1. East Africa Dairy Development
Project
Presentation to the Gender
Inequalities, Asset Disparities, and
Rural Livelihoods project workshop
5th November 2010

2. Basic project information
• Vision: doubling household dairy income by year 10
through integrated interventions in dairy production,
market-access and knowledge application.
• Target of 179,000 families
• 4 (and a half) year pilot phase in Kenya, Rwanda and
Uganda
• Consortium led by Heifer International, with
TechnoServe, ILRI, ABS-TCM and ICRAF
• Most activities involve involvement of farmers’ groups
– Small groups of 15 to 30 farmers, for training
– Larger groups (500 +), who owns cooler or manages the
bulking centre

3. Cornerstone of the project: the hub
approach

4. Advantages of the hub approach
• Improved access to inputs and services
– Physical availability
– Quality
– Price (bulk purchase)
– Possibility to purchase on credit using the “check-
off” system
• Improved access to milk market
– Chilling plant
– Or bulking raw milk centre (traditional hub)

5. Transforming Chilling plants to Business Hubs
TRANSPORTERS
TESTING
FARMERS
FIELD DAYS
FEED
SUPPLY
AI &
EXTENSION
VILLAGE BANKS
OTHER RELATED
MEs
HARDWARE SUPPLIERS
CHILLING HUB

6. Biggest challenge- on gender
• Gender not seen as priority at beginning of
the project
– Gender milestones to be achieved, yet no specific
interventions planned (no staff, no budget)
– Not great enthusiasm on meeting gender targets-
gender seen more as a donor priority

7. Biggest success
• Gender strategy developed based on baseline
survey and internal discussions
• Staff at country level agreed to take on additional
task of coordinating gender activities: gender
focal point persons
• Training of staff was done early 2010 and the
Regional Gender and Youth Coordinator was
hired
• About 36,000 women trained (about 52% of
project target)
• 165 women in leadership position (in groups-
102% of project target!!)

8. What we would have done differently?
• Many things…
• Prepare gender mainstreaming strategy at
beginning of project
• Ensure staff are trained on gender, and resources
allocated- targeting women is costly
• Engendered milestones from start

9. Thank you!
Questions and Answers