We Are the Solution: Celebrating Family Farming in Africa

We Are the Solution (WAS) is a pan African campaign born of African farmer platforms mobilising to fight against corporate agricultural policies and to propose alternative mechanisms to promote food sovereignty and is part of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA).

PROJECT OBJECTIVE AND SCOPE

The overall goal of this campaign is to equip rural women with skills and tools to ensure that their voices are heard and concerns are addressed in order to effectively participate alongside Africa’s large farmer federations in the AFSA.

The campaign’s aim is:

  • To promote good agricultural practices and knowledge that have been known and handed down for generations in Africa and have sustained food sovereignty on the continent;

  • To influence decision-makers and promote better agricultural governance;

  • To value family agricultural production.

With a larger vision, Fahamu is giving to rural women and their associations in West Africa the needed supports to set up a strong feminist movement for food justice and resource rights in the region. This work with rural women associations has the following specific objectives:

  • To build the organisational and individual capacities of selected rural women’s associations and their leaders;

  • To build awareness and empower the voices of rural women to engage in decision-making processes in ongoing local, regional and global campaigns;

  • To organise, mobilise and sustain an Africa-wide action oriented network for information sharing and advocacy.

 

PROJECT CONSTITUENCY AND PARTNERS:

There are some African women and men who are very engaged and well known on issues of food sovereignty, agro ecology and women’s rights such as Ema Fatou Batta of Burkina Faso, Diakagbé Kaba of Guinea, Aissa Doumara Ngatansou of Cameroon, Anne Maïna of Kenya, Souleymane Bassoum of Senegal and Bernard Y. Guri of Ghana who have been very influential for the WAS campaign. Each one of them is a WAS focal point and together they constitute the steering committee of WAS, which meets every two other years.

Implementing partners are 12 rural women leaders and their associations and they includes AMASSA, AOPP and CAFO (Mali), AGACFEM and AGUISSA (Guinea), RUWFAG (Ghana), RESACIFROAT and FENOP (Burkina Faso), AJAC and UGPM (Senegal). They constitute the co-ordinating committee of WAS that is in charge of the implementation of advocacy, sensitisation and work of the WAS campaign to other women’s groups within and outside their respective countries.

PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS

During the first phase (2011-2013) of the project, a participatory learning needs assessment has been completed in 2012 and helped to develop a training curriculum on women, seed and power. The training curriculum was also developed based on the different levels of formal education, practical knowledge, skills and experiences among the members of the campaign. The curriculum includes a bi-annual institute on resource rights and change; an exchange program for rural women for peer learning on practices and tools for agro-ecological solutions to food sovereignty among other practical lessons.

The second phase (2014-2016) will focus more on policy change. At the beginning of this phase, each of the involved country partners have been several times consulted and/or invited for reflection in national agricultural programmes and policies, but also to collaborate/participate with/to national and local events such as forum and conferences as speakers. With its relevant campaign identity and principles having been developed, WAS is now standing as a key player on food and agricultural issues for its more than 160,000 rural women members and allies in the region (Guinea: 438; Senegal: 7425; Mali: 5231; Burkina Faso: 146055). In addition, WAS has now a considerable number of actors both at national and regional levels including rural women coalitions for food sovereignty and a rural women association for food sovereignty in Senegal, Guinea and Ghana. Also, one of the co-ordinating committee members is a board member of the West African Committee of Peasants Seeds (COASP).

We-Are-the-Solution Principles

Let’s produce what we consume and consume what we produce”

“We, women, feed the world by our own two hands and values”

“Let’s preserve farmers’ seeds and grow seed biodiversity”