The Gender Dimension of Rural Producer Organisations in Tanzania

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