proportion having plots of 150 to 250 plants. This number of HHs would represent 12-15% of the total number of coffee planters in the project area recorded by OCIR-Café in 1999, probably as much as 20% of those remaining in the sub-sector, after the expected reduction of the number of coffee growers forecast by the government. It is a very ambitious target for a first phase of the innovative development proposed in the project, because it implies that one out of five coffee growers in the project area will be capable of achieving, and of maintaining over time, the high standards of coffee husbandry required to produce the quality demanded by the market. The potential target group of the coffee component of the project would include some 80-100 thousand people, 3.5-4% of the total population of the four provinces.

With respect to tea, the situation in the Nshili district (southern Gikongoro province) offers a unique opportunity to concurrently implement the GoR privatization and poverty reduction policies. Several thousands poor households live around the OCIR-Thé Nshili plantation, including about 3 000 women head of HHs. Many of these women are war-widow and/or victims of the genocide. The privatization of the OCIR-Thé estate by distributing the planted area to smallholders on the basis of plots of 0.25 ha each, would benefit about 4 000 poor HHs, and a relatively minor expansion of the planted area would benefit another 800 poor HHs.

Another very poor area suitable for high quality tea production is the Mushubi District of northern Gikongoro, where about 1 200 ha of smallholder tea can also be planted. The project target group can thus include about 4 800 HHs in the Nshili District, and an approximately equal number in Mushubi District.

The number of potential beneficiaries of the new cash crop development cannot be estimated ex ante, since project design must be flexible, and market potentials for new crops will be established from time to time during project implementation. In all cases, the project will give preference to supporting SMEs, and groups, associations, and cooperatives of poor and very poor families.

Gender targeting requires special attention to the problems of women cash crop producers. To the extent that women head of HH are involved, their major problem would be cash to buy planting material and inputs and possibly some loss of income due to replanting or to expanding her coffee plot at the expense of some food crop production. The cash problem is addressed in two ways: (i) by the project providing planting material and inputs for coffee rehabilitation and plot expansion free of charge, and (ii) by extending to smallholders participating in the project credit guaranteed by the sale of their crop to the processing companies. It is not unlikely that very poor women head of HH may have very small coffee plots, and might be more interested in crops other than coffee. In this case, they would be helped to diversify. The successful experience with cape gooseberry, women crop grown in the house garden, suggests that there are opportunities to develop new crops, which specifically provide incremental cash income for women. Such crops require labor inputs that are within the reach of very poor women headed HHs. In the case of tea, women do most of the harvesting work. Measures should be introduced by the project that would strengthen the control of tea revenues by women. Whenever possible and feasible, as in the case of the Nshili tea area, poor women heads of HH would be selected on a priority basis as direct beneficiaries of project interventions.

Whereas the bulk of the potential project target group is made up of poor and very poor HHs, the nature of the activities envisaged require some flexibility. In the coffee and tea sub-sectors, the project must avoid creating conflicting situations with local wealthier coffee and or tea grower associations. The project should actually build on existing farmers institutions in the area of intervention, introducing measures to moderate the risk that wealthier participants in the project end up dominating poor participants. One solution to this problem would be to plan the control of processing and marketing by several producers associations, each with equal formal voting power. One or two of these associations may well be wealthy members dominated, others (the majority) should be fully in the hands of the poor. In addition, the project must ensure that individuals or groups external to the local communities do not acquire dominant or influential positions in the organizations that implement the processing side of the project.

In the case of the new crops, however, the inclusion of SMEs is necessary and welcome. In this field the entrepreneur is a key actor of development. The SMEs would be often controlled by entrepreneurs who may well not qualify as IFAD target group. Some may not even be resident in the production area. These people will be essential to promote and manage the new activities for their own benefit, but also to make it possible for participating farmers belonging to IFAD target group to benefit as well. However, the project will make a special effort to support poor farmers’ associations and new entrepreneurs that will emerge from the membership of such associations.

Ex ante targeting may remain a declaration of good intentions if it is not followed by actual implementation. The danger is real in a project that promotes situations that are expected to be very dynamic, with success depending on reaching high standards of management of the production processing and marketing cycles, and capacity to overcome stiff competition in the world markets. Accordingly, beneficiary tracking, including tracking of women participation and related problems, must be an important part of the M&E system of the project, with resources available for adequate monitoring, and to fund interventions in case of unforeseen events that may modify the target group of the project to an undesired extent.