Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
84
1. Reporting the numbers of registered farmer organizations on an annual basis
2. Developing and implementing methods to estimate total FO membership and FO
membership as a share of the total agricultural workforce, perhaps every five to ten years
in line with an agricultural census. In this area, OIC Member Countries could coordinate
with the FAO on an appropriate methodology
3. Reporting budgetary allocations to FO-promotion bodies and programs in the interests of
transparency and encouragement of greater focus in this area
Finally, an interesting area for OIC Member Countries to drive cooperation within the OIC
could be in convening learning exchanges or policy seminars where African governments
and other OIC member governments can exchange dialogue on pro-farmer organization
policy. Research has shown a significant amount of policy and program experimentation –
perhaps more so than in other regions – occurs across Africa, including in the 17 OIC member
countries of the Africa Group. Sectio highlights just a few recent pro-FO policies across
African member countries, and others can be found in any international study on farmer
organizations. In addition, African FO enabling environments are in some areas further ahead
than other OIC regions125. One way of implementing such an arrangement would be for OIC
Member Countries to partner with an international body such as IFAD or the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and jointly host an
event focusing on the design and impacts of new pro-farmer organization policies in Africa.
125 For example, all apex FO bodies and national farmers’ unions operating in African OIC member countries were found to
be independent of government control, versus only 70% of Asian and Arab bodies