Institutional Capacity Building

By design, the projects center their activities on our value chains, working with both individual agribusinesses and national and regional professional and inter-professional organizations.  Our capacity-building strategy is an integral component of this commitment to regional partner organizations.  It goes beyond conventional training and is rather a participatory change management support tool for those partners.

The primary way in which we implement this tool is through the partner institutional viability assessment (PIVA), which consists of an organizational self-assessment in 66 competency areas, including seven on gender equity.  We then provide technical assistance and institutional strengthening activities in human resource development, organizational development, institutional and legal framework development, and advocacy and lobbying to initiate policy change and develop an enabling environment for the free movement of goods and persons in West Africa.

Our institutional capacity building activities include:

• Helping the Burkina Faso inter-professional cereal association improve its human resources, member services and programs, and public relations and advocacy functions so it can take the lead in spearheading a regional cereal network;
• Training maize producers and traders in contracting and access to finance;
• Partnering with CropLife (an international association representing the plant science industry) in an intensive training of trainers program in integrated pest management and integrated soil fertility management for cereal producers in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Mali
• Supporting the livestock federations from Burkina Faso and Mali in a large-scale training program to improve cattle breeding and modernize butchering processes in order to be more competitive in the red meat market
• Building the organizational capacity of the Burkina Faso onion inter-professional organization by holding trials on varieties of rainy season onions that will lead to expanding the growing season and building trade relations for increased export