Lack of recognition of the role of women in the production of coffee and inability to motivate young people for a future in a coffee farm hinders the development of the coffee sector in general and coffee production in particular. Those interested in doing something about these inefficiencies will benefit from the publication ‘Sustainable coffee as a family business; approaches and tools to include women and youth’. This toolkit is a produced by Hivos, Agri-ProFocus and the Sustainable Coffee Program, powered by IDH the Sustainable Trade Initiative and developed by Fair & Sustainable Advisory Services.
What does this toolkit offer you?
The coffee toolkit provides practical approaches and tools for stakeholders and service providers to integrate women and youth in all stages of the coffee value chain. The toolkit was developed for the coffee industry, in response to the demand for knowledge on how to best integrate women and youth in the coffee value chain. The interventions recommended in this toolkit aim to trigger increased production, improved quality and ensure a steady supply of sustainable coffee now and in the future.
Sustainable development of the coffee sector, especially in smallholder dominated production systems, is often hampered by unequal distribution of information, labor, and other resources and benefits within coffee-farming families. Women are responsible for many of the production activities, but men tend to benefit more from training in sustainable coffee practices, inputs, income and other benefits derived from coffee sales. This unequal distribution leads to many inefficiencies in the coffee chain, and hampers the development of the coffee sector in general, and production in particular. In addition many coffee-producing countries, young people do not find an attractive future in the coffee farms of their parents.
The contents of the toolkit should serve to motivate and assist coffee roasters, traders and their practitioners to apply an inclusive approach to developing better functioning coffee chains, benefitting both men and women of different age groups equally. For each group the toolkit provides a range of customized tools for planning, implementation or monitoring and evaluation of interventions.
Development of the toolkit
The toolkit is based on the Gender in Value Chains Toolkit developed by Agri- ProFocus, which is applicable for different value chains, tools included were selected from existing gender focused manuals available in the public domain, including those produced by USAID, Enclude, GALS, ILO, Care and other organisations. The toolkit was developed by Catherine van der Wees, Hivos, Angelica Senders and Marjoleine Motz of Fair & Sustainable Advisory Services, Anna Lentink of Enclude (formerly Triodos Facet), independent consultant Mieke Vanderschaeghe, and Jacqueline Terrillon, coach of the gender in value chains coaching track of Agri-ProFocus in Uganda.
Read more in the leaflet (pdf file, click here to download). Click here for the soft copy of the toolkit. Feel free to share this post.
The toolkit is available for downloading at:
www.hivos.org/coffee
www.agriprofocus.com/gender-in-value-chains
www.sustainablecoffeeprogram.com/en/resources
www.sustainabilityxchange.info
