East Africa Dairy Development Project

Presentation to the Gender Inequalities, Asset Disparities, and Rural Livelihoods project workshop

5th November 2010

Basic project information• Vision: doubling household dairy income by year 10

through integrated interventions in dairy production, market-access and knowledge application.

• Target of 179,000 families

• 4 (and a half) year pilot phase in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda

• Consortium led by Heifer International, with TechnoServe, ILRI, ABS-TCM and ICRAF

• Most activities involve involvement of farmers’ groups – Small groups of 15 to 30 farmers, for training

– Larger groups (500 +), who owns cooler or manages the bulking centre

Cornerstone of the project: the hub approach

Advantages of the hub approach• Improved access to inputs and services

– Physical availability

– Quality

– Price (bulk purchase)

– Possibility to purchase on credit using the “check-off” system

• Improved access to milk market

– Chilling plant

– Or bulking raw milk centre (traditional hub)

Transforming Chilling plants to Business Hubs

TRANSPORTERS

TESTING

FARMERS

FIELD DAYS

FEED

SUPPLY

AI &

EXTENSION

VILLAGE BANKS

OTHER RELATED

MEsHARDWARE SUPPLIERS

CHILLING HUB

Biggest challenge- on gender

• Gender not seen as priority at beginning of the project

– Gender milestones to be achieved, yet no specific interventions planned (no staff, no budget)

– Not great enthusiasm on meeting gender targets-gender seen more as a donor priority

Biggest success• Gender strategy developed based on baseline

survey and internal discussions• Staff at country level agreed to take on additional

task of coordinating gender activities: gender focal point persons

• Training of staff was done early 2010 and the Regional Gender and Youth Coordinator was hired

• About 36,000 women trained (about 52% of project target)

• 165 women in leadership position (in groups-102% of project target!!)

What we would have done differently?

• Many things…

• Prepare gender mainstreaming strategy at beginning of project

• Ensure staff are trained on gender, and resources allocated- targeting women is costly

• Engendered milestones from start

Thank you!

Questions and Answers