Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
42
the government, the National Agricultural Advisory Services, with a mandate to provide
extension services and capacity-building for FOs. In recent years, in part due to advocacy by
apex organizations (especially NUCAFE), the government has set up a Coffee Research Institute
and promulgated a nationwide comprehensive coffee policy.
With the market liberalized, 40-50 large buyers now operate in the country. This has allowed
apex bodies to negotiate and obtain a wide range of price quotes from buyers, ensuring
relatively high prices and prompt payment and driving livelihood improvements for members.
All parties interviewed expressed comfort with today’s market structure and indicated it is a
significant improvement over the CMB era. However, in the eyes of FO leaders, liberalization
has reduced the state’s capacity to provide direct services to farmers and FOs have had to
shoulder the provision of extension, training, credit, and inputs.
The government’s national policies and national-level institutions are well regarded by FOs
members interviewed but all expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of field-level
implementation. Access to government extension is a frequent complaint, as is the
politicization and unreliability of input provision. Potential improvements, as cited by the FOs,
include:
 Commodity-specific extension services and a commitment to better funding and
accountability of such services at the village level. Failing this, direct budget support to
apex bodies to provide their own training and extension
 More collaboration on export promotion, trade credit facilitation, and coffee research
 Better access to finance and lower private-sector interest rates (now 25%+ p.a.),
potentially by requiring banks to lend a specific share of credit to the agricultural
sector or by establishing guarantee funds for agricultural lending
3.1.3. Conclusions and lessons learned
UCFA appears to be a successful, fast-growing apex body that has maintained a commitment to
member ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement despite its growing size. It is
also a notable example of a donor-funded project that has been able to create community
ownership and independent momentum. As indicated by the profile and interviews, Kitenge
DC is a well-governed, accountable, and transparent district-level organization. While it
struggles in some aspects of service provision, it generally serves as an effective link between
farmers, the larger market, and the national apex body. The success of both the apex and local
organizations appears due to several factors, all of which provide potential lessons for other
environments:
 A nested, fully participatory governance structure with transparency as a key principle
and an effective reporting, auditing, and independent disciplinary framework
 A market structure that allows ample competition between buyers and places no
restrictions on trade or price discovery, allowing committed FOs to extract significant
value for their members
 A diversification of services and provision of a holistic member service package that
goes beyond agronomic training and marketing to include financial literacy training,
access to credit, income diversification, and other services at the apex level
Kitenge DC is now at the scale where it will need to especially encourage continued buy-in and
participation among its members. Kitenge DC, as well as UCFA, may face challenges in the
future as they seek to expand members’ access to inputs and credit to incentivize membership
and minimize side-selling. In this regard, it appears important to ensure that the policy