Abstract:
The study covered Rural Producer Organisations (RPOs) in three regions that is Morogoro,
Arusha and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. To have a variation in the findings, four types of RPOs
were covered which include: Member based Cooperative Societies - covered the Federation
down to primary societies; A network of farmers groups represented by MVIWATA; Member
based farmers group represented by the Association of Kilimanjaro Special coffee Growers that
has farmers groups who are members; and, Independent Farmers groups that sell coffee directly
to the coffee auction at the Tanzania Coffee Board. The major objective of this study was to
explore gender equity and mainstreaming in RPOs. Three methodologies used in this study
were; focus group discussions that were mainly used for the RPOs in the villages, guided
discussions with officials at higher levels and gathering and reviewing of secondary
information. The major findings include: Most of the RPOs do not have any policy and have
not mainstreamed gender in any of their its activities The word gender is unpopular to most of
the groups RPOs do not have gender disaggregated data that can facilitate in monitoring of its
activities, decision making and policy formulation RPOs that are in export crop producing
areas, in this case coffee are male dominated. There are a few women members who are mostly
widows RPO members/leaders lack lobbying and advocacy skills that can enable them to
participate in various forums and expand their outreach RPOs lack training or sensitization
programmes that can empower the members, men and women RPOs that have gender
training/sensitization of their members, like MVIWATA; the members see the importance of
streamlining gender and eventually having gender equity in their organisations Less than two
percent of women have leadership positions in the Coffee Rural Producer Organisations
