1 9314 The Development of an Agricultural Union in Mali: ,I) +Increasing Levels of Local Empowerment -4iiimmn _Ign the early 1990s, the members of Changing the institutional landscape the village associations (associations of rural areas villageoises, or AN) in the Koutiala re- A series of meetings and local hearings _ gion of southern Mali had an issue to led the group to draw up an official list sort out with the Malian Textile Coom- of claims and grievances. At the same pany (Compagnie falienne des Textiles, time, the political events shaking MNali CMDT). A rumor was circulating that triggered upheaval in the village asso- the CMDT planned to increase the pay ciations, diminishing already-narrow of its field staff (i.e. their share of the profit margins on the sale of the crop profit from cotton), without raising the and impelling the committee to action. price paid to producers. Representa- In 1991, the group decided to delegate tives of the different regional associa- the most highly educated of its mem- tions had already joined forces in 1989 bers, a graduate of a post-secondary ag- to demand annulment of a policy ricultural institute who had returned adopted by the CMDT regarding the fi- to farming, to speak to members of the nancial responsibility of producers' as- village associations, calm their fears sociations, a case that the producers and present their claims and questions eventually won. to the CMDT. The initiative directed at Encouraged by this success, they the AVs wvas very successful: the asso- united efforts again to address the pric- ciation representatives gave their full ing problem and created the Coordina- support to the coordinating commit- tion Committee for the Village Associa- tee. But CMDT management, worried tions and Tbns of Koutiala, composed by the unstable political conditions. re- of representatives of the various local fused any negotiation with the peasant No. 9 associations. Members of the coordi- movement. As a consequence, the com- June 1999 nating committee included farmers mittee called for a strike by cotton pro- trained in literacy courses and experi- enced in the movement for local take- 1KNotes reports periodically on Indig- over of markets under way in southern enous Knowledge (IK) initiatives in Mlali since the 1970s, plus a few repre- Sub-Saharan Africa. It is published by the Africa Region's Knowledge and sentatives of a new stratum of the -Leaning Centler as part of an evolving population that had appeared over the IK partnenship between the NVorld preceding decade: graduates of second- Bank, communities, NGOs, develop- ment institutions and multilateral or- S3,X5lONAL .4< ary or post-secondary education who =ganizations. The views expressed in this had returned to their home communi- -article are those of the authors and 1 , K . I ties to start their own farms. .should not be attributed to the World Bank Group or its partners in this ini- tiative. A webpage on IK is available at e;^tojv ASD sto http://www.worldbank.org/aftdr/ik/- default.htm 2 ducers, and its members canvassed the zone to rally the AVs (Bambara-French), has continued to grow, notxwithstanding to its cause. For two months, the associations refused to de- some resistance by the CMDT and intemal difficulties caused liver their cotton to the CMDT, until the Minister of Rural by the uncertain evolution of the AVs themselves, some ques- Development came to Koutiala in person to mediate the con- tionable decisions of the leadership and rifts betwveen local flict. The outcome of the negotiations was that the CMDT and central levels. It is now a part of the institutional and po- accepted the principle of collective bargaining by a non-gov- litical landscape of Mali, incarnating at a national level the emmental organization representing cotton producers and legally-established right of peasants to participate in all deci- agreed as wvell to its participation on the National Agricul- sions that concern them. SYCOV is also organizing training tural Pricing Board. courses in oral and NrTitten French for Bambara-literate rep- In this manner, SYCOV (Syndicat des Producteurs du resentatives of the AVs and has required bilingualism in all documents it uses and all sessions in wvhich it takes part. Coton et du Vkirt'1 or Utnion of Cotton and Food Crops Pro- ducers) was born, though it was not legally established for Roots of change: another year, due to the administrative fornalities required. the transfer of economic power into local hands Its leaders immediatelv took care to open the doors of the newv agricultural union to all of the village associations of Ifatwimt alleits stprenths an shortcoming toca experiment already represents a second stage in local southern Mali, and even decided, to vithdraw writh his con- ' ' c~~~~~~~~~~~mpowermnent in rural areas of southern Mali and illustrates sent., the candidacv of the principal leader of the 1991 move- some of the benefits possible through the actual transfer of ment for presidency of the new organization in favor of a rep- economic authoritv, into the hands of fanners' associations. resentative from one of the regions that had not previously While cotton has been cultivated and marketed in these been involved. The USnion, which operates bilingually been imolvd.Th nio, ihoeratebiligualv areas for over thirty years, the situation has evolved, in tile space of the last fifteen, from one where staff of large cotton firms like the CMDT and its affiliates controlled the pur IK N o te s chase of farm output at the local level and its transport to processing centers, to a system wvhere these functions have been almost entirely assumed by village organizations. Representatives of these local associations or their federa- tions are now fully responsible for wTeighing the crop, paying Tnstitution_ producers, stocking the products, transporting them to processing centers, and reselling them to the processors, as Address vwell as for the necessary organizational and accounting tasks and the establishment of related poliev. The feat wvas accomplished thanks in large measure to literacy and nonformal education programs implemented with the support of the cotton companies themselves (or sometimes inherited from earlier government and NGO efforts), which _-E! - 1l E. - 0 0enabled a core of adolescents and adults having little previous schooling to acquire reading, writing and account- ing skills in their own languages and to master vernacular or bilingual management systems. x -- ffi 1_It is no exaggeration to say that such efforts have saved cotton companies billions of CFA francs (approximately 500 CPA = $1 US). A sizeable portion of the proceeds has - 3 returned co the community organizations and been appor- In a sense, therefore, the failures, successes and pioneering tioned bv them between individual rebates to farmers and efforts of SYCOV represent simply a "second tier" in the cam- collective investment funds. The latter, in turn, have stimu- paign for local capacity development and increased empower- lated a whole scries of other investments such as the ment of village organizations that began with the reorganiza- establishment of credit and savings unions, purchase of tion of the cotton marketing system several years ago, and more sophisticated agricultural equipment, drilling of new driven by the mobilization of existing social structures. And wells. construction of community clinics and schools, etc. at the same time they have helped fuel other initiatives. This pheloimenion of local takeover is not unrelated to the major increase in cotton production in Sub-Saharan Africa over the course of the last decade, a development that has Carrying local development to the second tier moved the region into fourth position on the wvorld mark-et Another telling example: to improve their management per- and replenished national budgets severely strained by the formance, the village associations of southern Mali, with the demands of structural adjustment programs. support of the CMDT and foreign aid, created in 1993 an in- Cotton can scarcely be considered the ideal driving force stitution charged with auditing their accounts and providing for sustainable development, given the devastating effects it technical assistance to local leaders in financial matters. The has had on soil fertility, at least under the very deficient re- unit wvas named the "Koutiala Management Center"; several gime of crop rotation and soil conservation applied in West additional branches have been established since that time. Africa. Nevertheless, the cotton experience served to demon- The center is staffed by personnel recruited from the village strate, on a large scale, the ability of local-level producers to associations, who are responsible for providing third-party organize commercial and management operations them- audit of AV accounts. Local staff are trained and supported in selves-provided appropriate training was made available at turn by external technical assistance, which is designed to the same time. And it has ghien birth to a set of reinforced play a diminishing role. Policy oversight of the Center is car- rural institutions that are providing "templates" for local de- ried out by an Administrative Council, which is linked in turn velopment in a number of other domains. to the Federation of Village Associations of southern Mali. Theoretically, the center is supposed to operate entirely on a budget funded by the revenues generated from sale of its ser- A favorable context: vices to the village associations. It is thus half-way betiveen the interaction of economic challenge and social capital being a "wholly owned subsidiary" of the Federation and a The village associations in fact arose from the confluence of private auditing firm. twNvo factors, one "traditional" and the other modern; and the In reality, the Center was created, and is still partially internveaving of the tNvo currents accotnts for much of the dependent, on external funding. But it does seem to have impressive results. Southern Malian communities are gener- survived a first phase of establishment, operation and ally organized into "t6n" (the Bambara-Malinke term) or preliminary institutionalization and is in fact providing equivalent structures among neighboring ethnic groups. needed services and generating revenues. The Management These age-stratified initiation groups are often very strongly Center thus demonstrates the ability of local associations to knit together and internally regulated to a high degree. The move up a substantial notch in the sequence of activities "t6n" wTere the associations that became directly or indirectly required to become financially independent. It also reveals responsible for the assumption of marketing and reinvest- an important niche and opportunity for second-tier organi- ment responsibilities when the CMDT undertook its experi- zations that are able to provide critical technical support to ment; and their new functions prompted them to evolve in the new enterprises of civil society. The seeds sown by the new directions, developing in the process systems of account- actual transfer of resources and marketing responsibility to ability and training far in advance of those that characterized village structures has thus begun to wield multiple fi-uits. the Lradlitional initiation groups. t4AC 1O-GL7 VTh 's art:icle =s bae_ndt ahrdb ee Eso,GyBloce ~eb Couiayio PasRs, L.aouali Mablam 0 fol45a a dfte ntionl reearh tems drin conuct f te PALOS-ductionStud, a inqirycnto"Decntraiaa tion nd Lcal apacty Buldin in est fric "ftrded y th Clu du Shel/ECD nd te CISS opFr ecoies fttheful stdy conac Pete Eat etro oiySuisi dcto,32SB olg fEuain lrd tt nvr ity,Tlahse,FL336,UA hoe(50 4-04;a 850 ) 644-195 e-ai easton(0;e.fsu.e