| Reporting Organization: | Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) |
|---|---|
| Total Budget ($CAD): | $ 7,303,630 |
| Timeframe: | March 28, 2013 - March 31, 2018 |
| Status: | Completion |
| Contact Information: | Unspecified |
Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA)
| Ghana - $ 7,303,630.00 (100.00%) | |
| Food Security & Agriculture (60 %) | |
| Economic Development & Empowerment (30 %) | |
| Nutrition (10 %) | |
This project seeks to ensure that poor smallholder farmers and their families in Northern Ghana have enough nutritious food to eat throughout the year. It helps smallholder farmers increase the amount of food they produce and get a good price for their crops. The project works with farmers’ cooperatives to provide farmers with training in cultivating alternative crops, marketing, and business management. Through the cooperatives, the project also helps farmers to gain access to drought-resistant seed varieties, tools, crop storage facilities, and farm equipment such as tillers and tractors. The project works with credit unions to provide farmers with access to loans, so that they can invest in their farms. This support makes it possible for some of the smallholder farmers to eventually make the step into commercial farming.
| Gender and age: | Adult women Adult men Under-5 children |
|---|---|
| Total Direct Population: | 49,669 |
| 9 | Credit unions working with the project make an average monthly profit of CAD$8,809 |
The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) increased economic stability and higher level of gender equitable economic productivity for women and men in target communities; (2) increased levels of services / support to women and men members provided by credit unions and co-operatives; and (3) increased awareness and responsiveness of government to food security issues raised by smallholder women and men farmers.
Results achieved as of March 2017 include: (1) 49,669 beneficiaries (29,751 women and 19,918 men), representing 18% higher than total project target, were reached with project interventions in agriculture production, nutrition, co-operative development and access to finance; (2) a 28% increase in number of households considered food secure, from a baseline of 70% to 98% in project districts; (3) 123% increase in average incomes of beneficiary households over the baseline income of CAD$238 per year; (4) reduction of stunting among children under 5 years from targeted households from 35.5% to 28%, decrease in underweight from 15% to 11.5%, and a decrease in wasting from 8.7% to 5.5%; (5) increased number of women elected to leadership positions in the co-operatives, with women now occupying 46% of all leadership positions. This has enabled the active participation of women in decision making and support in negotiating for more gender-equitable services; and (6) all nine credit unions working with the project make an average monthly profit of CAD$8,809. These results have contributed to improved food security, and increased incomes and economic stability among beneficiaries in project districts.
