FACT: an advocacy tool for farmers

"This training is very important for our cooperative. If we had benefited from this before, we would have already used it to solve enough problems,” said Samatou, head of internal control at OUEZENA, an organic shea producer cooperative facing the degradation of the resource.

From 4 through 7 July 2023, three cooperatives, namely the Union Nationale des Producteurs d'Oignon du Burkina (UNAPOB), the Fédération OUEZENA and the Union Provinciale des sociétés coopératives des Professionnels Agricoles de la Comoé (UPCPAC) participated in the interactive FACT training. A total of 19 people joined the training, of which 8 were women. During the training, the cooperatives presented their advocacy themes from which group work was conducted. These exercises allowed them to reformulate their themes.

The FACT trajectory will now contribute to the improvement and success of their influence on decision-makers. They say they now have the necessary basics to conduct an effective advocacy, at the end of this training punctuated above all by concrete exercises on their daily life in a cooperative. The objectives achieved in this training were:
- Institutionalising advocacy and lobbying techniques in cooperatives through a clear and simple trajectory
- The practice within co-ops was to conduct advocacy without real coordination, meaningful member consultation, consensus formulation, or stakeholder mapping

"This advocacy tool is a great plus for us. We were doing the advocacy but not in a professional way, but with this training and the knowledge we have gained we will change how we work” said Djakaridja Ouattara of UPCPAC. 

Cooperatives intend to continue their advocacy on the themes they already addressed by using the FACT trajectory. As a result, each co-op developed an action plan based on what they learned and their needs. UNAPOB’s advocacy theme is the harmonisation of units of measurement and packaging for the sale of onions. The UPCPAC wants to make its case on the reduction of the amount of taxes on the PUH of their headquarters. As for OUEZENA, its plea concerns the implementation of a 50-hectare shea park management agreement for the benefit of the cooperative. The prospects of these cooperatives after this training is the submission of plea notes through writing workshops. Some co-ops will implement the entire trajectory, others will stick to the preparatory workshop stage to start advocacy with decision-makers.