Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
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6. Annex 2. Farmer Organization Profiling Methodology
Annex 2.1. The Bill and Melinda Gates Assessment Tool
The methodology used to assess the performance of farmer organizations in the OIC was based
on a profiling tool created by Dalberg to help the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation better
understand and measure farmer organizations’ capacity levels, constraints and priority areas
for intervention.126 A description of the original tool follows below.
In the development stages of the tool, six tools were assessed to identify best practices in FO
assessment including Agriterra’s ‘The Profiling Tool’ and Pact’s ‘Organizational Capacity
Assessment tool’. Based on this assessment, the Dalberg tool was developed to account for the
peculiarities of local context while providing the user with a comprehensive analysis.
Assessment was based a number of indicators in two overarching categories; organizational
set-up, and impact capacity. Organizational set-up was broken down into three sub-categories
(Representation, Governance and Business Fundamentals) and Impact capacity was broken
down into a further three (Strategic Potential, Technical Assistance and Other Services and
Economic Gains).
In order to score and assess performance based on these metrics, survey questions were
developed to assign numeric scores to each of the key indicators, with final performance levels
determined by these scores. Indicator scores range from 0 to 1, based on the number of points
the FO receives for that indicator calculated as a percentage of the total possible points for the
same indicator. As such, the average of Organizational Setup and Impact Capacity generates
the aggregate score with weighted averages attributed to sub-categories. For example,
Governance, Business Fundamentals, and Technical Assistance were weighted more heavily
than their counterparts because of their relative importance in a given union’s ability to
participate in markets at scale.
Annex 2.2. The OIC Farmer Strength Profiling Tool
In order to provide a robust assessment of the Farmer Organizations in the OIC member state
countries, we used an adapted version of the profiling tool described above. The scorecard
used was based on the analytical framework described above, to measure farmer organization
performance against two metrics: Organizational Setup and Impact Assessment. In this case,
two types of answers were possible, those that were assigned numerical ratings and those
aimed at gathering information for qualitative analyses. For the former, the numerical ratings
were aggregated for each indicator to determine an organization’s relative strength in that
area. A higher numerical rating indicates greater strength and a lower numerical rating
indicates less strength. For the latter, qualitative responses were not rated but rather provided
additional information and context for the assessment.
The scorecard used to measure farmer organization strength in the OIC member state
countries follows below:
126 The original tool was created for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2011.